Exloring the City

---

Merhaba, Türkçe Biliyormusun?

This has been a common question we have been answering since the beginning of our Turkish classes. Hello, do you speak Turkish? The answer usually being a despondent "Çok Az, Türkçe Biiyorum". We have finished with our crash course in Turkish, and now get to stumble through a language, that we otherwise wouldn't have to worry about. It makes ordering much more interesting though. We have been able to explore Istanbul much more thoroughly over this past week. Our classes begin at nine everyday, and are about a half-hour walk from our Hotel, so we have generally eaten breakfast and are out of the hotel by a quarter after. Class ends at four thirty, and we have the rest of the day for leisure. Generally trips to the grocery store, Akmerkez (the large mall across the street), or lounging around the hotel are in order.

On Thursday we took a bus, the lightrail, and a Taxi to travel out to a Church in Chora, which supposedly had the best preserved Byzantine Mosaics. Mary Griep, a professor from St. Olaf was planning on drawing the church and was taking time to photograph it. The Church was built in the 12th century, and while it appeared quite old, it was obvious that quite a bit of work had gone into preserving the beautiful and intricate art left behind. I was told that Chora meant "Country", and at one point this church stood in the middle of nowhere, far outside the walls of Istanbul at the time. However, upon looking around the area, this was not evident. The city had expanded right around the site and we were still far from being "Outside the City".

Afterwards Mary and her husband Randy brought us to the fish market for dinner, where the restaurant choices seem endless. If you arrive before 8 finding a table is pretty easy. The restaurant owners and managers stand out in front, menu in hand, convincing you that their establishment is the best. A handful of Americans is probably an easy target as well as a good catch for them too. After deciding on a restaurant, we chose our appetizers from a large tray, and took in the nightlife. Our meal consisted of stewed fish, ground eggplant with garlic, sea bass, and an assortment of vegetable and bread. Walking back up the hill to catch the light rail was an experience, as we took in all the restaurants and nightlife around us (and only on a Thursday night!) It became more surreal as we were waiting for our train. While people, cars, and trains where whistling by the final call to prayer began playing at the mosque right next to us. Eventually we could hear it echoing all across the city from every other mosque.

Friday we had class as usual, but we were also able to convince our professor Binnaz to bring us to a hookah bar. She thought this would be a good way to 'practice' our Turkish, and agreed. We arrived at the Grand Bazaar where we were served tea. It was not nearly as smoky of an environment as I thought it would have been, and was a good way to get off the beaten path a little bit. Afterwards it was time to split up from the professors and we were off to Taksim to go to dinner to celebrate a birthday.

Saturday brought us our first excursion. We hopped on a bus at 8:30 in the morning to bring us to a beach in Şile on the Asian side of the country right on the Black Sea. I'm sure this will be the first of many beach trips, but it was great just to be able to sit back and not have to think. We were told however, that the Black Sea could be pretty dangerous, and we were not able to venture out very far into the water. The day was relatively nice, however later in the day we were treated with some very rough wind that got sand into EVERYTHING. Oh well, as I told Jenny this was probably just a taste of the amount of sand we were soon to encounter. Everyone came back into the Hotel slightly pink and pretty tired. We are preparing for more lectures for the next week, as well a Chuck's class before we begin our excursion the next week.

---

Photos

Restaurants near the Fish Market
While dining up a level, it was easy to observe the night life in the restaurants near the fish market.