The rest of Istanbul, to be quite honest, went by so quickly that the only way I can keep track of everything we did is by looking back at pictures. Jess and I generally met up each morning around 11 and then split up again at night, me back to my hostel and her back to the superdorm about 45 minutes (by light rail and bus) north of the city. It must be noted that eating was a pretty big theme of my time in Istanbul. Every second shop seemed to have rows and rows of shiny and wonderful looking baklava and other pastries to offer; we certainly took them up on their offer.
<-- the Grand Bazaar, in all of its chaos and glory
So I arrived on a Wednesday. Thursday I was on my own for the morning but met Jess in the afternoon for a walk around the Grand Bazaar, to the Istanbul University (the biggest turkish University in Istanbul, I believe), to a couple of pastry shops along the way for seriously delicious baklava, and then to Taksim Square and the street called Istiklal at night. It seemed like the entirety of Istanbul was in that area looking for some Raki or some Efez (just about the ONLY beer brewed in Turkey, but incidentally quite delicious and light). Jess and I played a round or two of dominoes as we waited for a friend of hers on her program, and then (i confess) we made our way to the James Joyce bar for a little Ulysses chatting and a rather rusty live band.
<-- women exercising on an "adult playground", as Jess called them
<-- the new and modern "Light Rail", 0.80 Lyra per ride
The next day Jess and I met in the morning at the Aya Sofia and took the light rail first to the wonderful smells of the spice market. There we chatted with some vendors who gave us some "great deals" (who really knows) on a few spices and a couple of ceramic tiles. I couldn't resist! They fed us turkish delight (called "lokum") to lure us into their stores and who can possibly say no to turkish delight?!? It helps that the prices in general are about half of what they'd be in Germany, so all in all, the souvenirs from Istanbul were worth it, in my eyes.
Jess working her turkish skills for tea near the Grand Bazaar; Spices at the Spice Bazaar
And then we went to the bus station. Now, I wish I had taken some sort of photographic proof of the chaos of such stations. There is, in fact, no actual station, but rather a conglomeration of huge busses of all different colors just sort of blocking the way for other busses and gradually collecting passengers. Apparently traffic times are no time for bus rides, but that did not stop Jess and I who seemed intent on getting stuck in traffic every way we went. But walking around Istanbul, although amazing, was also incredibly exhausting and somewhat hard on the feet (am I getting old?!?), so we welcomed the hour-long rides between destinations.
We hopped on a bus to a town called Ayab, which Jess had visited with some friends (and her teacher?) a few weekends before. It was a conservative town, according to her description, and the general lack of tourists mixed with the plethora of head-scarf-clad women (occasionally wearing the full-black version that only left a diamond shaped gap for the eyes and nose) certainly showed what she meant. We walked through the bustling main street to an "authentic" local market, featuring tons of underwear stands along with stands that sold vegetables and fruits and the normal market fare. Jess finally found the perfect pair of shoes there: 100% genuine Tex-mex (I believe) pseudo converses in maroon for 20 Lyra (about $15, or 10 Euros).
<-- vendor selling headscarves in the Ayab market
We stopped for some more baklava, some tea (Jess favored the tea over coffee), and then made our way to the local Mosque. We tied our scarves around our heads, placed our shoes in a plastic bag, and actually made our way in to the cavernous and gently lit mosque. Around twenty or so men (with some small children at their sides) were praying on the carpeted surface ahead of us. We walked up a skinny staircase to the upper level, where the women were supposed to pray. The carpeted-surface, I must say, was incredibly inviting; taking a long and comfortable nap would not have been too difficult.
inside the mosque
A young and friendly-looking woman approached us and asked us a few questions. Her turkish sounded so beautiful; it's really too bad that we couldn't understand what she was saying. She asked us at one point what religion we were, and when we both said Jewish, she responded something about how we are all brothers and sisters. She repeatedly pointed to her heart and made a heart shape in the air with her hands. We smiled and nodded our heads once in a while to look as if we understood. She spoke with us for a good ten minutes before going to pray elsewhere. We took in the quiet of the Mosque before making our way back outside. Since the afternoon prayers were to begin around a half hour later, many people had gathered in preparation for the prayer service while we were inside. We walked to the supposed tomb of someone in a small passageway with beautiful tiles and mosaics.
women washing up before paying respects
We were there to see the tiles, but others, mostly women, were there to pay respects. We were the only "westerners" there, so it was quite a surprise to exit the Mosque to find a group of soldiers just sort of casually chatting and waiting outside. We asked people at a donations desk (i think that's what it was) what the officers were doing there. They did answer Jess' question, but unfortunately she didn't understand their answer. Oh well, another mystery awaiting to be unmasked (once we can speak turkish fluently).
We walked from the Mosque through a totally deserted and quiet cemetery. The gravestones were so old that they must have dated back to before the Ottoman times; some had the traditional Ottoman "fez" hat at the top indicating that a male had been buried there, and some had wreaths to indicate a woman. Although there were not many people there was no lack of frolicking felines creeping around the tombstones; cats are EVERYWHERE in Istanbul! Explains why Jess found a litter of new-born kittens on the bed of her dorm room the first day she arrived back in February... The more we walked through the cemetery, the more I realized that it was absolutely endless. The tombstones, although clearly not as old as the first ones we saw, covered the entire hill before us. By hill I mean a hill that takes a good thirty minutes to walk up and is high enough to merit a gondola lift, which we used to go back down. Did I mention that we had incredible sunshine throughout this entire climb?
That meant wonderful and expansive views, not of "the city" in its entirety, but of a really beautiful part of the city and a glimpse of the blue Bosphorus beyond. From among tombstones midway up the hill the evening 5 o'clock prayers began.
We could see around five different Mosques from where we were; from each came a loud and strong voice singing the traditional adhaan, meaning something along the lines of Allah is Most Great, Come to Prayer. All of the voices from the many mosques were powerful, overwhelming, and difficult to describe. If I could finally figure out the video option on these blogs, then i'll be sure to share some footage with you!
We drank some apple tea from a cafe at the top of the hill, and had a German tourist take this awkward photo of us. The gondola lift to the bottom cost as much as a regular bus ride. From there we walked for an hour or so along the Bosphorus back to Tacsim, where we hopped on a ferry.
Destination: Asia
First of all, a ferry ride in the sunset... not too shabby. The air had gotten pretty cold at that point, so Jess and I stayed away from the wind. Without a second thought we hopped off the ferry onto the Asian side of the city. I expected it to look drastically different, but really it was just another part of Istanbul, and a great place from which to see the sunset. We walked to a semi-water front restaurant where I ate sort of small egg-noodles in a yogurt sauce. We smoked some Hashish (my lungs are pretty incapable of holding in the smoke though, and compared to the older men sitting at the table next to us, who'd probably been smoking all day long, we really didn't do too much damage) and played a competitive round of Backgammon. Back on the Europe side, we split up a bit earlier so that we could get some sleep and I could "rest" like the old lady that I am.
Sunset from the Asian-side -->
On Saturday I packed all of my things (how did I accumulate so much just after four days?), said goodbye to the two friendly German women that I'd been sharing my room with, and followed Jess' very specific directions to go to her University. I was definitely surprised, not at how long it took to get there, but at how different the city looked along the way. There were some tree-lined streets and some much more western-looking Pizza-Hut filled streets. My directions were to request a stop when we passed the dunkin donuts just beyond a huge shopping mall with oversized billboards. I only had a few problems in finding the right bus at the mayhem-filled bus station; other than that it felt pretty cool to have crossed the city on my own. Jess showed me her Superdorm from afar - looks really super and spiffy, simple but new. We walked from there up a large hill to her actual campus.
this is what Jess sees on her way to campus every day
My goodness! It was beautiful. She is attending an elite english university here, so whenever she mentions its name to people she meets, they give a nod of approval and admiration. It's called Bogazici University, but with all the right accents and pronunciation it sounds more like Boazichi, nicknamed the Boa. The campus itself looks sort of like Duke, which is incidentally the University that sponsors the program that Jess is on. And since it's on a hill, the views are incredible. What a good reason not to get anything done in class. We walked down the hill to a huge 500 year-old fortress at the bottom with dangerously narrow stairways lacking all forms of barriers and safety precautions. Not for someone with vertigo.
oh, just another 500-year-old fortress...
More walking along the Bosphorus, this time for most of the day. Our destination was the jewelry market at a town that I forget the name of (maybe because a lot of the towns had similar names). We passed through around three major coastal towns, and had a DELICIOUS waffle with all sorts of toppings in one of them. Some of those coastal towns reminded me of New England, with sort of colonial architecture that one could find in Cambridge. Enjoying the warm sunshine and walking certainly gave us an appetite, and we ate along the river after perusing some cool and cheap jewelry.
<-- women exercising on an "adult playground", as Jess called them That evening we walked through the "European" part of town, as in the part that has unmistakable European influences in its cobblestone streets and even a few european chain stores. Istiklal was incredibly crowded, so we ducked into some side streets looking for a feminist bookstore. Jess found it, but as we weren't too impressed (it was more about the search and feeling proud that she knew her way around) we went to a totally hidden and crowded neighborhood cafe. It was for sure where the local students went to go hang out. We drank some warm Salep, which is a sweet white drink served with cinnamon, a bit like rice pudding without any rice. Delicious.
We then walked and walked, saw some street musicians playing the Kanoon, saw some bigger and fancier hotels, walked through some more enchanting streets that I'd love to go back to, and stumbled upon a wonderful and charming little cafe: Molly's. Perhaps one could call it a sort of ex-pat hang out: a Canadian woman had opened it about ten years earlier after quitting her job at a language school. She offered us tea with milk, and said "where else in Turkey could you get milk for your tea?" We were gifted some free carrot cake while we sunk exhausted into the comfortable couches. Two older woman came in after us, both Americans who were teaching abroad in an international school in Pakistan. They admired our eagerness to study abroad, and said that having the freedom to see the world is the best thing that happened to them. Jess and I knew secretly that we'd be totally similar when we reach our sixties. But that's a long way off...
One of my favorite sights in Istanbul was the fishermen along one of the bridges. They literally lined each side so that no foot of the barrier was left unoccupied. The fishers were pretty much all men, and they had occasional bus-boys running to and fro serving them tea and bringing them Simit (sesame bagels). The coolest thing was that you can go under the bridge to a strip of restaurants. There you can actually watch their lines bring up the fish, sometimes only one squirming sucker but sometimes four or five on the same line (multiple hooks?). Those guys were there literally all hours of the day, so when Jess and I went to a bar under the bridge at around 10, we had a lovely display of a good ten or so fishing lines to keep us entertained. We sat on beanbags (how awesome!) and drank some Efez to celebrate my last night.
fisherman on the Bosphorus
The sad fact of having left high school is this constant effort to try to keep in touch, while realizing that it's pretty near impossible to stay on top of everything that happens in the lives of your closest friends. Even skype calls have their limits. But there's no use in being so nostalgic about times past (high school had it's fall-backs too). Those strong friendships just need to be maintained and celebrated in other ways, in new ways. Such as meeting up in far away places and relishing in the fact that you are both able to adapt to new cities and teach each other about them. There is nothing wrong with losing touch, since we know that we'll get back in touch at some point in the future. Not only was seeing Istanbul amazing, but learning to be comfortable with the fact of long-distance friendships was also an important lesson. So with a tear and big hugs, Jess and I parted ways at the light rail stop. She headed back to the superdorm and I to my hostel to catch a midnight-shuttle to the airport.
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