The Fulbright tour officially ended this morning with the departure of the main body of the group: 12 left for the States and 4 of us are staying on. Mom and I went out with the two Jims on Friday night. The farewell dinner was over by 12:30 and we were ready to hit the streets of Beyoglu. Mom has been a trooper--maybe jetlag is facilitating all this late-night action on her part. At any rate, she was pretty unstoppable, especially when it came to chatting up cute Turkish guys. And the Turks we've encountered thusfar have lived up to the billing of being some of the friendliest, most open people in the world. Great folks. And on Friday we went to a section of Beyoglu with a slightly different crowd, not as many people who spoke English, a little less urbane perhaps. It was great. Mostly men, but not exclusively. And we talked for hours and hours. We came back around 3:00, each of us grinning from ear to ear. Jim and I had had to delve deep and be creative to communicate in our pidgin Turkish, but we'd won friends for our efforts. Mom found Tarik, a blue-eyed Bosnia-Herzegovinian, totally charming and adorable. She tried to train everyone to look in the eyes as you clink glasses, then she wanted to ask questions about headscarves and Muslim-Turkish identity. Tough stuff for my limited Turkish, but we had fun.
Then the marathon blitz was on. Saturday was our last official day and Jim and I made the most of it. We took a long walk in the morning--a little over 2 hours along the sea walls of the old city. Thank goodness he has a strong sense of direction. And thank goodness for the obvious indicators of bridges and the water--my sense of direction is the adverse of my vocabulary (does that even make sense?) I'm not strong in the "where am I and how to I get to Point X" department. I try to see that as furthering the travel adventure, however. Glass half full. So Jim and I talked about a joint project proposal on the evolution of identity in Turkey. It's the seed of an idea, really. We'll have to let the whirling dust of experience settle in our brains for a while. Then I'll be able to sort through my time here, the learning that has occured on so many levels. But it's an exciting prospect.
Carlton and I hit the streets around noon, walked across the Galata Bridge to the Sultanahmet district. We seemed to hit every underground passage possible, not making the most efficient progress to our destination, but getting a good view of subterranean commerce. We walked through the Egyptian Bazaar, a.k.a. the spice market. I told Mom "no shopping!" because we'll do that next weekend. That can be a draining experience, and I didn't have the energy. We went to the Hippodrome, the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Cistern and the Cagadolugu (sp?) hamam. We dropped some serious cash, as only the Blue Mosque is free. It's an active mosque, but why anyone would want to worship there is beyond me. There are clueless visitors who disregard the clear postings about where to walk and what to do. There are women who don't cover themselves, who go into the men's section of worship. There are men and women who walk through the area for prayer, as folks are praying. I know this happens in many of the world's most beautiful and heavily visited places of worship, but still. I wonder why some tourists are so clueless and invasive. Mom was quite taken with the architecture, recalling the Moorish elements she'd seen at the AlHambra and other sites in Spain. She loved the Hagia Sophia and the cheerleaders in the relief panel on the bottom of the hippodrome's 7th c. BC Egyptian obelisk. Or maybe 12th c. BC. I get my centuries confused. The panel shows emperor Theodosius preparing to award a laurel wreath to the winner of the chariot races. Below his box sit the regular folks, who are entertained between races by musicians and young dancing/cheering girls. The first cheerleaders, immortalized in marble in the 3rd c. AD. Right on. Can't wait to show Kelli.
Unfortunately, the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum got short shrift from me, as my tank was on empty by then. It's housed in what used to be the palace of Ibrahim Pasha, one of the grand viziers under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (16th c.) He met his demise when Roxalena, the wife if the sultan, had him murdered. Apparently building a palace for yourself (out of stone, no less, when secular buildings were constructed of wood) was too clear an indication a person's designs on the sultanate (made up word). Roxalena saw him as too grave a threat, so she had him bumped off. Interesting. We only toured part of the museum, enough to see gorgeous tile work and carpets. I loved the dioramas in the ethnographic section: daily life in a yurt, in a black tent or in a house during Ottoman times. Those are almost always my favorite parts of museums, the windows into domestic life of other eras and cultures.
We spent 10 TL (Turkish lira) each for the Cistern and museum, 20 each for the Hagia Sophia, 60 each for the hamam (way more than I expected)...so about 200 lira, or $130. And that was before dinner. Actually, dinner was not much, and it was delicious. Plus we had the unexpected entertainment of a cat jumping from a second story balcony onto an outdoor table below, scaring the bejeezus out of the young woman onto whose plate the intruder landed. There was much crashing of plates and hurried scraping of chairs as people reacted to the "landing". I laughed.
And now the hamam: Cagaloglu (2 soft g's, so it's pronounced jaah-loh-lo). 300 years old, on someone's 1000 Things to Do Before You Die list, written about in the NYTimes and several other major publications. Milking the publicity for everything it's worth. We went in, apparently through the side door. We only saw the more opulent front entrance as we were heading home. Red carpet, fancy fountain, etc. Oh well, next time. We plunked down our money for a #2 which included full body sloughing. I figured I'd weigh a good 3 pounds less after they'd scraped all the dirt and dead skin off my well-worn body. We went up to our changing rooms, got undressed, put on the hamam towel and plastic slippers, then went through the lounge area with its low tables and towel-wrapped post-bath women sipping tea, into the first of the heated rooms. Following tradition (of the Turks, the Muslims and the Romans) the bath is laid out in a way that facilitates a gradual warming of the body and softening of the skin. The first room is warm but not steamy. We stayed there amid the stacks of clean towls and bowl of soaps for a few minutes, enjoying the warm air and trying to figure out what to do next. The first time is like that: part of the adventure is learning the system. Then to the inner room of the hamam, where there is a low round marble table in the center and banks of ornate marble basins and a low marble bench to sit on. We sat and relaxed and sweated profusely, chatting a bit, and watching the various scrubdowns the attendants were giving to the customers. You sit for about 10-15 minutes until it's your turn and the attendant calls you over. She has you lie down on the marble table, and as you gaze up at the designs in the high ceilings (with wonderful recessed mini-skylights), she scrubs you down with a loofah-like hamam glove. That's where I lost my 3 pounds of ick and grit. Some women got massages (looked heavenly but I couldn't afford the extra 30 lira). Then the attendant rinses you off by one of the basins--they can be pretty marshall, those women, and woe to the person who complains that the rinsing water is too cold!--and give you a shampoo and a face rub. Nice. A luxury. Then Mom and I sat in the Hot Room, like a sauna, for a few minutes before coming out for a final rinse off and exit to the mid-temperature room in which we'd started. We let our bodies get used to the cooler air, then went to the lounge where we sipped hot mint tea and felt happy about life. Expensive, but wonderful. And Secil says if we go again, we should expect to pay about 35 lira. That I could handle. And it would be good to compare hamams. Lonely Planet says Cagaloglu is good because the women's section is as nice as the men's and that that is not always the case, but Secil didn't seem to agree. We'll see.
Meze, fish and raki for dinner, with wonderful conversation. Then Mom left at midnight, we dropped off Jim Pasha, Secil and her charming friend Osman, and Jim St. Louis and I hit the streets one last time to whoop it up in Beyoglu. I've been writing this entry forEVER, so I'll be brief: we had a great time. Up 'til 2:30-3:00, met some fantastic folks, spoke as much Turkish as I knew, probably invented a bit in the process, and danced in the streets until I thought I was going to fall over. The beer might've impacted that, but I'll leave that consideration to the category of Past Actions. The archives. We had a great time and it was a fitting end to our joint efforts at Cultural Research. It's not a bad thing that the rest of the crowd is gone. My liver will be grateful.
Mom and I got up to see everyone off, then went back to bed and slept til almost 2:00! I have been needing that for ages. Sheer and utter exhaustion, but in a good way. I think we might hit the Museum of Modern Art. And maybe try to take a bus or a trolley. That would be its own adventure. The bazaar is closed today and the museums are closed tomorrow. It's good to have a down day. Maybe we'll just wander around and drink tea in cafes. That's something!
Much love to all--and drop me a line!
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