Istanbul was Constantinople

Oooo, this is as painful as getting behind in my journal writing! So much to say, so little time. I think I’ll keep things brief here and if anyone’s interested in more detail, come to my Turkish feast and slide show when I get back.
So, I said goodbye to Cheshme, hopped on a plane and landed in Istanbul last Wednesday afternoon for my 4 days off. Guys, I fell in love with Turkey. Up until my time off I had really enjoyed Turkey, but I hadn’t quite understood why people had raved about it to me when I told them I was coming here. But now I understand completely. This is my true story.

Wednesday night I hung around at the house and rested, which felt great. Vera, the Moldovian housekeeper who doesn’t speak a word of English came up to my room with her envelope of pictures of her family and we spent half an hour communicating through hand gestures and a little bit of online translation help. It was such a sweet experience. This woman is here for 6 months at a time, away from her family and friends, cooped up in a house working her tail off every day. Her husband and two kids and precious granddaughter are at home in Moldovia and she’s working to hopefully save up enough money to get them out of Moldovia someday. It sounds like Moldovia is a mess. Most of the housekeepers/nannies/maids that I’ve met here who work for wealthy Turkish families are from Moldovia. It’s a whole different life. I feel so, SO blessed when I put the opportunities I have next to theirs. And Moldovia isn’t the only country like that. Mary Jane, the nanny from the Philippines who also works her tail off is a college graduate and certified teacher. Yet here she is doing hard manual labor and watching spoiled rich kids for a living. There’s just no money to be made in her country. I came here for the experience and the fun…they came here for survival. I feel a little sheepish. And mostly blessed, blessed, BLESSED. But I digress…

Thursday I slept in and showered and then Sidika sent me to a mall here…but it wasn’t just a mall. This was like a small planet or star-destroyer community or something. I could not get over how HUGE this shopping center was. You can’t even imagine. It would probably take you 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other going in a straight line at a fairly good pace. It was pretty sickening. Thousands of posh stores, mostly high-class American ones that were all selling the same stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff. I didn’t stay long…hailed a cab and went home, where I spent the evening figuring out my tours for the next three days. I decided on a day tour of old Istanbul for Friday and a day tour of Troy on Saturday. That was the plan. Here’s what went down:

Friday day tour was RAD. Holy smokes, I love Istanbul. I was on a tour with probably 30 other folks, led by a man named Erol. We started in the Roman Hippodrome where Erol proceeded to tell us the history of Istanbul. It was Constantinople, you know. Anyway, very cool history. In the Hippodrome you can see a legitimate Egyptian obelisk and a wannabe Egyptian obelisk built by a Turkish sultan to try and one-up the Egyptians (didn’t really work), as well as part of a cool bronze sculpture with a really cool story that I can’t remember right now.
After that we walked over the Hagia Sophia. Too. Dang. Cool. This was one of those experiences where you come face to face with something you’ve learned about and heard about your whole life and can’t quite come to terms with the fact that you’re actually seeing it at last. The building is a miracle. The Turks tried to duplicate it many times and successfully built large mosques designed after it, but were never able to build one quite so big, not for lack of trying though. So this mosque was built by the Byzantines under Justinian in 537 and served as a Christian Basilica for nearly 1000 years unitl the Turkish Sultan Mehmed captured Istanbul and converted the church into the Ayasofya mosque in 1453. It served as a mosque for nearly 500 years until the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Christians began to clamor for its return to them. The founder and President of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk (whom I LOVE), decided it should be accessible to all people and so declared it neither a church, nor a mosque, but a museum in 1935. Needless to say, it was a building with loads of history and character…the Muslim aspects and the Christian aspects of it are spectacular and amazing. I’d be happy to tell more to anyone who’s interested, but I think I’ll leave it there for now.

A funny thing at the AyaSofya…a man from India on my tour named Ibriham decided to take it upon himself to become my personal friend and tour guide. He would grab my elbow and pull me around the church, repeating to me every fact that our tour guide had told us in the beginning when we first came in. I think he thought I couldn’t understand Erol’s accent or something, because he literally repeated the ENTIRE tour to me. HAHAHaaaaa. It was so funny and tickled me enormously. I had him take some pictures of me in the church while he was giving me the second tour, none of which even had him in them, and he gave me his business card and asked me to e-mail them to him. Haha. It was so choice.

Next we headed to the Grand Covered Bazaar. Enter Ena and Noreen. Ena, short for Philemena, and Noreen were the two Irish grannies I spent the day with and who I love so, SO much. They just travel the world together because, as they told me, they “don’t have much time left.” On this trip they’re doing Turkey and the Greek islands. They were the best. I had spoken with them a few times during the tour previous to the Grand Bazaar, but when we got to the bazaar and I faced the prospect of entering, by myself for our hour of free time there, this labyrinth of shops and trinkets that one could easily get lost for days in, I shuffled up next to them and asked if I could tag along with them. They graciously accepted me into their party and we headed off. Oh, it was hilarious! These grandmas knew how to work the haggling system and were very quick to tell me that I was no good at haggling at all and showed me how it was done. I just stood back and watched the fun…these ladies had seen the world in all its haggling glory and let me tell you, they were pros. After they took me under their wing at the Bazaar, we were buddies for the rest of the day. They honestly were my favorite part of the day, but seeing the old city was a close second.

The Grand Bazaar concluded our first half of the day and will conclude this entry as well. It’s late and I’m tired after a day of sun on the yacht!!! (More to come!) So stay tuned for the next installment…there’s still so much to tell!