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Published: October 22nd 2012
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Blue Mosque
A view of the outside of the Blue Mosque Merhaba! (Or hello in Turkish!) Today was quite the day. I feel like I am both physically and mentally tired - but in a good way! Before our group tour in the afternoon, Mom and I ventured out to see the Blue Mosque because the rest of the family had already gotten a chance to see it before we arrived. We did not have a tour guide, which was unfortunate for two reasons - the first being that the knowledge I will share about it in this blog largely comes from my Istanbul guidebook and the second being that we didn't realize we would not be able to inside at the time that we arrived due to it being a time for prayer. (FYI - Prayer occurs 5 times a day, so we did not have good odds anyway, but the cool thing is that the whole city can hear when it's time to pray because a call rings out from the minarets loud enough for the entire city to hear.) Anyway, all we got to see today was the outside of the Blue Mosque, which is quite beautiful. The information that I am about to share I must credit to
Street Candy
Weird goopy street candy that we bought from a vendor - surprisingly good! the "National Geographic Traveler: Istanbul & Western Turkey" guidebook (I don't need to get sued for plagiarism) - The Blue Mosque was built during the time of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Ahmet I (which explains the name of the area we are staying in - Sultanahmet) in order to appease God for a bunch of battles he lost. The mosque has six minarets which is unusual for a mosque and apparently was presumptuous because the holiest mosque in Mecca had six minarets as well. That is about all I know - it is quite beautiful from the outside and the domes of the different sections of the mosque are all blue, which is where I am assuming the name came from. The nice man who informed us that the mosque was closed brought us into the courtyard portion of the mosque, offered to take our picture, and then tried to insist that we follow him back to his store. Nothing is for free, people. After promises that we would try to come sometime later, we wandered around, took pictures, tried street candy (the picture explains this better than I can), and then met the group up to do a
Basilica Cistern
Underground water holding area held up by pillars tour of an underground cistern.
The underground cistern, or the Basilica Cistern, is located directly underneath the Hagia Sophia (the church/mosque/museum we saw yesterday) and it was built between the 5th and 6th centuries AD by Emperor Justinian. This was very cool - it was built to be able to hold drinking water for the city in the event that the city got sieged and in it's heyday it would hold up to 100,000 tons of water! Today, it is at a very low level but there are 336 pillars which hold up the 105,000 square foot area. One of the coolest things about the cistern (besides the fact that there are giant man-eating fish swimming around in the dark and murky waters just inches below our feet) is that they recently discovered two Medusa heads. Medusa, a snake-haired, stone-turning Greek mythological Gorgon, was a pagan creature and once paganism was out and Christianity was in, pagan marble statues no longer had much use. Well, the Turks were being green back in the 5th century and recycled the Medusa heads to help hold up their pillars and believe it or not, these heads were only discovered 20 years ago.
Medusa
Ancient Medusa-head used to hold up pillar in cistern Very cool.
The next stop on today's journey was a very odd, but surprisingly very educational one. In what I thought was a stop to use a clean bathroom was actually a stop into a Turkish rug store. Apparently our tour guide knew the owner and because Aunt Karen had expressed an interest in talking to someone about Turkish rugs, he had us stop in to get a little lesson. We all sat around this big rectangular room and learned more than you ever thought there was to know about Turkish rugs. For example - there are three different types of fibers they use in rugs (all natural) - wool, cotton, and silk. Wool has the least amount of detail and therefore is the least expensive with silk having the most detail and being the most expensive. We watched a woman work on a silk rug (she demonstrated the "double-knot" technique - I am so learned in rugs now) and it was amazing. A whopping 645 knots go into one square inch! It would take her a year and a half to complete a 2-foot by 4-foot silk double-knotted rug which is just craziness. My other crazy useful Turkish
Rug Store
The whole Abrams clan at the rug store! rug fact is how to tell if a rug was truly hand-made - and there is only one way. Any guesses? K, I'll tell you - if you turn the rug around it will be a totally different color/shade! The angle of how the knots are tied makes it change color! We all thought it was pretty cool and now no one can fool you into buying a fake rug - you are welcome. As they lectured, men would come out and show us different types of rugs which we all figured out a little too late was a big ruse to make us buy their lovely handmade products - Aunt Karen/Uncle Jeff & Grandma/Grandpa fell for it and the Turkish rug men were happy - but all in all, everyone agreed it was a cool detour.
After more hours than we want to admit in the rug store, we finally headed over to the infamous Grand Bazaar. Ok, so normally when I think of a bazaar, I think of a bunch of vendors selling colorful things and lots of haggling happening all over the place. That is exactly what the Grand Bazaar is except multiply that times like
Grand Bazaar
Just one of many streets in the Grand Bazaar 400. This thing was so incredibly huge - there are over 3,500 shops covering 64 streets!!! Seriously nuts. It was like an enclosed city of shops ranging from rugs to leather - jewelry to scarves - lanterns to pottery that takes over this 15th century gigantic communal area. After getting over the initial shock of how large this place was and after we all managed to get lost from each other (in pairs thankfully), Mom and I braved the place on our own. Now bartering: I do not particularly enjoy the art of a good haggle, but I can do it if absolutely necessary. My mother on the other had, try as she may, is probably the worst barterer/haggler I have ever seen. I love her to death, but this is not her cup of tea. (Actually neither is trying to speak foreign languages - but that's another story for another time.) Somehow we made it out alive and actually got some pretty awesome Turkish pottery for some pretty low prices (you're welcome, Mom - love you). There is no doubt, though, that I was pretty mentally exhausted from this day.
We headed back to the hotel, freshened up and went to dinner at another lovely Turkish restaurant called Pasazade. Turkish food still proves to be extremely delicious. I still haven't tried anything I haven't liked. We got more of the meze (small plates) which was very tasty and I got a red lentil soup which was really good. My chicken main dish didn't disappoint either. Interesting side-note: Bread. They absolutely load you up with bread. At the beginning of both of the dinners that we've had, everyone gets three pieces of bread to start. You get a large slice of olive bread and two weird little rolls. You eat one piece of bread, they bring you over another. I'm pretty sure I had six pieces of bread tonight. So much for no-carbs. Another side-note that I forgot to mention before: I got the opportunity to try Raki, which is a Turkish drink similar to the Greek Ouzo - it sort of tastes like licorice, but it was surprisingly bearable.
Anyway, it is definitely time for bed. I am exhausted, but looking forward to tomorrow where I think we are going to try to explore the Spice Bazaar and some small Mosques and then meet up with our guide for a tour of a museum/city walls. So far, I'm absolutely loving Istanbul! 😊 Iyi geceler!
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Marjorie
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Glad you're having fun!
Hey Jesserca! I'm enjoying reading your posts so far. I'm quite jealous of your trip, though, it sounds like you're having a great time. I'm sad you'll be missing the Halloween festivities, but I know you'll be having much more fun where you are. You'll have to show me all the pics when you get back. I want to see the Hagia Sophia because I definitely remember that from Art History too. And that raki stuff you had sounds like the arak that Andrew and his family drink...I think it's nasty lol. Then again, I'm not much of a licorice fan. Well have fun dear. Keep up the posts - I'm learning a lot! :) Miss you! Marj