Whew! Another enormous day yesterday. Actually, all things considered, it was a manageable one--just paced a bit differently. I woke at 7 and called my friend Jim (St. Louis). He teaches 7th grade geography and did Ph.D. work in anthropology in...um, where they speak Swahili. Anyway, Jim is my GrammarNerd twin and he's handy with directions. So he's a great walking partner. We headed down the wide shop-lined pedestrian street called Istiklal (ee-steek-LAL, meaning independence) where our hotel is to Taksim Square, then (south?) down to the water. We puzzled through signs on buildings, working with our 100-150 word vocabulary to figure out what things were. Jim is like Dad, he can talk to anybody--the guy in the shop, the kids playing streetball, the lady selling pistachios--and an hour later they're having tea and swapping Turko-English bits of life histories. Nice. So our hour's walk finished with a super steep, Rocky-like staircase, only for the fit Rocky, not the lumpy version in the first movie. Istanbul has 7 hills and it's not kidding around. You can get pretty fit here. Think San Francisco and her older glamourous sister (sorry Kelli, I'll be SF if you want and you can be...um, Venice?)
We headed to Dolmabahce (dol-mah-BAH-chay) Palace to wait in a hugely long line and feel sorry for the Turkish military guard who has to stand at attention at its gates while a zillion people take goofy pictures next to him. Poor guy. All I could think, there in the hot morning sun with this guy in his full uniform (they wear gloves, ok) was the likelihood that some of these young men occasionally do this duty with a hangover and how painfully horrible that must be. Dolmabahce means stuffed garden, and the palace compound is beautifully landscaped, sitting right on the Bosphorus. Well, right next to it. You understand. It was built for Sultan Ahmednecid in the mid-19th century, and it's a clear example of the Ottomans' view West at that time. It clearly recalls the grand palaces of Western Europe: Versailles chief among them. I didn't take my camera in, so I only have a few pictures from the gate, but if you're interested in OCD opulence, check it out online. Liv and Ruby would poop in their pants if they could've seen it. It's so florid, inside and out, with the biggest chandeliers I've ever seen (the largest weighs 4.5 tons and hangs from a ceiling 182 feet high), it's a 6-year old girl's dream palace. Swirls and flourishes on every ceiling, in every corner, intricate parquet flooring (put together with no nails, no glue...and my poor husband broke his back doing 3 rooms in our house!) It's so pink, pearly, gold and...sultan-y. Unbelievable. Very airy, probably 20-25 foot ceilings everywhere. And the sultan's hamam (3 rooms in every proper Turkish bath) was the part I wanted to bring home. Man, I sure would be popular in the neighborhood. Marble blocks the color of polished dentures (there's an image), slightly yellowed and with a history. Like a marble igloo, carved by an imperial Inuit (do Inuits have igloos? But I digress...) More on Turkish baths later.
We took a separate tour of the harem (hah-REM), the separate living quarters for the sultan's mother, wives and extended family (women and children). Very educational. There is an important divide between the Western conception of the harem--the what, why and how--and the Ottoman reality. Part of the trouble stems from the paucity of English words to describe servant/serving relationships, particularly the word concubine. We don't have a social structure in which concubines function, so we have only a fuzzy understanding of what they were and did. They were servants of the harem, and I don't think they all were the sultan's sex toys. I mean, the sultan could do whatever he wanted, but I think his official wives were pretty powerful and held the fort with a lot of control. The harem was led by the sultan's mother, a woman who often wielded extraordinary power. Then the sultan had 4 official wives, as per the limitations of Islam (for the record, most men and women in most Islamic countries do not practice polygamy. Sadly, many Americans think otherwise.) Our guides yesterday explained that we need to be very careful in imposing what's called the "Orientalist" perspective as we learn about and teach the harem. It was not all about sex. Quite to the contrary, many families wanted their daughters to be selected for the harem, as they could get an education well beyond the means of most Ottoman subjects. Women were educated in the humanities, in music, in the arts...so it's not all as steamy and exotic as we make it out to be. Having said that, women's doorways to power and position did revolve around the axes of their male relatives. There's no denying that. I guess the takeaway message is that harem culture is way more complex than the fantasy-version many Americans hold in their minds. Just like not all American beaches are like Baywatch. Same thing.
Anyway, then we went to the Chora, a 5th century basilica famous for its mosaics. I don't know about you, but when I hear "church" and "mosaics" something in my brain hits the snooze button. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but there it is. This place was astounding, so there I am, exposed as Wrong Again. And delighted at it. The building was added to in the 13th and 14th centuries, and many of its mosaics were plastered over by the Turks. Those that were not plastered over were damaged, as in the case of most Christian imagery when the Muslims arrived faces, particularly the eyes, were often scratched out. Islam forbids the depiction of animate objects in art. There are inconsistencies with this, though, and I can't say I truly understand where the lines are for who gets to be depicted and when and why. But we've seen a lot of saints with no eyes. Chora's mosaics show the life and death (or dormition) of Mary; the life, actions and death of Jesus; the patriarchs of the Orthodox Church; some of the saints, angels and other luminaries. It is also worth checking out online, as my flashless pictures don't capture the glow and the artistry of the work. So beautiful, it was just sublime.
From there we went to the area known as Pierreloti, after the French military officer-turned-writer Pierre Loti. We went to a cafe with a sweeping view of the Golden Horn, then Jim and I took a sky-tram (like the ones at theme parks, cubes on wires high in the sky) down the hillside and walked to and on the 4th (5th?) century walls of Theodosius II. Then we snaked in and out the steep (!!) streets of the Fatih district. We talked to kids, who were eager to try out their English: Hello! Money, money, money! We laughed a lot, said Merhaba to everyone practically, went into a courtyard containing a Greek Orthodox church. Stella, the attendant, proudly opened it for us and let us have a look around. Wow. Lots of silver, lots of carved wood. And the Greeks paint buildings with a lot of punch. This exterior was Extra Yellow, beautiful in the afternoon light. Our walk lasted almost 3 hours, then back to the hotel, upload pics, off to dinner with Secil and her friend Osman, Ali and his friend Vahti (the Turkish George Michael, I call him). Jim and I continued our cultural research, but Tuesday night didn't yield much. We were tired and the Tuborg was not hitting the spot. Undaunted, we will try again tonight.
Off to a lecture on Byzantium, then to Topkapi Palace. Hope all are well! Carlton arrives tomorrow--yippee!!
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