So I left off my last post with my adventuresome ride to Antakya. We were pretty glad to get in to Antakya's shiny new otogar, even though we were immediately set upon by would-be drivers offering to take us to Aleppo. Sadly, that will have to wait for a different trip, as my visa doesn't yet allow me to reenter the country. We hopped a dolmus into town, nodding politely to the dolmus attendant's rant on the evils of America and war en route. Once in the center, we found our hostel (we were staying at the Catholic Church in town, which has a hostel for pilgrims), and waited around/grabbed lunch/waited some more to check in. We were pretty grimy and exhausted, so the rest of the day we just rested, shopped a bit in the bazaar, and grabbed an amazing, amazing dinner.
Antakya is really a unique place in Turkey. It's in the Hatay province, which used to be a French protectorate, then part of Syria before Ataturk annexed it in 1938 for WWII strategic purposes. It's a very interesting meld of Turkish and Arabic culture, and is the only part of Turkey that eats hummus (clearly, I was ecstatic about that part). Our first lunch in Antakya was at this tiny, tiny restaurant that served only hummus and bakla (not baklava-- bakla is a hot dish also based on chickpeas, and also very, very good after an Istanbul kebap summer. Prices in Antakya were also Arab-inspired, and I bought a pair of pants that I'd seen in Istanbul for a standard price of 20 ytl for 5 ytl. I also bought a shirt for 2,5 ytl, which proudly proclaims that "life is beatifull." Oh yes, beatifull.
Antakya is most well known not for it's intriguing Turkish-Arab culture but for it's ancient history: you may know it by it's Roman-times name, Antioch (and to get there, you pass through the Cilician Gates). It's the site of the very first Catholic Church in the world (by many accounts), founded in a cave above the current city by St. Peter himself. I visited, but it was closed for August vacation, so I only got to see the outside, sadly. It was awesome from the outside though. Later in history, the city was captured by Crusader kings. Even today, there's (for Turkey) a sizeable Christian community in Hatay; Rough Guides says there are 4000.
Our second day, we met up with a friend of Alyssa's who was coming in from Syria; she'd spent the summer in Damascus and spoke Syrian Arabic, which would be not so helpful in Turkey, except that most people we ran into in Hatay also spoke Arabic. Before she got in (she tried to come up on Friday, but in Syria they take religion seriously and that's mosque day--no busses to the border), Alyssa and I checked out the Antakya Museum. It's gorgeous: the region has lots of archaeological sites with Roman mosaics, and so many of them were still in really good condition. I have dozens of photos, many with stories, so I'll post the link to that part of my Flickr account once I upload them. They had statues and a very nicely preserved excavated tomb as well, but the mosaics were really the centerpiece of the museum.
The Catholic Church hostel was really great, run by a woman (Zeynep Hanim) who lives on the property, and really cheap: just 20ytl per night each. We got a room, private bath, and a kitchen. The guidebooks had all said that guests were expected to attend Mass, which we didn't mind, especially once we found out Mass was at 7pm, not 7am. The weekday masses we went to were pretty small, just the token folks who hung around the church and us, and was in Turkish, which was pretty awesome. The church had booklets printed with the prayers and Mass protocol in Turkish, so we could follow along and know what we were saying/singing, instead of half mumbling til we got to the "Amen." They're clearly used to non-Turkish visitors. While we stayed there, 2 big groups of Italian pilgrims came through; they just walked through the church, prayed, and left, but they tended to arrive right before Mass, delaying Mass. Sunday Mass was really great; I was the only one of the three of us who went, as the other 2 were exhausted from our big day (more on that in a bit) and also weren't Catholic. The tiny church was filled, with people standing out the back door. Most of the Mass was in Turkish, but the Gospel was read in both Turkish and Italian. I suspect this is because there was a large expat contingent, and I believe they were mostly Italian, but I'm not positive. Anyway, it was really a great experience, and they closed with "When the Saints go Marching In" in Turkish.
But my big experience Sunday was a different service, in a small village an hour-and-a-half outside of Antakya. Sunday morning, Alyssa, Jen (her friend from Syria), Lee(a friend of ours from our summer program, he came to Antakya a day after us) and I headed to Vakifli, the last remaining Armenian village in Turkey. The title is a bit of a misnomer: many Turks live there, and people in the village spoke Turkish to our hearing more than Armenian, but it still has Armenian roots and a strong Armenian connection. We were there for the Armenian Catholic Church's (they're in with the Holy See! the more you know)Feast of the Assumption of Mary, which is apparently their biggest feast day celebration. We were told it started at 10, so we got there right before then, but the Mass didn't begin until 10:10 or so, when the priest and the choir (and 2 priest-helper guys? kind of between choir members and deacons, they seemed) entered the front part of the church and started up. Even though there were probably at least 200 people milling about in the church courtyard, only maybe a dozen or so old ladies were actually sitting in the church, attending the service. We grabbed a pew and sat to take it all in. It was a beautiful service: it was entirely in Armenian, so we understood pretty much nothing, but it reminded me of Orthodox services. For starters, it was looong: about 2 and a half hours, I believe. There was a little fence/gate separating the parishioners from the choir and priest; it was split spacewise maybe 40-60, with 40% of the church area being occupied by the altar and various related things. The choir members kept wandering in and out throughout the whole thing; at one point, they all were gone, and it was just the priest and his helpers up in front. The choir was made up of people looking to be ages 7-maybe 65, but the leader was this girl (she can't've been over 20) with a beautiful, carrying voice; I heard that during choir practices and such, everything is very strictly age-hierarchical, while during Mass, the hierarchy is instead in order of singing talent.
The parishioner/Mass attendees also wandered in and out during the service, and while the numbers actually in church grew larger and larger, I don't think there were more than 50 people inside at any one time, and that was for Communion. Communion was fascinating, because the women all veiled for it: they grabbed scarves from in their handbags or around their necks to cover their hair, but only for Communion. Anyway, it was perhaps a little fortuitous that everyone in the church courtyard didn't crows in to the church, because it was stiflingly hot in the church, maybe hotter than I'd been all summer.
After the in-church portion of Mass, the priest and choir processed out the back of the church and to the courtyard, where they proceeded to bless a tablefull of grapes. Apparently, in the Armenian Catholic tradition, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary also is used to celebrate the grape harvest. After the grapes were blessed, everyone pressed forward and got a vineful. From there, the priest and choir went to 4 carpets laid out in the middle of the courtyard and did some sort of prayer/blessing there as well; I got video of this part and will upload it to Flickr inshallah soon. It was pretty interesting. After that, it looked like the Mass part of the day was done, so we chilled in the courtyard for awhile, looked at sour cherry products for sale in a small booth, and headed down to the main road to figure out how to get back (we'd taken a taxi from another town in the morning, but Vakifli is like, Byron-small or smaller, so there were no taxis there). We stopped at a tea garden for tea and water, and after chatting for a bit and finding a dolmus, we ran into an Armenian-Canadian woman, who told us more about the feast day, and also said that it was an annual pilgrimage for Diasporan Armenians, hence why so many people were there. She also told us that we'd missed the very end part of the ceremony at the church, where they hand out stewed mutton and wheat: apparently, in the times of the massacres, the Armenian communities of Musa Dag ('Mount Moses', where Vakifli is located) only had sheep and wheat, which they put into big pots, one for every village (there were 6 Armenian villages on the mountain then) and survived off of for 53 days under siege until the French rescued and evacuated them. It sounded like an odd recipe, but I tried some, and it was quite good on bread.
Our Armenian-Canadian friend also told us that we were ridiculously close to the sea, so after hearing that, and after having sat in the oven of the church for 2.5 hours, we decided to stop at the shore on the way back to Antakya. We took a dolmus to Samandag and walked to the waterfront. Samandag is a Turkish resort town, and it was pretty cool, as we were the only yabancis there. The water was so warm it was almost hot, and translucently blue. The Mediterranean hadn't been on our agenda when we left Antakya, so we swam in our clothes, which worked well til we had to get back on a dolmus to get back to Antakya. When we did finally make it back, we were pretty exhausted, and pretty much just napped and packed (and churched, for me) until grabbing a quick dinner and seeing Alyssa and Jen off to the otogar (they were headed to Cappadochia overnight).
Monday morning, I finished my packing, headed out for a brief bit, and then headed to the otogar, where I headed to Adana. Adana is about 3 hours northeast of Antakya, and is the 4th largest city in Turkey. You may have heard of it because Incirlik air base (US military) is located there. I planned to do a bit of sightseeing there before catching an overnight bus to Istanbul. On my bus from Antakya to Adana, I sat next to this adorable red-headed two-year-old and his mother, who were on their way to a beach holiday in Mersin. They were great travelling companions, until the poor kid got a little bus-sick and threw up. He kind of looked like Dan when he was 2, if Dan had been close-cropped instead of having that adorably curly mop. In Adana, I did some bargaining with various companies (after my Ankara-Adana bus ride, I was not about to risk a repeat experience), and ended up getting a ticket with Metro, who is towards the high end of the middle level of bus companies. I then headed into the city to see what I could find. I visited the Sabanci Mosque, which is the third largest mosque in the world; it's really new (like, last-decade-new), so there wasn't much historical intrigue, but it was huge, and nice. I then stopped by one of Adana's 2 museums where I found out that both museums were closed on Mondays. Bummer. I wandered a bit more, and ended up at this swanky restaurant for dinner, where I had an amaretto iced mocha. It pretty much made my whole body smile, it was so good. As Adana was also closer to 40 C than 30 C, it was very much appreciated. After my dinner, I skedaddled to the otogar and headed out for Istanbul. My seatmate was this very nice old lady, and it was I think her first bus trip. We chatted for a bit about Adana and Istanbul and what I was doing in Turkey before tuning in to the bus movies and then sleeping. In the morning, she got off at the first Istanbul stop (Istanbul is so big, there are multiple otogars and usually tertiary drop-off locations as well; it takes over an hour and a half from the first Istanbul stop to the Otogar), and I got a new seatmate, Ayse, who was travelling to Istanbul with her husband and 2 kids for a visit before school started. We had a great talk, and when she heard that I wanted to return to Adana, she gave me her cell number so that I could get to see "the real Adana" when I go back there.
Once I got into Istanbul, I had a lot of time to kill; I had pretty ungainly luggage, so I didn't really want to trek all over the city or go all out and be touristy. I ended up on Istiklal by about 9am, where I snagged a table at a cafe and chilled all morning, updating my blog and such. In the afternoon, I took the ferry to Asia to buy my train ticket for that night (heading to Ankara; the train is conveniently about 8 hours, or enough to actually sleep, versus the 5-6 hour bus), found that the only seats left were in 4-person couchettes, got a 20% student discount (I will really miss being a student someday), and took the ferry back. Once back in Taksim, I called Fulbright to make sure I could still pick up my luggage that afternoon, and handled the entire phone conversation in Turkish. I was pretty proud. As I had to pick up my luggage by 5, and would then be encumbered by 5 bags of various sizes, I decided to grab an early dinner, at Istanbul's best Chinese restaurant (it happened to be on the way the the Fulbright offices). My meal was great, and my waiter was very curious as to what I was doing all by myself and how I knew Turkish; we chatted for a bit, and then at the end of my meal he gave me 10% off. It was just a really great Turkish-speaking day for me.
I picked up my baggage and headed right to Haydarpasa (the train station), getting there about 5 hours before my train departed. Luckily, I had a 400-page journal of an early West African explorer to read, so I chilled in the waiting room. On the train, I had 3 Turkish women seatmates, all of whom were very nice and 2 of whom had also never ridden on a train before. Before we left, I had an awesome Turkish experience, when one of my compartment-mates, walking down the corridor, found a group of Italian tourists trying to communicate with the ticket man in English and went "wait, my friend speaks English and Turkish!" So I got to translate for this group of 10 Italian tourists who wanted to trade seats with other passengers so that their party could sit together; it was pretty exhilarating being able to explain back and forth. They finally got things settled, and I went back to my compartment, and woke up bright and early in Ankara, where I headed to my hostel.
Many apologies for this novel of a post; I was going to post some about my activities in Ankara, but I think this is quite enough for one update and will try to update some more fun things, like pics or videos, in a much more timely fashion.
Hope you all are doing well!
-R
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
A little break in Ankara, and the craziest bus ride of my life...
Hey folks,
I'm in a cafe on Istiklal Cad in Istanbul at the moment, working with definitely-not-enough Internet time, so this'll have to be brief til I get to Ankara and stable Internet, inshallah tomorrow. So my summer program ended last week, and it was kind of bittersweet to see most of my Istanbul companions head for home. But, it also was nice, because it meant I had time for travel. Wednesday night, Alyssa, a friend from class, and I took an overnight bus to Ankara, en route to Antakya. We planned it to have a one-day layover in Ankara, which worked well for me because it meant I could bring my huge suitcase and leave it at the Fulbright Ankara offices. We got in pretty darn early after a decent bus--we took Metro to Ankara, which is a more than decent bus company (spendy, to my cheap student sensibilities, but great value. They also have female bus attendants, which pretty much noone else has). We found the Fulbright offices (they're in a really pretty neighborhood), dropped off our bags for the day, were able to shower at the Fulbright office, and headed out to explore my city. We first headed to Anıtkabir, which was even better not ensconced in snowdrifts, as it had been last time I visited. There were a scattered few other tourists there, and the mausoleum part was very pretty and quiet. We then went to the museum part, which is awesome/. It's such a glorification of Ataturk; they have ll his books, and his guns, and his bathrobe, and even his dog, which they stuffed after it died. The next part of the museum is all paintings of the formation of the Republic and portraits of early Republican figures, in between re-created battle scenes, complete with ambient battle noises, of Ataturk's major battles. The final part is row after row of dry clippings and documents about the early Republic, and Ataturk, and Ataturk's aims, all set to overbearing Republican anthems. They sound like the soundtrack to those Soviet propaganda clips shown in high school history classes. It's excellent, although the anthems are a little headache-inducing after a bit.
After fully appreciating Turks' love for Ataturk, we headed over to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, which I appreciated quite a bit despite them no longer offering student admission. From there we made our way through Ulus, down to Kizilay, and over to Cankaya to pick up our bags before the Fulbright office closed. Heavily laden, we tried to find a restaurant listed in Rough Guide as being "eccentric", but it was shut down, so we went to this fantastic brasserie instead: I had a chicken caesar salad, and it was fantastic and delicious, and a strawberry daiquiri, which was similarly excellent. I think I shall have to remember that restaurant for while I'm in Ankara...
After dinner, we made our way to the bus station to catch our night bus to Adana. We were going to Antakya, but had been told that we'd have to switch busses in Adana, so we bargained tickets down to 25 lira and were set. Or so we thought. While loading our bags on the bus, two soldiers guarding a prisoner in chains got on the bus. We were a little nonplussed. We were even more nonplussed to get on the bus and find one of the soldiers and the prisoner in our seats. They wanted to switch seats with us so that the second soldier could be closer to the prisoner, which we were more than fine with. The bus attendant, however, was not, so we got to play musical chairs a few times and finally ended up sitting directly in front of the prisoner, the 2 soldiers, and some sort of military commander who had joined them. The commander I don't think had bathed in the past week or so; still, he was a comforting presence because the soldiers looked all of 16 and both had huuuuge, foot-and-a-half-long guns, and we figured with an authority figure along there'd be less of a chance of an accidental discharge.
Once we got that sorted out, we figured out that our bus actually went through Adana to Antakya, which was where we wanted to end up, so we asked the bus attendant if we could extend our tickets through Antakya, and he said we could, but wanted to charge us an exorbitant sum to do so, so we decided to just get a new bus in Adana. On the way out of the Ankara otogar, the bus engine quit. Luckily the driver got it working again, but on top of everything else it was less than auspicious.
I drifted off a bit, but woke with a start when the bus attendant started the movie for the trip: he chose a Turkish film about demon possession and a Greek Orthodox priest. So the speakers (the mute buttons were broken, of course) were full of demonic roars, and screams, and random Turkish. I think I understood the whole movie though, so that's a bright side there. :P
When we got to Adana, the bus driver didn't want to pay the otogar fee, so they dropped us off on the side of the highway, at 5 am, to take a servis vehicle to the otogar. We got to share the servis with a family who was transporting literally hundreds of pounds of fish food, so much so that we couldn't get out of the vehicle at the otogar til they'd unloaded a good deal of it. It was bizarre. We found a much, much better bus to take us to Antakya thank goodness, and arrived there with no more issues, but that Ankara-Adana bus ride was I think the craziest bus ride I've had here. A note to the wise: avoid SAS bus company. Like the plague.
-R
I'm in a cafe on Istiklal Cad in Istanbul at the moment, working with definitely-not-enough Internet time, so this'll have to be brief til I get to Ankara and stable Internet, inshallah tomorrow. So my summer program ended last week, and it was kind of bittersweet to see most of my Istanbul companions head for home. But, it also was nice, because it meant I had time for travel. Wednesday night, Alyssa, a friend from class, and I took an overnight bus to Ankara, en route to Antakya. We planned it to have a one-day layover in Ankara, which worked well for me because it meant I could bring my huge suitcase and leave it at the Fulbright Ankara offices. We got in pretty darn early after a decent bus--we took Metro to Ankara, which is a more than decent bus company (spendy, to my cheap student sensibilities, but great value. They also have female bus attendants, which pretty much noone else has). We found the Fulbright offices (they're in a really pretty neighborhood), dropped off our bags for the day, were able to shower at the Fulbright office, and headed out to explore my city. We first headed to Anıtkabir, which was even better not ensconced in snowdrifts, as it had been last time I visited. There were a scattered few other tourists there, and the mausoleum part was very pretty and quiet. We then went to the museum part, which is awesome/. It's such a glorification of Ataturk; they have ll his books, and his guns, and his bathrobe, and even his dog, which they stuffed after it died. The next part of the museum is all paintings of the formation of the Republic and portraits of early Republican figures, in between re-created battle scenes, complete with ambient battle noises, of Ataturk's major battles. The final part is row after row of dry clippings and documents about the early Republic, and Ataturk, and Ataturk's aims, all set to overbearing Republican anthems. They sound like the soundtrack to those Soviet propaganda clips shown in high school history classes. It's excellent, although the anthems are a little headache-inducing after a bit.
After fully appreciating Turks' love for Ataturk, we headed over to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, which I appreciated quite a bit despite them no longer offering student admission. From there we made our way through Ulus, down to Kizilay, and over to Cankaya to pick up our bags before the Fulbright office closed. Heavily laden, we tried to find a restaurant listed in Rough Guide as being "eccentric", but it was shut down, so we went to this fantastic brasserie instead: I had a chicken caesar salad, and it was fantastic and delicious, and a strawberry daiquiri, which was similarly excellent. I think I shall have to remember that restaurant for while I'm in Ankara...
After dinner, we made our way to the bus station to catch our night bus to Adana. We were going to Antakya, but had been told that we'd have to switch busses in Adana, so we bargained tickets down to 25 lira and were set. Or so we thought. While loading our bags on the bus, two soldiers guarding a prisoner in chains got on the bus. We were a little nonplussed. We were even more nonplussed to get on the bus and find one of the soldiers and the prisoner in our seats. They wanted to switch seats with us so that the second soldier could be closer to the prisoner, which we were more than fine with. The bus attendant, however, was not, so we got to play musical chairs a few times and finally ended up sitting directly in front of the prisoner, the 2 soldiers, and some sort of military commander who had joined them. The commander I don't think had bathed in the past week or so; still, he was a comforting presence because the soldiers looked all of 16 and both had huuuuge, foot-and-a-half-long guns, and we figured with an authority figure along there'd be less of a chance of an accidental discharge.
Once we got that sorted out, we figured out that our bus actually went through Adana to Antakya, which was where we wanted to end up, so we asked the bus attendant if we could extend our tickets through Antakya, and he said we could, but wanted to charge us an exorbitant sum to do so, so we decided to just get a new bus in Adana. On the way out of the Ankara otogar, the bus engine quit. Luckily the driver got it working again, but on top of everything else it was less than auspicious.
I drifted off a bit, but woke with a start when the bus attendant started the movie for the trip: he chose a Turkish film about demon possession and a Greek Orthodox priest. So the speakers (the mute buttons were broken, of course) were full of demonic roars, and screams, and random Turkish. I think I understood the whole movie though, so that's a bright side there. :P
When we got to Adana, the bus driver didn't want to pay the otogar fee, so they dropped us off on the side of the highway, at 5 am, to take a servis vehicle to the otogar. We got to share the servis with a family who was transporting literally hundreds of pounds of fish food, so much so that we couldn't get out of the vehicle at the otogar til they'd unloaded a good deal of it. It was bizarre. We found a much, much better bus to take us to Antakya thank goodness, and arrived there with no more issues, but that Ankara-Adana bus ride was I think the craziest bus ride I've had here. A note to the wise: avoid SAS bus company. Like the plague.
-R
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The last few days at Boğazici
My summer program is done! I took my final exam and my final oral placement test today, and tomorrow will take the final written placement test and move out of the dorms. The next few weeks are going to be a little interesting, as I don't really have housing yet, but inşallah everything will work out nicely: I'm heading on a bit of a vacation down to Antakya tomorrow night, via Ankara, so I'll be off gallivanting in southern Turkey for a bit before returning to Istanbul, grabbing my luggage, and moving into ARIT's guesthouse in Ankara while I apartment-hunt. Tentatively, I'll be in Ankara next week.
Last weekend was pretty great. Since almost everyone else in the summer program is leaving, everyone's been keen to get some last shopping and sightseeing in. On Saturday I headed sown to Sultanahmet with Abby, to check out a palace. We first grabbed lunch at a restaurant abutting the Aya Sofia, and impressed the waitstaff with our mad Turkish skillz. That's the nice part about the touristy areas of town, that they're so amazed by any amount of Turkish proficiency, as almost all the yabancı tourists speak not a word of Turkish. Anyways, we finished up our lunch and headed over to Topkapı, where we waited in an epicly long line only to find out that they wouldn't accept our student ID cards for the student discount, and that the regular cost of admission came out to 35 YTL each. As that's ridiculous, we decided to not see Topkapı and instead headed down Eminönü through this really gorgeous park to the Galata Bridge, which we took over to Kabataş, and from there walked over to Dolmabahçe Sarayı (Palace). It was closed by the time we got there, but their clock-tower cafe was open, and was serving slushy iced beverages (a rarity in Turkey), so we grabbed a Bosphorous-side table and enjoyed our slushies.
On Sunday, Abby and I returned to Dolmabahçe Sarayı, and after waiting in another epic line (they shut down the ticket booths because the palace reached its maximum capacity at one point) got our 2 YTL students tickets. Dolmabahçe Sarayı is gorgeous; its courtyards and gardens were just beautiful, as were the rooms and halls of the Selamlık and Harem. I generally just got photos of the gardens, as I didn't buy a camera ticket, but I did get a photo of the room where Ataturk died-- Ataturk lived in Dolmabahce for his final years, and had his own suite of rooms in the Harem. His bedspread was a giant Turkish flag representation. It was pretty darn neat. The palace itself was a glory of conspicuous consumption: everything that could be decorated, was decorated, and the furnishings were all red plush, or gilded, or crystal. The ceilings were all gilded and painted with cringeworthy floral motifs. The main palace had a 4.5 ton Waterford crystal chandelier in the hall used for official government business. It was a wonderful celebration of gaudy excess. I loved it.
After Dolmabahçe, I headed back to Superdorm before meeting most of my class to head to one of our professor's house. Betül (our professor) and her rommate and neighbor had made all kinds of Turkish food, and we came equipped with ingredients for a wide variety of American foods, so it was a pretty amazing night of cooking, dinner, and talking. We had these amazing lentil,parsley things wrapped in lettuce leaves, and macaroni salad Turkish-style (no eggs, made with yogurt instead of mayo), eggplant salad, and this sweet wheat-type dish that is hard to describe but kind of like a crumb crust. We students made brownies, a nectarine pie, a boiled peach dish, and this amazing mushroom-garlic-onion dish. It was a really great night; Betül is just adorable, as are her friends, and we talked and laughed for hours in Turkish and English. We really had a good class of folks this summer, so şt was nice to have a bit of a send-off.
The early part of this week has been a flurry of packing, studying, making travel and luggage arrangements, and so on. I'm really looking forward to Antakya: it was originally part of Syria until it was given to Turkey in a referendum, and is the only part of the country that eats hummus (Turkey, although partly Mediterranean, does not do hummus or falafel, as a general rule)ç It also is a hotbed of early Christianity: it's where the term 'Christian' was first used and the site of the first cathedral. The province also is home to the last surviving Armenian village in Turkey. So it's pretty cool. It takes forever and a day to get there though, so we're taking a bus overnight to Ankara, hanging out in my city for a day, and taking another overnight bus to Adana, where we'll grab a dolmuş to Antakya. My travelling companions are returning through Cappadocia, so I may return via Konya or Antalya, depending on whether I'd rather see beaches or religious conservatism and derviş orders. It should be really fun, and I'm sure I'll have scads of photos to overload my Flickr account with when I get back.
Hope you all are doing well,
-R
Last weekend was pretty great. Since almost everyone else in the summer program is leaving, everyone's been keen to get some last shopping and sightseeing in. On Saturday I headed sown to Sultanahmet with Abby, to check out a palace. We first grabbed lunch at a restaurant abutting the Aya Sofia, and impressed the waitstaff with our mad Turkish skillz. That's the nice part about the touristy areas of town, that they're so amazed by any amount of Turkish proficiency, as almost all the yabancı tourists speak not a word of Turkish. Anyways, we finished up our lunch and headed over to Topkapı, where we waited in an epicly long line only to find out that they wouldn't accept our student ID cards for the student discount, and that the regular cost of admission came out to 35 YTL each. As that's ridiculous, we decided to not see Topkapı and instead headed down Eminönü through this really gorgeous park to the Galata Bridge, which we took over to Kabataş, and from there walked over to Dolmabahçe Sarayı (Palace). It was closed by the time we got there, but their clock-tower cafe was open, and was serving slushy iced beverages (a rarity in Turkey), so we grabbed a Bosphorous-side table and enjoyed our slushies.
On Sunday, Abby and I returned to Dolmabahçe Sarayı, and after waiting in another epic line (they shut down the ticket booths because the palace reached its maximum capacity at one point) got our 2 YTL students tickets. Dolmabahçe Sarayı is gorgeous; its courtyards and gardens were just beautiful, as were the rooms and halls of the Selamlık and Harem. I generally just got photos of the gardens, as I didn't buy a camera ticket, but I did get a photo of the room where Ataturk died-- Ataturk lived in Dolmabahce for his final years, and had his own suite of rooms in the Harem. His bedspread was a giant Turkish flag representation. It was pretty darn neat. The palace itself was a glory of conspicuous consumption: everything that could be decorated, was decorated, and the furnishings were all red plush, or gilded, or crystal. The ceilings were all gilded and painted with cringeworthy floral motifs. The main palace had a 4.5 ton Waterford crystal chandelier in the hall used for official government business. It was a wonderful celebration of gaudy excess. I loved it.
After Dolmabahçe, I headed back to Superdorm before meeting most of my class to head to one of our professor's house. Betül (our professor) and her rommate and neighbor had made all kinds of Turkish food, and we came equipped with ingredients for a wide variety of American foods, so it was a pretty amazing night of cooking, dinner, and talking. We had these amazing lentil,parsley things wrapped in lettuce leaves, and macaroni salad Turkish-style (no eggs, made with yogurt instead of mayo), eggplant salad, and this sweet wheat-type dish that is hard to describe but kind of like a crumb crust. We students made brownies, a nectarine pie, a boiled peach dish, and this amazing mushroom-garlic-onion dish. It was a really great night; Betül is just adorable, as are her friends, and we talked and laughed for hours in Turkish and English. We really had a good class of folks this summer, so şt was nice to have a bit of a send-off.
The early part of this week has been a flurry of packing, studying, making travel and luggage arrangements, and so on. I'm really looking forward to Antakya: it was originally part of Syria until it was given to Turkey in a referendum, and is the only part of the country that eats hummus (Turkey, although partly Mediterranean, does not do hummus or falafel, as a general rule)ç It also is a hotbed of early Christianity: it's where the term 'Christian' was first used and the site of the first cathedral. The province also is home to the last surviving Armenian village in Turkey. So it's pretty cool. It takes forever and a day to get there though, so we're taking a bus overnight to Ankara, hanging out in my city for a day, and taking another overnight bus to Adana, where we'll grab a dolmuş to Antakya. My travelling companions are returning through Cappadocia, so I may return via Konya or Antalya, depending on whether I'd rather see beaches or religious conservatism and derviş orders. It should be really fun, and I'm sure I'll have scads of photos to overload my Flickr account with when I get back.
Hope you all are doing well,
-R
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Hey folks! It’s been awhile since my last post, sorry, but it’s the home stretch of my summer program; inshallah things’ll quiet down in a few weeks. Last weekend I was quite the tourist: I headed down to Sultanahmet with Robin to see Aya Sofia. Last time I was here, I was put off by the steep admission fee, but I figured to actually live here and not see the Aya Sofia of all things would be pretty inexcusable. We found the entrance, and were a bit nonplussed to see the middling-sized line of tourists waiting to buy tickets and get in, but we got in the line and waited, fending off would-be guides as we waited. We had been told that we’d get the Turkish student rate, which is the only discount offered by Aya Sofia, but apparently our summer Bogazici student ID cards weren’t convincing enough to the ticket sellers, so we had to pay 20 YTL instead of 10. I was pretty put out, and wish I would’ve thought to bring my old ODTU ID with me, but I suppose that’s the way life works. We walked into the Outer Narthex and just stopped, stunned: Aya Sofia is devastatingly beautiful. I’ve seen a good number of mosques, and even a fair few churches here in Turkey (not to mention the churches-turned-mosques), and they’ve been incredible, but for the most part they pale in comparison to the Aya Sofia. We wandered from the Outer Narthex to the Inner Narthex, checking out the architecture and mosaics, and then entered the main part of Aya Sofia. It’s simply cavernous. The Blue Mosque was built (roughly 800 years later) to have exactly the same size central dome, but Sinan had to support his dome with four huge pillars, which takes away from the floor plan and the cavernous feeling. It’s really almost impossible to describe, so I’ll direct you to my photostream, where I’ve uploaded the ridiculous amount of photos I took (Aya Sofia pics are currently on pages 3-7):
After we left the Aya Sofia, we met up with Callie in Sultanahmet and went over to the Yerebatan Sarnici (Basilica Cistern), where our student IDs were perfectly fine. It was amazing; I think it may be my favorite place in Istanbul, from a tourist perspective.
It's incredible to think that the entire complex was undiscovered for centuries, until sometime in the last century someone tried to expand their basement and got quite a surprise. There are even fish in the water, apparently before the Cistern was discovered, people in Sultanahmet used to be able to drop fishing lines through their basements and catch fish. Not too shabby a setup. My photos from the Cistern aren't completely organized/labelled yet, but inshallah they will be by the end of this week.
After the Cistern, we headed to the Spice Bazaar for some shopping; Callie and Robin leave next week, so it was serious souvenir time for them. I was just along for the experience, since it's definitely not my souvenir-shopping time yet, but I really didn't mind because I enjoy the Spice Bazaar. It's hands-down better than the Grand Bazaar, much fewer touts and salesmen and desperate sales tactics, although those all can be found at the Spice Bazaar as well. We wound our way through the main bazaar, where I bought some delicious, delicious red pepper paste (it's like tomato paste, but spicy and made with peppers, it's nearly impossible to find in the US), and then through the side streets, which are also filled with bazaar vendors. We spent a good few hours there. Finally, after a last stop at a kitchen goods shop, we made our way back towards the light rail, stopping at Yeni Cami en route. I toured Yeni Cami last time I was here, and I just find it really charming; it has incredible tilework, which separates it somewhat from the other similarly-sized great mosques of the city, and it's generally quieter than the other tourist mosques. And of course, I love a short opportunity to wear a scarf. From there, we walked over the Galata Bridge and hopped on the light rail to Kabatas, where we grabbed a bus back to the dorm.
That night, the collected residents of room 201 headed over to Cat's, a friend of mine, house to catsit her kitten and use her kitchen. After a kitchenless summer, I was amazingly excited to cook again, and Callie was pretty darn excited to bake chocolate-chip cookies. I made a chicken-vegetable sauce with pasta, which was refreshingly non-greasy compared to the Turkish food we'd all been living off of, and I boiled some peaches and served them with brown sugar. It wasn't at all my best effort, but it was amazing to cook again; cathartic even. The cookies turned out incredibly good, and we ate them while watching Ratatouille with Turkish subs for Callie's bf. It was a needed night off/night in. And the kitten is adorable; he has the biggest ears proportionally I think I've ever seen on a cat.
This week has been generally full of class, afterclass Turkish activities, and homework; the positive part of this is that my spoken Turkish is getting noticeably better. Yesterday I went to a lecture on Modern Turkish State and Society, which was right up my alley, and pretty darn interesting. The professor had some interesting points on the progressiveness of the early Turkish Republic. Sadly, he only got completely through the 1950s, before having to rush through the rest of the 20th century in 10 minutes, but it was definitely a worthwhile talk. Today, my class went to a sweet shop for our conversation session, and it was really nice; I just got profiterol (a nice, safe choice for chocoholics like me), and avoided the chicken-and-gelatin dessert (although I think I will have to try it at some point, bilmiyorum). Over the weekend, I'll be studying and packing, as finals are next week and I must leave the dorms midweek. After that, I'll be anchorless for a few weeks til I get settled in over in Ankara, which I'm excited about. Finally.
In non-my-life news, Today's Zaman had an article about Turkey's role in the management of complex conflicts in the Middle East, which is pretty much what my thesis discussed and which is part of what I'm researching this year. The article is here for your reading pleasure. It briefly mentions quite a few issues I've been following closely, especially the shift in relations over Cyprus, so I was pretty pleased to see it.
On that note, I'll leave off til next time
-R
After we left the Aya Sofia, we met up with Callie in Sultanahmet and went over to the Yerebatan Sarnici (Basilica Cistern), where our student IDs were perfectly fine. It was amazing; I think it may be my favorite place in Istanbul, from a tourist perspective.
It's incredible to think that the entire complex was undiscovered for centuries, until sometime in the last century someone tried to expand their basement and got quite a surprise. There are even fish in the water, apparently before the Cistern was discovered, people in Sultanahmet used to be able to drop fishing lines through their basements and catch fish. Not too shabby a setup. My photos from the Cistern aren't completely organized/labelled yet, but inshallah they will be by the end of this week.
After the Cistern, we headed to the Spice Bazaar for some shopping; Callie and Robin leave next week, so it was serious souvenir time for them. I was just along for the experience, since it's definitely not my souvenir-shopping time yet, but I really didn't mind because I enjoy the Spice Bazaar. It's hands-down better than the Grand Bazaar, much fewer touts and salesmen and desperate sales tactics, although those all can be found at the Spice Bazaar as well. We wound our way through the main bazaar, where I bought some delicious, delicious red pepper paste (it's like tomato paste, but spicy and made with peppers, it's nearly impossible to find in the US), and then through the side streets, which are also filled with bazaar vendors. We spent a good few hours there. Finally, after a last stop at a kitchen goods shop, we made our way back towards the light rail, stopping at Yeni Cami en route. I toured Yeni Cami last time I was here, and I just find it really charming; it has incredible tilework, which separates it somewhat from the other similarly-sized great mosques of the city, and it's generally quieter than the other tourist mosques. And of course, I love a short opportunity to wear a scarf. From there, we walked over the Galata Bridge and hopped on the light rail to Kabatas, where we grabbed a bus back to the dorm.
That night, the collected residents of room 201 headed over to Cat's, a friend of mine, house to catsit her kitten and use her kitchen. After a kitchenless summer, I was amazingly excited to cook again, and Callie was pretty darn excited to bake chocolate-chip cookies. I made a chicken-vegetable sauce with pasta, which was refreshingly non-greasy compared to the Turkish food we'd all been living off of, and I boiled some peaches and served them with brown sugar. It wasn't at all my best effort, but it was amazing to cook again; cathartic even. The cookies turned out incredibly good, and we ate them while watching Ratatouille with Turkish subs for Callie's bf. It was a needed night off/night in. And the kitten is adorable; he has the biggest ears proportionally I think I've ever seen on a cat.
This week has been generally full of class, afterclass Turkish activities, and homework; the positive part of this is that my spoken Turkish is getting noticeably better. Yesterday I went to a lecture on Modern Turkish State and Society, which was right up my alley, and pretty darn interesting. The professor had some interesting points on the progressiveness of the early Turkish Republic. Sadly, he only got completely through the 1950s, before having to rush through the rest of the 20th century in 10 minutes, but it was definitely a worthwhile talk. Today, my class went to a sweet shop for our conversation session, and it was really nice; I just got profiterol (a nice, safe choice for chocoholics like me), and avoided the chicken-and-gelatin dessert (although I think I will have to try it at some point, bilmiyorum). Over the weekend, I'll be studying and packing, as finals are next week and I must leave the dorms midweek. After that, I'll be anchorless for a few weeks til I get settled in over in Ankara, which I'm excited about. Finally.
In non-my-life news, Today's Zaman had an article about Turkey's role in the management of complex conflicts in the Middle East, which is pretty much what my thesis discussed and which is part of what I'm researching this year. The article is here for your reading pleasure. It briefly mentions quite a few issues I've been following closely, especially the shift in relations over Cyprus, so I was pretty pleased to see it.
On that note, I'll leave off til next time
-R
Friday, August 01, 2008
The AK Parti, the Constitutional Court, and me
Hey folks,
As many of you know by now, earlier this week the Turkish Constitutional Court voted to dock the AK Parti half of their funding from the state. This is pretty good news, as the banning of the party, and the removal of many of its political leaders from politics for several years, seemed more likely. It was a close vote: the Court came within one vote of banning the party.
The AK Parti was under scrutiny because of what the chief prosecutor termed threats to the secularism of the state. The AK Parti made headlines internationally this year when its politicians passed legislation ending the ban on headscarves in public universities. This is a little misleading though, as they had to amend the Constitution to do so. That whole arrangement caused quite a bit of excitement here, but ultimately the Constitutional Court reversed the changes. This played a large part in the indictment against the AK Parti, as it was used in arguing that the AK Parti was influenced by Sharia law, or had allowed religion to influence its governance of the secular state (clearly there's much more to the issue, I just wanted to give a little background).
Had the AK Parti been banned, Turkey would have had to hold new elections, as the AKP is the majority party at the moment, and one can only speculate on who would have emerged with the majority. There was even speculation that the aftermath of such a ban would have resulted in such turmoil as to 'necessitate' a military coup; many arrests have been made here this summer of suspected members of a secretive group allegedly attempting to bring about illegitimate change in government via instability and intervention. It's all a little Agatha Christie-esque. There's still speculation that the secretive group, Ergenekon, might still be up to something; I guess we'll see. In any case, it's been a fascinating week here on the political side.
My week was perhaps not quite as fascinating; I've already written about the first part of the week, and the second half has been pretty relaxed. On Wednesday I played Turkish Monopoly with my class; it was strange because the game used Turkish Lira instead of Yeni Turkish Lira, and evidently had been produced sometime in the middle of the rampant inflation of the late 90s/early 00s, as I think 20,000 lira was roughly equivalent to the US version's $200 (in today's adjusted currency, that'd be 20 YTL). Our TA had never played Monopoly before, but somehow quite handily beat us all; we're pretty sure she is secretly a ninja. After that, I headed back to Superdorm before heading down to Cat's apartment in Bebek for some pie-baking; her boyfriend was flying in on Thursday, so she wanted to make a peach pie for his family. As I am a fan of baking and currently kitchenless, I was more than willing to head over with one of my roommates for a communal pie-baking effort. Thursday was mainly given over to class and such, although I did find time to reread Pride and Prejudice and order in bruschetta with one of my roommates. Today was pretty nice as well; Callie and I walked down to Cat's after class briefly before walking over to Bodrum Manti in Arnavutkoy (best manti in the country, I'm positive of it) and then heading to Besiktas for some shopping. I picked up some DVDs (feeling just a little foolish for the number of romantic comedies I requested), and then we hit up this huge bookstore, so Callie could look for Turkish childrens books. I browsed around and found the English-language novel section, which comprised 2 shelves. I was pretty excited, as I'd somehow neglected to bring any books with me other than the one I read on the plane and some tomes on foreign policy and the middle east. Sadly, a good half of the English books they had were ancient Greek and Roman authors, and I just didn't think that Aristotle would make light summer reading. Just as I was about to give up on having any fresh reading material, I saw a volume by Mungo Park, who I immediately recognized as the Scotsman who, in the late 18th century, discovered Niger. I didn't know that his journal was in print, but apparently it is, and thus I am now slowly working my way through his Travels in the Interior of Africa; I think it'll last me a decent while.
This weekend I'm really excited to finally see the Aya Sofya, which I disn't see last time I was in Turkey because I wasn't fond of the idea of paying admission, and the Cistern, which should be just awesome, before heading through the Spice Bazaar. My roommates and I are jointly catsitting for a friend, so we'll be spending Saturday night cooking and baking up a storm in the cat's apartment (the joys of kitchen access, let me tell you).
It's a bit hard to believe that I have only a week and a half left of this summer program; I still need to figure out when exactly I'll be moving to Ankara, and how exactly I'll get my stuff there. The program has been really good so far, although the grammar has at times been more of a review than a new lesson for me. I think my vocab has vastly improved, so perhaps I am at a Turkish elementary-school kid's level, rather than a preschooler's level in my speaking ability. Maybe by the end of the year I'll be at middle school level--I'd be pretty content with that.
On that note, I'm off to bed,
-R
As many of you know by now, earlier this week the Turkish Constitutional Court voted to dock the AK Parti half of their funding from the state. This is pretty good news, as the banning of the party, and the removal of many of its political leaders from politics for several years, seemed more likely. It was a close vote: the Court came within one vote of banning the party.
The AK Parti was under scrutiny because of what the chief prosecutor termed threats to the secularism of the state. The AK Parti made headlines internationally this year when its politicians passed legislation ending the ban on headscarves in public universities. This is a little misleading though, as they had to amend the Constitution to do so. That whole arrangement caused quite a bit of excitement here, but ultimately the Constitutional Court reversed the changes. This played a large part in the indictment against the AK Parti, as it was used in arguing that the AK Parti was influenced by Sharia law, or had allowed religion to influence its governance of the secular state (clearly there's much more to the issue, I just wanted to give a little background).
Had the AK Parti been banned, Turkey would have had to hold new elections, as the AKP is the majority party at the moment, and one can only speculate on who would have emerged with the majority. There was even speculation that the aftermath of such a ban would have resulted in such turmoil as to 'necessitate' a military coup; many arrests have been made here this summer of suspected members of a secretive group allegedly attempting to bring about illegitimate change in government via instability and intervention. It's all a little Agatha Christie-esque. There's still speculation that the secretive group, Ergenekon, might still be up to something; I guess we'll see. In any case, it's been a fascinating week here on the political side.
My week was perhaps not quite as fascinating; I've already written about the first part of the week, and the second half has been pretty relaxed. On Wednesday I played Turkish Monopoly with my class; it was strange because the game used Turkish Lira instead of Yeni Turkish Lira, and evidently had been produced sometime in the middle of the rampant inflation of the late 90s/early 00s, as I think 20,000 lira was roughly equivalent to the US version's $200 (in today's adjusted currency, that'd be 20 YTL). Our TA had never played Monopoly before, but somehow quite handily beat us all; we're pretty sure she is secretly a ninja. After that, I headed back to Superdorm before heading down to Cat's apartment in Bebek for some pie-baking; her boyfriend was flying in on Thursday, so she wanted to make a peach pie for his family. As I am a fan of baking and currently kitchenless, I was more than willing to head over with one of my roommates for a communal pie-baking effort. Thursday was mainly given over to class and such, although I did find time to reread Pride and Prejudice and order in bruschetta with one of my roommates. Today was pretty nice as well; Callie and I walked down to Cat's after class briefly before walking over to Bodrum Manti in Arnavutkoy (best manti in the country, I'm positive of it) and then heading to Besiktas for some shopping. I picked up some DVDs (feeling just a little foolish for the number of romantic comedies I requested), and then we hit up this huge bookstore, so Callie could look for Turkish childrens books. I browsed around and found the English-language novel section, which comprised 2 shelves. I was pretty excited, as I'd somehow neglected to bring any books with me other than the one I read on the plane and some tomes on foreign policy and the middle east. Sadly, a good half of the English books they had were ancient Greek and Roman authors, and I just didn't think that Aristotle would make light summer reading. Just as I was about to give up on having any fresh reading material, I saw a volume by Mungo Park, who I immediately recognized as the Scotsman who, in the late 18th century, discovered Niger. I didn't know that his journal was in print, but apparently it is, and thus I am now slowly working my way through his Travels in the Interior of Africa; I think it'll last me a decent while.
This weekend I'm really excited to finally see the Aya Sofya, which I disn't see last time I was in Turkey because I wasn't fond of the idea of paying admission, and the Cistern, which should be just awesome, before heading through the Spice Bazaar. My roommates and I are jointly catsitting for a friend, so we'll be spending Saturday night cooking and baking up a storm in the cat's apartment (the joys of kitchen access, let me tell you).
It's a bit hard to believe that I have only a week and a half left of this summer program; I still need to figure out when exactly I'll be moving to Ankara, and how exactly I'll get my stuff there. The program has been really good so far, although the grammar has at times been more of a review than a new lesson for me. I think my vocab has vastly improved, so perhaps I am at a Turkish elementary-school kid's level, rather than a preschooler's level in my speaking ability. Maybe by the end of the year I'll be at middle school level--I'd be pretty content with that.
On that note, I'm off to bed,
-R
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