Istanbul, Part 3: The Last Turkey Day

Last Turkey day started with Sam abandoning us to go back home to get back to work or whatever it is that all the kids are doing these days.  

It also coincidentally happened to be the last day of Ramadan, which meant it was a national holiday and there were stampedes of people left and right (it also meant that a lot of the religious sites were closed).  

Sunset on the Bosphorus

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• You know what wasn't closed?!? The super-sweet Basilica Cistern, an ancient water cistern that lies under the streets of Istanbul.  You guys. This cistern dates back to the 6th century, is supported by 336 marble columns, and could hold 80,000 cubic meters of water (I seriously have no idea how much that is, but seeing the size of the thing, it must be a TON).  It piped in water from 12 miles away to supply to the city, and is a huge behemoth of an achievement due to its vast size and engineering.     

The creepy underground-ness of the cistern.  It's cool because they took some of the columns from other temples and locations, so they all have different carvings at the top

And now the cistern (which is obvi holding a ton less water than it used to, as it's now basically filled with rainwater that drips through) is home to a ton of creepy ghost fish

A weird part of the cistern is that two of the columns are supported by Medusa heads that have clearly come from somewhere else. One head is sideways, the other is upside down. WAS THIS INTENTIONAL? DOES IT MEAN SOMETHING? WAS IT SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WERE THE RIGHT SIZE??  Nobody knows. Mysteries of the Cistern, y'all.

Medusa head #2

•  Visited the Chora Church (Kariya Müzesi), a former Byzantine church from the 10th century (which was later converted to a mosque, #typicalstory) out in the 'burbs known for its insane mosaic work, a ton of which is still in great shape today. 

This is Jesus in mosaic

There was an entire wing of the church that detailed the Virgin Mary's entire life in mosaic

And then there was an entire wing detailing Jesus' entire life in mosaic. IT WAS CRAY.

This is really just to show you that I was there and was not stealing photos of these sites off the internet

• Then we headed back to Istiklal Street for drinks and dinner

The tram on Istiklal was jammed with hoodrats hanging on the back and not paying the fare

Having a head-sized beer in the most adorable side street off Istiklal called the Flower Passage

This is the Galata Tower, where you can apparently see an incredible view from Istanbul, a fact we can't verify because they closed a minute before we arrived

Walking the Galata Bridge at sunset

Sunset pano

This is the Aya Sofya at night. My advanced Arabic skills (or Google) deciphers this as a Muslim greeting used in celebration of Ramadan. 

Turkey has truly been such an incredibly diverse, amazing, surprise-filled leg of the trip and I had the best time here!  Again, am very sad to be leaving (especially because there are so many more cities I want to see!!)  Turkey has so, so much to offer, and I can't speak highly enough of all the great people we've met.

Bye, Turkey!  Bye, Istanbul!

On a side note, Rick Steves needs to hire me as his personal promoter/hype man

Next stop: Israel!

Istanbul, Part 2: I Can't Stop Saying The Word Harem

As it was Sam's last day in Istanbul (cries), we packed everything we could into Day 2.  Seriously. Everything.  

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• Started the day visiting Topkapi Palace, the royal residence where the Ottoman sultans lived for 400 some years.  The palace is really cool because it didn't have an initial layout or plan and it wasn't all built at once, so every successive sultan would add or change parts as time went on - which means it's a blend of the different styles of architecture/design and is a good snapshot of a lot of eras cobbled together. The grounds surrounding the Palace are gorgeous, and the interior has all the different residences and structures and kitchens and apartments and courtyards and mosques and fountains and administration buildings and terraces that a sultan would need. Oh, and a HAREM. Which was my favorite part.

Inside the harem. The tilework was SO PRETTY. Inside the harem lived the sultan's mother, wives, concubines, their servants and children, and eunuchs who watched over the women. It was estimated that the harem could house thousands

Unplanned, but everyone looks shocked to be in the harem. In front of the pretty tilework

Sam and I are being royal in front of the throne in the harem. Selfie stick = my scepter, obviously

View of the Bosphorus from one of the palace balconies

Another palace courtyard, another gorgeous Bosphorus view

• After lunch we shopped at Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, a huge covered marketplace of indoor shops selling anything your heart desires.  It's so gigantic that it's sectioned off into sections, like all rugs are sold in one area, jewelry in another, etc., and you can spend hours winding through all its crazy little passageways. It's very cool but also very tourist-y - you can get the same souvenir trinkets at numerous stalls, and they are all radically different prices. 

Grand Bazaar

• Later on, we walked about 10-15 minutes down the road to another famous market, the Spice Market, which is slightly less touristy and traditionally has had a focus on spices (huge spice bins, teas, baklava, Turkish delights, etc.) - which was so fun - but it also still has fun souvenirs for tourists as well (at lower prices, I noticed).  To be honest, I did prefer the Spice Market a little more than the Grand Bazaar.

Spice Market

• One of Drew's friends had sent an e-mail suggesting we feed pigeons in front of the New Mosque, right outside the Spice Market.  Watching animals eat is in the top 10 of my most favorite activities, so I was the only one enthused about this. However, apparently this might be an activity best reserved for the mornings, because by the time we got there around mid-evening, the ground was littered with uneaten seed and the pigeons were fat and completely uninterested.

Eat your food, darn ungrateful pigeons

• Another suggestion from this list was to go down to the water and try a typical street food item called a balik ekmek (or a grilled fish sandwich) at the waterfront. It was cool - they have these tiny boats tied up to the harbor, and you go choose your fish that's been freshly caught, and they grill it and shove it into a sandwich for you and season it with lemon. It's kind of delicious.  Most people were also drinking one of two drink options: lemonade, or this bright hot pink pickle juice with pickled veggies floating around inside.  We tried both - pink pickle juice, not my thing.

Drinking lemonade & pink pickle juice, and eating a balik ekmek

• We topped off Sam's last night by heading to the new district Beyoglu and going down Istiklal Street (heaps and heaps of bars/restaurants/stores).  Istiklal Street is SO HAPPENING - it's totally trendy, and super packed - kind of like Times Square with the lights and the crowds, but not just terrible tourist things.  All the shopping, eating, dessert places, bars, etc. that you can think of. We had dinner at a rooftop called 360, that had sweeping views of Istanbul

Walking down Istiklal Street

View of Istanbul from 360's rooftop

And then later the restaurant turned into a nightclub and all these weird creepy performers came out

• Our guidebook recommended a dessert spot off Istiklal called Mado. They had an entire section devoted to baklava. So naturally, I got an ice cream to eat while I waited in the baklava line, and then got an assortment of baklava. It was so delicious, but unsure I needed to have both the ice cream and the baklava assortment tray.....

So much baklava

My assorted tray of baks

Fun Facts of the Day:

• Topkapi Palace had its own giant DESSERT KITCHEN. For mass-producing all the desserts. Want.
• Moving from Rick Steves' Eastern Europe guidebook to Lonely Planet for Turkey has truly shown me that Rick Steves is a million, trillion times better. I don't know how I will ever buy Lonely Planet again. Why won't Rick Steves go to Asia. I love him. He is king.

Luckily our hotel offered Rick Steves' guidebook for Istanbul. RICK, I LOVE YOUR WORK

• My guidebook claimed the right way to eat baklava is without a fork and just popping it into your mouth with your thumb and forefinger. My guidebook is wrong (it's the Lonely Planet obviously, not Rick. Rick is never wrong) . It turns out incredibly sticky.  However, baklava = delicious.

Istanbul, Part 1: Mosques and Romantic Boat Trips

After spending a week in all these tiny charming cities in Turkey, Sam and I prepped ourselves to head to Istanbul for a couple days.  

What It's All About:

It's HUGE.  Istanbul is Turkey's largest city, with a population of ~16 million (crazy if you think about it, since NYC is about 9 million).  It's like NYC, but with very distinctly Turkey qualities: there are mosques literally everywhere, and it's a bustling, crazy mix of West and East.  You'll just as easily find women covered head to toe in burqas, as you will find women wearing completely Western fashion and name brand clothing. People are everywhere. And there are a million neighborhoods, each with their own flair and trendiness and such.

Istanbul is divided by the Bosphorus Strait, which separates the Europe side of Turkey from the Asian side of Turkey.  It's beautiful because so much of Istanbul has a waterfront, as a result.  

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• Sam and I were welcomed to Istanbul with the longest/most nauseating shuttle ride from the airport, then checked into our hotel and hit the ground running (#doallthethings). We first headed to the Blue Mosque, one of the most famous mosques in the city. It was built in the 1600s and is well-known for its grand size and design (and fun fact, it has 6 minarets instead of the usual 4).  It's still a functioning mosque today, therefore you have to cover up to enter (fun fact #2, they will provide you with headscarfs and skirts if you don't have your own, and the ones they provide kind of look like doctor's scrubs. Everyone looked like they were some kind of doctor/Muslim/tourist combo).

Blue Mosque exterior

Blue Mosque interior

Stylish mosque attire 

The Blue Mosque also has one of the largest courtyards

• Then we met up with my friend Drew, who arrived in Istanbul from the States and is joining me for the Middle East leg of my trip. I met Drew earlier this year on a trip to Colombia with my mom. 
• The three of us went to the Hagia Sophia, a church-turned-mosque-turned-museum. The original church was built in the 537 A.D. (!) by Emperor Justinian, then it was converted to a mosque in 1453 when the Ottomans took over, then turned into a museum in 1935.  It was incredibly cool because the building today has hybrid Islamic/Christian parts - for example, there was originally gorgeous mosaic tilework depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary, etc. - which was covered over in plaster when the building was turned into a mosque. But after it became a museum, they uncovered a lot of the mosaic. So today, you'll see this pretty gold mosaic of Jesus, and right next it will be an Islamic pulpit or prayer mihrab or Arabic lettering that was added on later when it was converted to a mosque.  It's kind of a beautiful contrast. 

The Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofya)

Sam, me and Drew

Pretty mosaic work inside. In this one, the king and queen are presenting cash and gifts to Baby J

Some church parts, some mosque parts

• Then we upped the romance factor with a 2-hour sunset cruise on the Bosphorus Strait. It's so cool getting to see all of Istanbul's millions of neighborhoods. It was kind of like NYC's Circle Line Cruise, but Turkish.   You also got to see how many grand, beautiful mosques there are in the city, as well as some incredibly baller waterfront homes. 

We didn't have time for dinner beforehand, so we smuggled kebabs on board. Romance is alive, people

On a boat! Sam may still be eating kebab

Sunset over the Blue Mosque

And then we went to a shisha cafe and there was a whirling dervish. These guys spin around (and around and around) as part of their faith for a certain sect of Islam. And he never gets dizzy

Fun Facts of the Day:

• The Hagia Sophia (for as amazing opulent and crazy huge/intricate it is) took under 6 years to build. Because they used 10,000 workers (read: slaves)
• Istanbul feels very different from the rest of Turkey. There are a lot more people hassling you to take their tour, or sit in their restaurant, or buy a rug (are rugs especially popular to buy here??  How on earth do you get those things home?!).  I guess that's pretty typical for such a large city swarming with so many tourists, but the rise in aggressiveness factor took some getting used to.  It's obviously still an AMAZING city - so much hubub!  Did I use the word hubub correctly....?  Is that a word?
• Turkish lesson of the day: "Please" is "lutfen" - pronounced loot-fan.  Because it's hot outside, and maybe you want to steal someone's fan because you're sweltering - LOOTFAN  
• The Bosphorus Strait is a gorgeous blue color but apparently it's full of jellyfish and garbage.  My Lonely Planet said so.  But improving!

Cappadocia, Turkey, Part 2: THE HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE

Moment of the Day:
Getting straight to the point. This section comes first today because it was truly one of the most incredible things I've ever done - hot-air ballooning before sunrise over the gorgeousness that is Cappadocia.



Our company came and picked us up for a 4AM departure (ouch!).  Hot-air ballooning is probably the most popular activity that tourists come to Cappadocia for - you can hot-air balloon here 300 days of the year, which is incredibly unusual. However, the winds usually pick up during the day, and oftentimes the balloon rides have to all be completely cancelled if the winds are too strong (which apparently happened on the day before we arrived).

As a way of limiting air traffic, only 100 balloons are allowed up in the morning.  It's adorable because all the balloons start super close together, but then as you drift upwards, everyone kind of goes on their own merry way.

ARE YOU DYING YET

I have to say, floating about Cappadocia in the early morning hours, watching the sun rise over the crazy rock formations, was one of the most breathtaking things I've ever seen in my entire life. Sam and I kept commenting that the entire thing felt surreal - it didn't feel like real life.

I maybe took a million photos, and I swear I tried to condense them down as much as possible.

4:30AM

All the balloons lift off

Look how high we are! Max height is 1,800 meters above sea level, which is just about where we were at in this photo.  Our guide proudly pointed out that we were the highest balloon of them all

Honestly, photos don't do this justice

The sun has now risen

And then we floated down a little and this cow was staring at us

Put this on your bucket list ASAP

Afterwards, the guide gave us all champagne and then certificates (for doing nothing but standing in the basket, I guess?)  Sam remarked how adorable it was because they read off all our names and after each one, the entire crew would applaud and yell "Bravo!"  Despite the fact that they probably do this every day of their life....it was so cute

Cheers-ing in front of our balloon basket

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• Despite the 3:30AM wakeup, and the fact that we didn't get back to our hotel until 7:30AM, and the fact that our hotel man "did not recommend we do both the ballooning and a full-day tour on the same day" because it would be exhausting, Sam and I signed up for a full-day 8-hour tour starting at 9:30AM to visit all these other sites in Cappadocia. Because we're crazy. And that's why we're friends. DO ALL THE THINGS.

First on the tour: overlook onto Goreme

• Our next stop on the tour was an underground cave city. There are a ton of these around Cappadocia. We went to a city called Derinkuyu. It was believed that groups of people that were persecuted lived in the underground cities, to hide from enemies and such. Derinkuyu is over a couple thousand years old, goes more than 20 stories below the earth, and could hold up to 20,000 people. It was like crazy mole people underground land. Or like those ant farms you used to have as a kid, but in life-size form.  There were kitchens, and bedrooms and small tiny passageways that funneled from room to room.  HOW COOL IS THAT.

The underground-ness kept the temperature cool year-round. There were also a handful of ventilation shafts to the surface so they could breathe and cook and stuff

Funneling through one of the tiny tiny passageways. Apparently these people were super small

They were so small, in fact, that a girl on our tour who was over 6 feet tall had to be bent at a 90 degree angle the entire walk through the passages

• Then hiked the Ihlara Valley, a very pretty trek down in a valley by the river where people (surprise!) used to reside in the caves along the valley.

A cave monastery in the  Ihlara Valley. These are the old-school frescoes inside

• Visited Selime Monastery - a cave monastery at the top of a cliff bluff - because apparently monasteries can't be easy to reach!? It was kind of an aggressive climb.

Selime Monastery

A cathedral inside the monastery

Meal of the Day:

To cap off the longest and most activity-filled day in all of history, we went to a local restaurant called Dibek, which is known for one of Cappadocia's popular traditional dishes: pottery kebab (testi kebap).  They take meat or vegetables, seal it in a clay pot, and then slow cook the pot over the fire for hours. Then when ready to eat, they break it open with a hammer, and voila! Pottery kebab. 

Our man getting ready to hammer open our pottery kebab, which we had to call and order early that morning so it was ready by dinnertime

Hammering it open

Pouring onto the plate

Entire spread

We sat on the floor and drank out of clay goblets, which I took as a sign to mean that the entire experience was totally authentic

It was so, so delicious.  Kind of like an olden-day slow cooker.  Our hotel man was telling us that only a couple places do this kind of thing authentically anymore because of the effort involved - most places cook the meat/veggies beforehand, then throw it into a clay pot and break it open for show.  Dibek, however, still does it old school. Nom.

Sam and I were so sad to leave Cappadocia - it truly is adventure-rugged-outdoor land, and there are SO MANY interesting things to do and see and uhhhh who doesn't love a good cave building?!  So, so great.  Next up, the insanity of the big city - Istanbul!