Istanbul Was Constantinople

---

Turkey might as well be on another continent, oh wait, it is. That’s right folks, I just got back from Turkey where only ten percent of the country is in Europe, and the remaining ninety percent is in Asia.

The night of departure, we had to be up at 3AM, so me and a group of drowsy people didn’t bother going to sleep. At four in the morning on Tuesday we were on a bus heading towards Rome. At ten we arrived in Roma Fiumicino airport and left at 11:40. We arrived in Istanbul at 3:15, and got on another plane at 5 in the evening for Izmir, the second biggest city in Turkey, and landed in Asia at 6:05. We got to our hotel, a five star resort, at 7:30 to a bizarre dinner. The food in Turkey is generally indescribable if I try and compare it to Western foods. It’s a mix of Greek and Middle Eastern food, involves rice with meats, a common appetizer is rice, spices, and lemon wrapped in olive leaves. A common dessert is either fruit, or baklava, a kind of crispy bread soaked in honey. The airports for the most part are modern. The Loves, (our faculty family,) say they saw a great improvement on the entire Turkish infrastructure since they were last there fifteen years ago. So our first day entirely consisted of traveling. That night we explored the hotel, which included going down to the beach and swimming in the Aegean Sea.

The next morning I woke up to a view from my room of a beautiful bay opening to the sea. Breakfast consisted of breakfast meats with eggs, which are made with more salt in Turkey, and sweet treats. We first took a bus to the Temple of Artemis, of which only the foundations and a few columns remain. Turkey is a land of earthquakes apparently, and ruins have a habit of crumbling. This temple was once one of the wonders of the ancient world, it was huge. We then took a short trip to the ancient city of Ephesus. Here is almost an entire city abandoned long ago because of a retreating sea and a malaria epidemic. It’s large, it took us about two hours to walk around and listen to our tour guide explain details about things. This was a city ruled by Rome, and the statues, architecture, and public works of art show it. It was also incredibly wealthy, as it was right on the sea two thousand years ago, and it was the visiting place and home of more than one of Jesus’ apostles, plus his mother Mary. We then went to the Basilica of St. John, one of the first Christian churches ever built, and certainly the first big Christian complex of buildings. Here we saw the tomb of St. John, though which of two possible Johns from the New Testament it actually is, is unknown. Here we heard the call to prayer. Turkey, being a Muslim country, announces the required daily prayers over loud speakers every day. Though since it is a secular country comparatively, only thirty percent of its population actually practices Islam, it only announces three of the five necessary daily prayers. Here the prayers echoed across the surrounding hills in one of the most moving ways to show devotion to God I’ve ever seen. Knowing that all around the country at that moment people were cleaning themselves and getting on their knees and praying towards Mecca, as they do five times a day, made me feel ashamed for not being a poverty-sworn monk and devoting my life to God. We then visited a factory where they make rugs of every kind, but we got to see the process of making a silk rug, from silk worm larva egg to rug, which was awesome. We then got a presentation of all the different types of rugs they have there and we drank Turkish apple tea (great stuff) and Turkish coffee (even greater stuff.) We finally went to a place where they make ceramics and saw much of the same with ceramics. We got to the Izmir airport at 6:15 and departed at 7:20, arrived in Istanbul at 8:20, and checked into our hotel at nine. Overall it was an extremely full day.

Izmir itself is a city trying to modernize itself within a third world country. Everywhere I saw people that looked like Mexicans, (I was told that I looked Turkish many a time, and people would talk to me in Turkish randomly, except for one man that guessed I was Mexican, I don’t know how,) in a city that looked like a medium sized Mexican city. Since it was next to the sea, it reminded me a lot of Rosarito or Ensenada. The whole country has a sense that it has been around the block a few times. These are a people with one of the biggest history books in the world; Turkey itself has been ruled by 18 different countries, including Greece, Rome, and the Ottoman Empire. The people are the same, but their souls feel older. Their customs are ancient, their land is ancient, and their point of view on the world is unique. The land feels like its faltering under the weight of thousands and thousands of years of memories, stories, bloody battles, romantic dramas, and happy celebrations. I thought Italy was an international experience, but after having been in Turkey, I realize how Western and close to home Italy actually is. Turkey is incredible when it comes to the language (beautiful but indistinguishable,) the people (nice as can be, they all know ten different languages and seem as if they know the world, though few have the money to travel outside their country,) the food, (spicy, sweet, salty, bitter, hot, cold,) and its weather, (sunny but freezing, drizzling but warm.)

Thursday in Istanbul was full of more great and new experiences. We first went to the Church of the Holy Savior of Chora, where there are some of the oldest and biggest frescoes in the world. I took plenty of pictures of everything. We then went to the Blue Mosque, which is named such because of the blue tiles all around the interior. The color clue in Islamic culture is the color of holy things, Allah, and protection from demonic influences. People with blue eyes are protected from the devil, and everywhere in Turkey people either wear the “blue eye” on their necklaces or have it on their wall in shops. The outside of the mosque is so beautiful, but the inside is more interesting. We all had to take off our shoes to enter the holy place, which wasn’t pleasant in the near freezing temperature, but the carpet inside was quite comfy to walk on. Islam forbids religious images in mosques, and any image of Allah, Mohammed, or any other holy thing. The inside, therefore, is starkly different from the Catholic churches I’ve been in all throughout Europe. Islam was created trying to separate itself from Christianity right from the beginning, Muslims do not believe in praying to idols or images, such as Catholics are prone to do to crucifixes or images of the Virgin Mary. They study the Old Testament, and see that such things are not approved by God. The interior of the church is consequently vast and empty, yet still beautiful and breathtaking just by the size and scope of the place. Islam is a beautiful religion, and not just because of the Blue Mosque, a devoted Muslim’s first priority in life is to constantly be close to Allah, done through praying five times a day towards Mecca and fasting for forty days out of the year. Christians could learn a thing or two from them if they weren’t so busy concentrating on the ugly side of their religion.

While I’m on that topic, let me take the time to spout off some new found feelings about women in Turkish culture. Most women don’t where any coverings at all, about a quarter to half can be seen wearing head wraps. The entire time I was in the country, I saw two women total wearing burqas, the full-body, and all black outfits that are more the norm in other Islamic countries. As soon as I saw them, I thought that it was beautiful. These women live in a country where it is by no means required of them to wear these things; they actually stand out in a crowd. There was even a recent controversy in the news about a university in Istanbul banning head wraps all together, and women wanting to wear them. They willingly wear these garments because of their faith and belief that it is a husband’s pleasure only to view their physical beauty. This is an unfamiliar kind of devotion to one’s husband to be sure, but in a mostly secular country, their devotion is warming. Sure I know that this can be a naïve view and that they might be forced to wear these clothes, or that I didn’t see more women dressed as such because they also aren’t allowed to leave the house, but again this trip was all about seeing the beautiful side of Islamic culture for me.

After the Blue Mosque, we went directly to the Hagia Sophia, which has been a church, a mosque, a church again, and finally a museum. The doors really got to me. They used to have crosses on them, but the arms of the crosses had been ripped off and only the outlines that they left on the doors remained. What a sign of the pass of time and the history behind a place. The Hagia Sophia is huge, in fact the Blue Mosque was built right across the street because the sultan at the time was ashamed to be so outshined by Christianity. I can’t say much else about it except tell you to look at the pictures to understand it.

After a lunch at a local café, we went to the Topkapi Palace, the home of the old royal family, now a giant museum. It started with the front yard, which is basically a park. Then what I think was a great house for the sultan, his extended family, his hundred or so concubines, and their children as well. Needless to say it’s a pretty damn big house. The now-museum also includes the treasury, which includes jewel encrusted swords, jewel encrusted armor, jewel encrusted baby’s crib, jewel encrusted jewels, and the biggest pure diamond in the world. Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed. In the relics section, or what I liked to call the “Yeah Right, Uh-Huh” section, there was the staff of Moses, the tooth and hair of Mohammed, and the sword of King David, so… basically none of it was really credible. Unless the staff of Moses happened to survive thousands of years, (keep in mind it’s made of wood, which is a natural substance which is bio-degradable,) to end up looking like a plastic replica of a piece of wood. I was giggling on the inside.

From there we went to the Grand Bazaar, which is forty nine acres of over five thousand stores. Food stores, jewelry stores, hookah stores, clothes stores, fake designer stores, and I’m sure somewhere in there, there must have been a Honda dealership. It’s gigantic, and I bought myself a cross necklace, which is something I’ve wanted to buy in Italy, but I waited to buy one in Istanbul so I could say that I bought it in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.

You are saying to yourself, “Okay Elias, today you’ve gone to the Church of the Holy Savior of Chora, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, that really big palace, and that really big bazaar, you surely cannot have done any more that day.” Well you’d be bloody wrong.

Easily the highlight of the entire week was the Turkish bath, which I will now describe in detail. We got to the building which they told us is on the list of “1000 Places You Have to Go before You Die,” so I guess check another one off the list. It is the most historical and most famous public bath in Turkey, called the Cemberlitas Hamami. So we walked in and the men and women were sent to different parts of the building (darn.) We left our clothes in a room and came down the stairs wearing sandals and an unnervingly small towel. I walked into a surprisingly big sauna with a big marble block, almost waist tall, in the middle where men were lying down naked but for their towels. To the sides of the sauna were smaller rooms with faucets where groups of men were sitting and talking and pouring water on themselves. There were men walking around the block, and men on the edge of the block being washed by other men. I proceeded to lie down on the marble block because that’s what the other guys that were there before me were doing. After a while of sauna goodness, a middle aged Turkish man tapped my foot, summoning me up to the edge of the block, where I gave him a packaged wash cloth they had given me as well as a small yellow plastic thing that said “Massage” on it, which I had a good feeling about. The nice Turk proceeded to pour close to boiling water on me with a bucket, I then flipped on my back and he started massaging me from top to bottom, I flipped on my stomach and once again he rubbed me and cracked my joints. I sat up on the edge of the marble and waited until he poured a bucket of cold water on me, which felt FANTASTIC in the sauna. I got on my back again and he rubbed me with the now soapy washcloth, totally soaping me up and scrubbing me down, and again on my stomach. He washed me off with another bucket of hot water and led me to another room where he sat me down in front of a small fountain and shampooed my hair and rubbed my head. I thanked him very much and went to shower off. I then went to find my friends that had taken over one of the small rooms and were lounging. I sat there for about an hour, pouring hot and cold water on myself with a small bowl and hanging out with the guys. I was pretty relaxed. I got dressed; all in all we were there for two hours.

That night, we went to a bar near our hotel. Bars in Turkey are different, since Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. They still serve it for tourists and non-practicing Turks, but the most consumed thing in bars are hookahs. We hung out there on couches and cushions for the night and talked to some local Turkish girls, evidence of the secular nature of the country.

The next morning we visited an Egyptian Spice Bazaar, which not surprisingly contained more spice shops than the Grand Bazaar. The whole place smelled strongly of foreign things, meat, fish, and fruit. Here I bought Turkish Delight, which was at almost every store. From here we boarded a boat that would take us on a tour of the Bosphorus Straight, which is the body of water that separates not only the two halves of Istanbul, but also Europe and Asia. For an hour and a half we were in between two continents, touring the city by water. We landed on the Asian side of the city and had a lunch of fish, fish, and slightly bad tasting other assorted foods of an indescribable nature.

We walked around the Asian side of the city for an hour, at which point I stopped by a Turkish Starbucks to get some good ol’ Turkish-trying-to-impersonate-American-trying-to-impersonate-Italian/Turkish/South American/Asian coffee. It was great. We went back to have dinner on the European side of the city before going to the Oriental Express Railroad Station where the Whirling Dervishes perform. This is a group of men that pray while listening to music, and spin in circles in various patterns while they pray. For about an hour we heard Islamic psalms of love and beauty while watching men spin in circles. Definitely moving when you think that they’re praying the whole time and this is how they show their devotion to Allah.

The next morning we got up at four in the morning to head back to Rome, followed by a long bus ride to Florence. I did so much traveling this week that I nearly finished my book.

---

Photos

Blue Mosque
With an obelisk brought from Egypt.

Blue Mosque
No shoes!

Boat Ride
Some of the guys