I leave for the airport in T-13 hours.
I can't really believe that, but it's true.
After I leave Athens, I may never come back here, almost certainly never to live here again.
That's also true, and equally unbelievable to me.
I've lived here for three and a half months. I've spent one-eighth of my academic time in college here. Athens may not be home the way that Haverford or Bothell are, but it's still made itself a huge part of my life.
I'll miss it.
There are things that I won't miss, like the pollution and the traffic and the strikes and protests.
But on the whole, I'll miss Athens.
I spent this afternoon on the Acropolis and the surrounding sites like the Areopagus and the Pnyx. Looking out from the top of those hills, I realized that I recognize and can name most of the major buildings that I saw. And not only can I name them, I know about them and have stories about them. In a way, I know Athens better than I know either Philadelphia or Seattle, because I've been here on my own.
I'm almost all packed to go to the airport. I just have to throw in the last incidentals. Packing to go home is never as hard as packing to go away, because at the end of the day I know that I should end up with a bare room.
It's the goodbyes that make going home hard.
There are people here whose friendship I value. And I will probably never see them again after I leave. We can promise to keep in touch, but I know myself; I know that I'm terrible at keeping in touch with people. We'll probably fall out of touch, and that's the way it goes. It makes me sad.
My last night in Athens, and I'm sad tonight.
Tomorrow night I'll be in Seattle (barring any unforeseen circumstances), and I'll be happy to be home.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Greek flag still flies on the Acropolis.
I went out yesterday afternoon to Syntagma and Omonia to see what the damage was. Even after nearly a week to clean up and replace windows, you could still tell that something had happened. There were windows still broken and stores, especially banks, boarded up. The saddest was a department store on Ermou that had been completely burned out. I don't even know what the store was, but it used to have the prettiest lobby, with marble and tile and a big chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It's just a burnt-out shell now, and you can see the ruins of the chandelier still hanging from the ceiling.
But most of the damage has been cleaned up. The city looks almost normal now. Even with the damage that I saw, it was nothing like what I know the city looked like earlier this past week. Shops are open. The buskers are back on Ermou. The Monastiraki flea market is as busy as ever.
And all throughout this disturbance, the Greek flag still flies over the Acropolis. There may be turmoil, there may be disturbance, but even throughout all of the riots, all of the vandalism, Athens is still here. Greece is still here.
There's a reason why the symbol of Greece is an olive tree. They're well-nigh impossible to destroy. No matter how much you try to cut it down, to remove it, to destroy it, the olive tree always grows back.
Athens has been around for over three thousand years. One week of rioting isn't going to kill it. Even a week after this disturbance, the worst rioting since the junta fell, Athens is coming back, and even now is somewhat back to normal.
I won't pretend that this last week was an easy one, or that it had no effect on me or the city. A fifteen-year-old boy is dead. There was damage, a lot of it, over fifty million euro by one estimate. They burned down the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square. I had classes canceled on account of the disturbance. I didn't go anyplace but school and my apartment, and nearly went stir-crazy as a result.
But Athens is still here. Like the olive tree, it's impossible to destroy, no matter how much violence is directed at it.
I don't pretend to understand what happened this past week. I don't pretend to understand Athens, or the Greek people, or anything else. All I can offer is my observations.
I've lived here for the past three and a half months.
I leave here on Saturday.
It's weird to think that I may never come back again.
But most of the damage has been cleaned up. The city looks almost normal now. Even with the damage that I saw, it was nothing like what I know the city looked like earlier this past week. Shops are open. The buskers are back on Ermou. The Monastiraki flea market is as busy as ever.
And all throughout this disturbance, the Greek flag still flies over the Acropolis. There may be turmoil, there may be disturbance, but even throughout all of the riots, all of the vandalism, Athens is still here. Greece is still here.
There's a reason why the symbol of Greece is an olive tree. They're well-nigh impossible to destroy. No matter how much you try to cut it down, to remove it, to destroy it, the olive tree always grows back.
Athens has been around for over three thousand years. One week of rioting isn't going to kill it. Even a week after this disturbance, the worst rioting since the junta fell, Athens is coming back, and even now is somewhat back to normal.
I won't pretend that this last week was an easy one, or that it had no effect on me or the city. A fifteen-year-old boy is dead. There was damage, a lot of it, over fifty million euro by one estimate. They burned down the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square. I had classes canceled on account of the disturbance. I didn't go anyplace but school and my apartment, and nearly went stir-crazy as a result.
But Athens is still here. Like the olive tree, it's impossible to destroy, no matter how much violence is directed at it.
I don't pretend to understand what happened this past week. I don't pretend to understand Athens, or the Greek people, or anything else. All I can offer is my observations.
I've lived here for the past three and a half months.
I leave here on Saturday.
It's weird to think that I may never come back again.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Things in Athens that make me happy:
one: Articulated buses have signs on the back saying "MAKROY OXOMA" (long vehicle), with an outline of a dachshund.
two: Seeing monastics on the street in their black cassocks and hats.
three: The fountains along Vas. Konstantinou, especially at night when they're all lit up.
four: Looking out the third floor window of the academic center at night, looking across Vas. Konstantinou with all of the cars flashing by with their headlights, and across to the Acropolis with the Parthenon all lit up.
five: The buskers on Ermou Street. Last night there was one who was playing wine glasses filled with different amounts of water.
six: Koulouria sellers.
seven: Hearing the bells from the various churches, and the drumming that the monastery does every night at nine o'clock.
eight: The pond in the National Gardens with all the turtles in it.
nine: The grocery store plays techno over the Muzak.
ten: Street names, as long as I already know where I need to go. They're all name-names, not number-names, which makes it difficult to find a new street, but lovely to read the street names as I'm walking along. They're all in the genitive, which means that technically all the streets are "Street of [whatever]," and most of them are named after writers, historical figures, and in at least one case, a god (Ermou, the main shopping street behind Syntagma, is named after Hermes. It took me a bit to figure that one out without the breathings).
two: Seeing monastics on the street in their black cassocks and hats.
three: The fountains along Vas. Konstantinou, especially at night when they're all lit up.
four: Looking out the third floor window of the academic center at night, looking across Vas. Konstantinou with all of the cars flashing by with their headlights, and across to the Acropolis with the Parthenon all lit up.
five: The buskers on Ermou Street. Last night there was one who was playing wine glasses filled with different amounts of water.
six: Koulouria sellers.
seven: Hearing the bells from the various churches, and the drumming that the monastery does every night at nine o'clock.
eight: The pond in the National Gardens with all the turtles in it.
nine: The grocery store plays techno over the Muzak.
ten: Street names, as long as I already know where I need to go. They're all name-names, not number-names, which makes it difficult to find a new street, but lovely to read the street names as I'm walking along. They're all in the genitive, which means that technically all the streets are "Street of [whatever]," and most of them are named after writers, historical figures, and in at least one case, a god (Ermou, the main shopping street behind Syntagma, is named after Hermes. It took me a bit to figure that one out without the breathings).
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Turkey-flavored Jolly Ranchers
I'd like to tell you a story.
One summer, way before I was born, my mother was chaperoning a group of high school students on a guided tour of Europe. They were in France on July fourth, which of course the French don't celebrate as the Independence Day holiday. July fourth in France is just a day, like July third and July fifth. Anyway, the group was having its lunch, which was just a typical French lunch (I forget what exactly they were eating, but the point was that there was nothing special about it). At the end of lunch, though, before they all got up to continue on their tour, the group leader made an announcement. He said that no American should have to go without watermelon on the Fourth of July, and he brought out a bag of watermelon flavored Jolly Ranchers that he had brought from the States for that very purpose. Each of the members of the tour got a watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher just as a symbolic celebration of the Independence Day holiday which they were missing by being abroad.
I've been thinking about that story a lot over the past few days. This will be the first Thanksgiving that I've ever not spent at home. And as you might expect, Greece does not celebrate Thanksgiving Day. There are no Thanksgiving decorations in the stores; they've moved right to Christmas decorations. The grocery store isn't running specials on turkeys and cranberry sauce; Greeks don't even eat turkeys, and I don't know where I'd go if I wanted to track one down. My classes will not be canceled on Thursday. I will be expected to show up at 3:45 with my normal portion of Xenophon translated as usual.
This is when I feel being an expatriate most keenly. Most of the differences between Greece and the United States I can deal with just from knowing that I am in a different place. Bothell and Haverford are different places, and Athens is a place different from both of those. But it's like Greece functions on a completely different calendar than the States. Holidays are important. Missing them is missing mile markers on the wheel of the year. Not celebrating Halloween was strange enough, stranger for me probably than for most of my classmates, with the importance my family places on Halloween. But Thanksgiving is something different. Not everyone celebrates Halloween, or celebrates it in the same way. But most people in the United States mark Thanksgiving. It's a national holiday, an integral part of our collective consciousness. It's part of how things are. But that's not how things are in Greece. They may be on the Gregorian calendar just like us, but their calendar is far different all the same.
So instead of being at home, or at least at a friend's house in the United States, I will be here in Greece. Instead of watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, followed by the National Dog Show and Miracle on 34th Street, I will be listening to whatever music will make me feel the least homesick. Instead of bustling around the house trying to get it cleaned enough to have company over and helping my mother in the kitchen, I will be trying to get my Greek prepared well enough not to make a fool of myself in class. And instead of being together with my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my uncle, and whatever stray birds my mother has adopted this Thanksgiving, my roommates and I will be having a potluck, all of us expatriates together, trying to make this alien country feel a little bit more like home.
And all the while I will be thinking of Jolly Ranchers, and the cost of being abroad in a season when all my heart yearns for home.
One summer, way before I was born, my mother was chaperoning a group of high school students on a guided tour of Europe. They were in France on July fourth, which of course the French don't celebrate as the Independence Day holiday. July fourth in France is just a day, like July third and July fifth. Anyway, the group was having its lunch, which was just a typical French lunch (I forget what exactly they were eating, but the point was that there was nothing special about it). At the end of lunch, though, before they all got up to continue on their tour, the group leader made an announcement. He said that no American should have to go without watermelon on the Fourth of July, and he brought out a bag of watermelon flavored Jolly Ranchers that he had brought from the States for that very purpose. Each of the members of the tour got a watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher just as a symbolic celebration of the Independence Day holiday which they were missing by being abroad.
I've been thinking about that story a lot over the past few days. This will be the first Thanksgiving that I've ever not spent at home. And as you might expect, Greece does not celebrate Thanksgiving Day. There are no Thanksgiving decorations in the stores; they've moved right to Christmas decorations. The grocery store isn't running specials on turkeys and cranberry sauce; Greeks don't even eat turkeys, and I don't know where I'd go if I wanted to track one down. My classes will not be canceled on Thursday. I will be expected to show up at 3:45 with my normal portion of Xenophon translated as usual.
This is when I feel being an expatriate most keenly. Most of the differences between Greece and the United States I can deal with just from knowing that I am in a different place. Bothell and Haverford are different places, and Athens is a place different from both of those. But it's like Greece functions on a completely different calendar than the States. Holidays are important. Missing them is missing mile markers on the wheel of the year. Not celebrating Halloween was strange enough, stranger for me probably than for most of my classmates, with the importance my family places on Halloween. But Thanksgiving is something different. Not everyone celebrates Halloween, or celebrates it in the same way. But most people in the United States mark Thanksgiving. It's a national holiday, an integral part of our collective consciousness. It's part of how things are. But that's not how things are in Greece. They may be on the Gregorian calendar just like us, but their calendar is far different all the same.
So instead of being at home, or at least at a friend's house in the United States, I will be here in Greece. Instead of watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, followed by the National Dog Show and Miracle on 34th Street, I will be listening to whatever music will make me feel the least homesick. Instead of bustling around the house trying to get it cleaned enough to have company over and helping my mother in the kitchen, I will be trying to get my Greek prepared well enough not to make a fool of myself in class. And instead of being together with my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my uncle, and whatever stray birds my mother has adopted this Thanksgiving, my roommates and I will be having a potluck, all of us expatriates together, trying to make this alien country feel a little bit more like home.
And all the while I will be thinking of Jolly Ranchers, and the cost of being abroad in a season when all my heart yearns for home.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Center of the Universe
Back from the last all-school field trip, this time to Delphi.
Day one (Friday, 14 November 2008):
-Bus B departs from the Kallimarmaro at 7:45 in the morning.
-First stop is the Sanctuary of Amphiaraios. It's a small sanctuary, kind of out of the way, and our group is the only ones there. Amphiaraios, for those who don't know, was a seer who was one of the Seven Against Thebes. He didn't want to take part in the war against Thebes, because he could foresee that he wouldn't survive it, but he ended up being a participant anyway. At the moment when he was about to die, Zeus took pity on him and had the earth swallow him up whole. The Amphiaraion is supposedly located where he was swallowed up (although Thebes itself is a two hour drive away, so not exactly sure how well that matches up). Anyway, Amphiaraios gained a reputation for healing, and his sanctuary became an incubatory oracle, where people would go to dream healing dreams. It was relatively well preserved, because by the time that the edict came out to cast down the pagan temples, it was already fading from importance, so it didn't get cast down with as much fervor as more important sanctuaries did. We got actual fall at the Amphiaraion. It was kind of cool, and we were tramping through fallen leaves. We did this for a bit, and then we all realized, hey, these are fallen leaves! Fall at last! (The rest of Greece, especially the part that Athens is in, doesn't really have much of a fall.) Among the really well-preserved artifacts is a water clock. We got to climb all in and over it. It was pretty cool.
-Next stop was the Byzantine monastery of Hosios Loukas. It's still a functioning monastery, so we only got to go into the church and the courtyard around it, but that was enough. It was really pretty, and inside the old part of the church there were mosaics from the 11th century. The arm of Hosious Loukas himself (or his supposed arm. It's a long story, and there are supposedly parts of him all over the place, from the Vatican to Turkey) was on display in a glass-topped coffin, where they had arranged a robe to look like the rest of the body was there, but our professor told us that it was just the arm that was in the monastery. There was also a spring with supposed healing properties in the courtyard. The monastery itself was built near the top of a hill, so the view out over the valley was really pretty.
-After that, it was off to Delphi itself. Delphi is a pretty big site, located on the side of a mountain. This afternoon, we just visited the lower sanctuary. So we started with the springhouse for the Castilian Spring, then moved down the mountain to the gymnasium and the Santuary of Athena Pronaos. There's a site guard at the lower sanctuary of Delphi who has known our professor since she was three years old, but still doesn't recognize her whenever he sees her, so we got to witness an exchange between the two of them. We've been hearing about this guard all semester, so that was fun.
-Next, we went into the town of Delphi to check into our hotel. Fun fact: until relatively recently (I don't have the date off the top of my head), the town of Delphi was located right on top of the archaeological site, and you couldn't see any of the archaeological remains because they were buried under three meters of debris from rockfalls over the ages. When they started excavating the site, the government moved the town to its present location to preserve the archaeological site.
-My roommate and I had dinner at a local taverna: formaela, which is a local fried cheese, for an appetizer, and then rabbit in a mustard-tarragon sauce for an entree. I'd never had rabbit before, so it was an adventure, though not much of one, comparatively. I am glad to say that it didn't taste like chicken; I am disappointed to say that it tasted like chicken would if it were a slightly redder meat.
-Back to our hotel, and my roommate and I talk on our balcony for three hours before going to bed.
Day two (Saturday, 15 November 2008):
-Today's main adventure was the main sanctuary of Delphi itself. We walked up the remnants of the Sacred Way, past the remains of various treasuries, up to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. On our way there, we passed the omphalos. This is a sacred round stone that the Ancient Greeks believed to be the center of the universe. Now, as any good Seattleite knows, the center of the universe is the Fremont signpost, but to be fair, the omphalos has a lot more history behind it, so I'm willing to accept its claim on a provisional basis. There are also tunnels beneath the Temple, which they probably used to get the priestess into and out of the temple without people seeing her, and also to swap out the priestess in case she got overcome by prophesying too long. You can still go a bit into the tunnels, not very far because they collapsed a little way in, but still about twenty feet from one entrance to the tunnels to another. So, of course, I went in. You have to bend over double to walk along them, and they're completely dark once you go past the entrance. It was so cool. After this, we went up to the stadium, at pretty much the highest point of the mountain that they'll let you climb up to. The view from Delphi was amazing. It was all misty, with this diffuse light, and you could look down from the mountain into the valley below and see so far. It was so amazing.
-After we had explored the sanctuary, we had to make a stop in at the Archaeological Museum associated with the site. We got to see the pediment and friezes from the Sisyphian Treasury, which was kind of neat, and the really famous Sphinx statue. We also got to see the really famous bronze statue of a charioteer, which was also kind of cool.
-After we left Delphi, we stopped for lunch in the town of Arachova, which is apparently a ski town over the winter. It was a pretty town, but it was too windy and cold to really explore (it must have been a good ten degrees Fahrenheit colder than it was in Delphi fifteen minutes drive away). We just wanted to find a taverna to go inside out of the cold and eat lunch.
-After lunch, we got back aboard the bus and commenced our two and a half hour bus ride back to Athens. We got back to Athens at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Day one (Friday, 14 November 2008):
-Bus B departs from the Kallimarmaro at 7:45 in the morning.
-First stop is the Sanctuary of Amphiaraios. It's a small sanctuary, kind of out of the way, and our group is the only ones there. Amphiaraios, for those who don't know, was a seer who was one of the Seven Against Thebes. He didn't want to take part in the war against Thebes, because he could foresee that he wouldn't survive it, but he ended up being a participant anyway. At the moment when he was about to die, Zeus took pity on him and had the earth swallow him up whole. The Amphiaraion is supposedly located where he was swallowed up (although Thebes itself is a two hour drive away, so not exactly sure how well that matches up). Anyway, Amphiaraios gained a reputation for healing, and his sanctuary became an incubatory oracle, where people would go to dream healing dreams. It was relatively well preserved, because by the time that the edict came out to cast down the pagan temples, it was already fading from importance, so it didn't get cast down with as much fervor as more important sanctuaries did. We got actual fall at the Amphiaraion. It was kind of cool, and we were tramping through fallen leaves. We did this for a bit, and then we all realized, hey, these are fallen leaves! Fall at last! (The rest of Greece, especially the part that Athens is in, doesn't really have much of a fall.) Among the really well-preserved artifacts is a water clock. We got to climb all in and over it. It was pretty cool.
-Next stop was the Byzantine monastery of Hosios Loukas. It's still a functioning monastery, so we only got to go into the church and the courtyard around it, but that was enough. It was really pretty, and inside the old part of the church there were mosaics from the 11th century. The arm of Hosious Loukas himself (or his supposed arm. It's a long story, and there are supposedly parts of him all over the place, from the Vatican to Turkey) was on display in a glass-topped coffin, where they had arranged a robe to look like the rest of the body was there, but our professor told us that it was just the arm that was in the monastery. There was also a spring with supposed healing properties in the courtyard. The monastery itself was built near the top of a hill, so the view out over the valley was really pretty.
-After that, it was off to Delphi itself. Delphi is a pretty big site, located on the side of a mountain. This afternoon, we just visited the lower sanctuary. So we started with the springhouse for the Castilian Spring, then moved down the mountain to the gymnasium and the Santuary of Athena Pronaos. There's a site guard at the lower sanctuary of Delphi who has known our professor since she was three years old, but still doesn't recognize her whenever he sees her, so we got to witness an exchange between the two of them. We've been hearing about this guard all semester, so that was fun.
-Next, we went into the town of Delphi to check into our hotel. Fun fact: until relatively recently (I don't have the date off the top of my head), the town of Delphi was located right on top of the archaeological site, and you couldn't see any of the archaeological remains because they were buried under three meters of debris from rockfalls over the ages. When they started excavating the site, the government moved the town to its present location to preserve the archaeological site.
-My roommate and I had dinner at a local taverna: formaela, which is a local fried cheese, for an appetizer, and then rabbit in a mustard-tarragon sauce for an entree. I'd never had rabbit before, so it was an adventure, though not much of one, comparatively. I am glad to say that it didn't taste like chicken; I am disappointed to say that it tasted like chicken would if it were a slightly redder meat.
-Back to our hotel, and my roommate and I talk on our balcony for three hours before going to bed.
Day two (Saturday, 15 November 2008):
-Today's main adventure was the main sanctuary of Delphi itself. We walked up the remnants of the Sacred Way, past the remains of various treasuries, up to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. On our way there, we passed the omphalos. This is a sacred round stone that the Ancient Greeks believed to be the center of the universe. Now, as any good Seattleite knows, the center of the universe is the Fremont signpost, but to be fair, the omphalos has a lot more history behind it, so I'm willing to accept its claim on a provisional basis. There are also tunnels beneath the Temple, which they probably used to get the priestess into and out of the temple without people seeing her, and also to swap out the priestess in case she got overcome by prophesying too long. You can still go a bit into the tunnels, not very far because they collapsed a little way in, but still about twenty feet from one entrance to the tunnels to another. So, of course, I went in. You have to bend over double to walk along them, and they're completely dark once you go past the entrance. It was so cool. After this, we went up to the stadium, at pretty much the highest point of the mountain that they'll let you climb up to. The view from Delphi was amazing. It was all misty, with this diffuse light, and you could look down from the mountain into the valley below and see so far. It was so amazing.
-After we had explored the sanctuary, we had to make a stop in at the Archaeological Museum associated with the site. We got to see the pediment and friezes from the Sisyphian Treasury, which was kind of neat, and the really famous Sphinx statue. We also got to see the really famous bronze statue of a charioteer, which was also kind of cool.
-After we left Delphi, we stopped for lunch in the town of Arachova, which is apparently a ski town over the winter. It was a pretty town, but it was too windy and cold to really explore (it must have been a good ten degrees Fahrenheit colder than it was in Delphi fifteen minutes drive away). We just wanted to find a taverna to go inside out of the cold and eat lunch.
-After lunch, we got back aboard the bus and commenced our two and a half hour bus ride back to Athens. We got back to Athens at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Promised Turkey Post
I was seriously considering titling this entry "Istanbul Was Constantinople," but I decided that that was too obvious and cliche.
Day one (Friday, 24 October 2008)
-Take train from Athens to Thessaloniki, leaving at about 11:00 AM. No particular drama, except that I didn't realize that I had been assigned a coach as well as a numbered seat, so I had to change seats partway through the ride when the passenger who had been assigned to Coach 1 Seat 32, as opposed to Coach 5 Seat 32, came aboard and kicked me out of his rightful seat.
-Arrive in Thessaloniki, have three hour layover before I catch my next train. So I go out and get a gyro (apparently in Thessaloniki, they serve gyros with ketchup and mustard. Who knew?), and then buy myself some ice cream to kill the time before my train comes.
-Board my Thessaloniki-Istanbul train. It's a sleeper, and the Orient Express it is not. The other woman who is assigned to my compartment is Greek, speaks English, and is really nice. I spend most of the train ride while I'm up in the club car listening to this woman talk with the two men in the compartment next to us in Greek. I understood some of what they were saying, but not a lot, and I'm too tired to really try to follow a conversation in a language I don't really know. So at about 10:15 I go to bed.
-I get woken up a few hours later by Greek passport control collecting everyone's passports. Then I get woken up by Greek passport control giving back everyone's passports. Then I get woken up by Turkish passport control collecting everyone's passports, and this time I had to get out of the train in the freezing cold to buy a tourist visa. After returning to the train, I get woken up by Turkish passport control giving back everyone's passports. Finally, I get woken up by Turkish baggage control checking that all I had was a bag with personal items.
Day two (Saturday, 25 October 2008):
-The train finally arrives in Istanbul at about 10:00 AM. I get off of the train and take the tram to Sultanhamet, the neighborhood where my hostel was located. I then proceed to get very lost trying to locate my hostel itself. I missed it the first time I passed it, and then I took a wrong turn when I attempted to retrace my steps. It is raining while I'm wandering the streets of Sultanhamet, and I'm just thinking, I really hope that my duffel bag is as water resistant as it says it's supposed to be.
-Finally, though, I located and checked into my hostel. I'm staying in a 13 person mixed dorm.
-I go out to get something to eat, since I haven't really eaten anything since the gyro the night before, and end up having a tavük donner yarim ekmek (none of which I'm certain that I've spelled correctly, but that's as close as I can remember), which is Turkish for a sandwich of chicken which has been roasted like a gyro served on half a loaf of bread.
-After I finished eating, I wandered in the Grand Bazaar for a while. The Grand Bazaar is kind of overwhelming, with so many people and merchants and things to see and look at and all of the merchants hassling you to try to get you to buy from them. I buy a pashmina from one of the merchants, because I need a scarf to cover my head for all of my many mosque-visiting adventures planned this week. It's a beautiful deep blue color that goes with just about every article of clothing I own (since I don't have anything that's orange, and that's about the only color that really clashes with this shade of blue).
-After leaving the Grand Bazaar, I (what a surprise) managed to get lost finding my way back to my hostel. But I eventually make my way back there via the Hippodrome, which is all lit up with the various monuments there.
Day three (Sunday, 26 October 2008):
-Have breakfast with three of the other girls staying in my dorm (two Aussies, one Canadian).
-It's still raining, so we try to think of something to do inside. We end up visiting the Underground Cistern. The Underground Cistern was built by the emperor Justinian (I think) to provide water for the surrounding area. It's this vast underground enclosed space supported by a bunch of columns. Two of the columns are resting on the heads of Medusas, one upside-down and the other on its side. There is still some water in the cistern, so you walk on these elevated walkways, and you can look down into the water and see fish swimming around below.
-We then attempt to visit the Blue Mosque. We get as far as the outer courtyard, but we can't go inside the mosque itself because it's closed for prayer time.
-We have lunch, linger over apple teas for a while, and then go back to the hostel and don't do a lot with the rest of the day. I'm not complaining, because I'm still pretty tired from traveling. We also hang out a bit with the five Dutch guys who are in the mens' dorm across the hall.
Day four (Monday, 27 October 2008):
-Went to Taksim Square with the two Aussie girls to see them onto their bus to the airport. This involves taking the tram from Sultanhamet across the Galatea Bridge, and then taking a funicular railway up to Taksim. Taksim is the transportation hub of the city. All of the buses and so forth connect there.
-I waved goodbye to the Aussies, and then wandered around the Taksim area for a while. There were a lot of shops in the area, most of which I didn't go into because either they were Westernized and didn't look that interesting or I didn't want to be tempted to buy any of it.
-While I was wandering, I passed by St. Anthony's Catholic Church, so I went inside. It was really pretty inside. There were really high ceilings with vaulting, and pretty stained glass. There were also many places where one could light candles in front of pictures of various saints, so I did. I like lighting candles in churches, I won't lie. I have no pictures of the inside of the church, because they asked that you not take photographs even without flash, but I took some of the facade of the building.
-While I was wandering around the Taksim Square area, I decided to try to find the Pera Palas Hotel, famous for being the place to stay when traveling on the Orient Express, and for a list of very famous guests who stayed there at various points, including Agatha Christie. I wandered around the same area for probably about an hour in the rain trying to find it. When I finally located it, I realized that there was a reason beyond my less-than-detailed map and not-the-greatest map reading skills why I couldn't find it: it's closed for massive renovations and is under layers of scaffolding. I took a picture of the outside of the building and the sign by the entrance, which the scaffolding left unobscured. I then tried to take a picture of the lobby of the building through the open front door. I wasn't trespassing: I stayed on the public sidewalk and just took a picture from there. The flash attracted the notice of someone working inside, who came out and yelled at me that pictures weren't allowed. I apologized, and luckily he didn't make me delete the picture. (I looked up why the Pera Palas Hotel was closed [basically that the building was falling apart and no longer providing the luxury level services that it was charging such a high price for] later when I had access to the internet. If anyone wants to see a particularly unnecessary Flash page, you can find one at http://www.perapalas.com/ ).
-Then I got really lost trying to find the tram stop to get back. I ended up in a part of the city that I don't actually know where it was, but it was certainly not part of the tourist quarter. Finally found a sign pointing back to Taksim, which I followed over steep hills until I got back to Taksim Square.
-Had dinner (another chicken donner. I basically lived on them in Istanbul, because they're the cheapest things you will find to eat anywhere), took funicular and tram back to Sultanhamet, and walked back to my hostel.
-Rested for a bit, then went out and walked up and down the main street in Sultanhamet, and ended up buying a ridiculous amount of lökum, which is better known in English as Turkish Delight. I didn't realize how heavy it was, so the small box that I asked for ended up being nearly 3/4 of a kilogram and costing me about 12 lira. It was a lot of Turkish Delight. Good, but a lot.
-I then ended up eating some of the lökum while sitting in the plaza in between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, both of which are lit up at night. The Blue Mosque in particular looks like something out of a fairy tale, with all of its minarets lit up.
Day five (Tuesday, 28 October 2008)
-Hagia Sophia! I can't even begin to describe how amazing the Hagia Sophia is. For one thing, it's absolutely gorgeous. There is so much space inside of it, and seeing the combination of the Byzantine and Islamic elements is so cool. For another, you can almost feel the weight of the history of the building. The stones in the threshold are worn down with the centuries of feet passing over them. And it was another site like Mycenae where I had first really heard about it in my junior year AP Art History class, and I would never have thought then that I would really ever get to see it in person in real life. But visiting Hagia Sophia was so cool that my mind pretty much shut down from being overwhelmed by the sheer awesomeness of it.
-After I wandered over every single inch of the Hagia Sophia that they'd let me (and I'm only slightly exaggerating with that), I had a cup of apple tea from the cafe in the garden outside to try to let my mind start functioning again. Then I left and went across the way to the Blue Mosque. I sat outside for a while having a simit (a type of bread ring sold by street vendors in Turkey) while I waited for prayer time to be over.
-After a while, I noticed other tourists going into the Blue Mosque, so I joined the queue. Took off my shoes, covered my head with the scarf I had bought for mosque-visiting purposes, went in through the visitor's entrance. The Blue Mosque is very pretty on the inside as well, all Iznik tiles and light. It was very peaceful inside as well.
-Left the Blue Mosque after a while, and went inside the tomb of Sultan Ahmed in the Hippodrome. No surprise, it was also pretty inside, though a lot smaller than the other buildings that I'd been in, and with most of the floor cordoned off for the green-velvet covered coffins of the sultans and their relatives laid to rest there (I can't quite call it buried or interred, because they're still above ground, and I can't quite call it entombed because the tomb is a pretty big building in the basic formation of a mosque, which doesn't quite accord with what I think of when I think of "tomb").
-Then I wandered down the Hippodrome, taking pictures of all of the monuments therein. There's the Column of Constantine Porphyrogenetus from the 10th century CE, which is this tall column made up of stone blocks. I don't know anything about it other than its name, which was on the label next to it. Then there's the Serpentine Column, which was brought back from Delphi in the 4th century CE. It's three serpents twining around each other, only the top of it has broken off and so it just looks like a twisted column, kind of like if you took a strand of licorice, made it of monumental proportions, and then petrified it. The last of the monuments is the Obelisk of Theodosius, which is this huge stone obelisk with Egyptian hieroglyphics inscribed on each side of it.
-After this bit of history geeking, I decide to walk over to the Sirceki Station in hopes of visiting the Orient Express Museum there. However, on the way there, I get waylaid by a carpet merchant. He invited me in for an apple tea and tries to sell me carpets. Of course, being a poor college student, there is no way that I could remotely afford even the smallest of the carpets in his shop, but they were really pretty to look at.
-Finally extract myself from the carpet shop, one business card later, and make my way to the railway station to discover that the Orient Express Museum is closed for the afternoon.
-So I take a quick look through the Spice Bazaar, but mostly in the streets outside of the Spice Bazaar proper and buy a very late lunch (it's about four o'clock in the afternoon by this point).
-Then I walk across the Galatea Bridge, and on the other side I walk through a fish market with fish so fresh some of them are still flopping around. It was rather disturbing to watch, actually.
-Dinner tonight I have at one of the many fish restaurants under the Galatea Bridge. I had a balik ve ekmet, which translates literally as a fish and bread. It's a fillet of fish put on half a loaf of bread, and it's a traditional food on the Bosporus waterfront. The view from the Galatea Bridge was terrific. I was looking out over the Golden Horn, and I could see the Bosporus Bridge and the Asian side. I could also see the New Mosque all lit up for the night. It was beautiful. After dinner, the waiter offered me a glass of tea on the house, and so I accepted, and stayed for longer looking out over that view. Then on the way back, one of the proprietors of another restaurant on the bridge pretty much pulls me off the street to offer me tea or coffee, again on the house. So I have a Turkish coffee, very sweet, and spend more time looking out over the view, this time looking more towards the other side of the Golden Horn. The proprietor of this restaurant also asks me if I wanted to go out with him some time and smoke a water pipe, and I respectfully declined. I did get a business card from him, though.
-Then I walk back to the hostel, walk up and down the main street that the tram runs down, going into some of the souvenir shops just to look around, and return to the hostel for the evening.
Day six (Wednesday, 29 October 2008):
-Walk down to Ermonioü, from where I catch a public ferry across the Bosporus to the Asian side of the city. The Asian side of Istanbul is exactly like the European side of Istanbul, except that it's in Asia, and it's not as touristy as the parts of Istanbul right around all of the historical sites. It's also a bit calmer, without quite as many people hassling you to go into their shops.
-I walk around for a while, since I'm here, and go into a couple of mosques. People look at me a bit strange when I walk into their mosques, which I can totally understand (after all, if a tourist walked into St. John and started taking photographs, I'd probably look at them funny too), but no one really says anything, and it's nice to look inside mosques without hordes of tourists also being there.
-After lunch, I catch the public ferry back to the European side of the city. Then I try to visit the Orient Express Museum at the railway station. I get there, and it's closed. I then realize that today is a national holiday in Turkey, and that's why for one the museum is closed, and for two why there are what seem to be an excessive number of Turkish flags and portraits of Ataturk around.
-So I go down and wander around the outside of the Spice Bazaar for a while (it's closed for the holiday as well).
-Then I decide on the spur of the moment to visit Topkapı Palace (the whole week I was there, I kept reading that name as being pronounced "Torkari". This is how I know I've been in Greece too long, when I am now reading the letter "p" as being a rho.) I wandered all over pretty much all of the palace that was open for an hour and a half, except for the harem, which there was a separate admission fee for. It was pretty, but it was also kind of overwhelming. After a while, it was like, how many Iznik tiles do you want? The palace also held collections of all the pretty and important things that were housed in the palace over the ages, so I got to see a lot of really shiny jewels and metalworked things, including a couple of massive diamonds. There was also a collection of Muslim relics, so I got to see things like the beard of the Prophet Mohammed, and the staff of Moses, and the arm of some other biblical figure that I'm forgetting at the moment.
Day seven (Thursday, 30 October 2008):
-Start walking towards the Süleymaniye Mosque, but get waylaid on the way there by a carpet merchant and end up having a glass of apple tea while I look at more beautiful carpets and kilims that I can't afford to buy, even with the "special student price" he was claiming to be giving me.
-Resume walking towards the Süleymaniye Mosque, get slightly lost on my way there, but make my way there eventually. Like everything else in the city, it is undergoing restoration, so most of the interior of the mosque is blocked off and you can neither go into it nor even look in at it. Still, the exterior of the building is there to be admired, as are the tombs outside of Suleiman himself and his wife Roxanna, both of which are very pretty on the inside.
-After that, I wound my way down to the waterfront via a very steep, cobbled street. I then commenced a search for the Rursa Pasa Mosque, but I soon heard the call for prayer, which meant that even if I found it I wouldn't be able to go inside for about forty minutes, so I went into the Spice Bazaar again for a more proper browse. This was a slightly bizarre experience. It seemed like every single one of the men working at the Spice Bazaar was hassling me, trying to get me to taste some of their lökum, trying to get my phone number, trying to give me their phone number, suggesting that we go out for tea later, asking whether I had a boyfriend, etc. On the one hand it was amusing, but on the other hand it really wasn't. I ended up with quite a collection of business cards with men's phone numbers on them, actually.
-Finally, I figured that enough time had passed for mosques to be open to non-Muslim visitors, so I left the Spice Bazaar and found the Rursa Pasa Mosque. The entrance is in the labyrinth of narrow streets around the Spice Bazaar, and I missed it the first couple of times I went by it. It is absolutely beautiful on the inside though, with the best Iznik tiles you will ever see. It's really peaceful on the inside too.
-It's now about 2:30 PM, and I'm at a a bit of a loss for what to do, since there really isn't enough time to walk to a museum that closes at 4, like most of them do, and still have enough time to visit to make the admission fee worthwhile. So I walk back along the tram line towards the hostel, and passing by Sirceki railway station I decided to go in again and see whether the Orient Express Museum was open. Third time's the charm, and it was. It was a really neat small museum, even though most of the interpretive signage was in Turkish so I couldn't really read anything. But I still really like looking at old railway stuff, and this was from the Orient Express, which automatically made everything ten times cooler than if it were from some random other train.
-Walking back towards my hostel, I passed a sign advertising a free art exhibition, so I went in to look. It was of a series of paintings by a local painter. They were really good. You could really tell how deeply he loved Istanbul. There were a couple of paintings there, one of a simit and another Cezanne(? I really wish I remembered AP Art History better sometimes) style one of the Hagia Sophia, that I wouldn't have minded owning, if I could afford them, be able to get them back to the US, and have someplace to display them.
-After that, I bought a can of cherry juice and sat just looking at the Blue Mosque for a while. Then, having some time to kill, I walked over to the Grand Bazaar, by way of the Cemberlitas Column (which, such a surprise, is undergoing restoration and is under scaffolding), and wander around there for a while.
-On my way back, I get waylaid by a restaurant owner, and since his prices look reasonable, I decide to have dinner there. So I'm sitting on the street, watching people go by, eating köfte, which are traditional Turkish meatballs. The owner gives me dessert (a type of doughnut in honey), and apple tea afterwards on the house, so I sit there for a while longer, just watching people walking by. Then, on my way back to the hostel, I get waylaid by the proprietor of another restaurant, who gives me a free cup of apple tea even though I'm not ordering anything from his restaurant. So I sit on the sidewalk outside of his restaurant, watching people go by.
-After this, I decide to go exploring in the direction toward the waterfront, instead of away from it like I had been exploring. As I'm walking down the tram line, I get invited into a carpet shop for an apple tea, and I accept. The carpet shop person and I talk for a while, which is interesting. He's a nice person, and he's just completed his military service and is currently studying towards taking his civil service exam while working at the carpet shop. So talking with him is interesting and diverting. Unfortunately, he's also really flirting with me, which is less diverting and in fact rather uncomfortable.
-Finally, he has to close down the shop, and I'm able to leave. I walk to a pastry shop and decide to have desert. I order ğaslu tavük, which is a traditional Turkish desert. The name means chicken pudding, which is exactly what it is, a sweet milk-based pudding with chicken breast in it. I don't know who in the world came up with the idea to make chicken into a sweet pudding, but it actually is pretty decent. The texture's a bit funny, but it tastes fine. Probably not something I'll order again any time soon, but not bad to have once just to try it.
Day eight (Friday, 31 October 2008):
-Go to the Archaeological Museum. The Archaeological Museum complex comprises three museums, the National Archaeological Museum, the Museum of the Ancient Orient, and the Tiled Pavilion. I basically spent four hours wandering all over every part of all three museums that were open to the public at the time. I won't waste everyone's time describing all of the things that I looked at; I have pictures if anyone is interested.
-After this adventure, I have a slight headache, so I scrap my original plan of walking over to the Pera Museum and instead walk back to my hostel to rest for a bit, and then venture out to find food. I let myself get waylaid by a pide place and have a lahmacun for a late lunch. I end up talking with two New Zealanders over tea afterwards, who are very impressed that I am traveling by myself.
-After that, I kind of wandered around for a while in various souvenir shops. Then on my way to find something to eat for dinner, I got waylaid for an apple tea by a man who claimed that we'd been talking earlier in the week. I don't know whether this was true or not, but he wasn't setting off any alarm bells, so I ended up talking with him and his nephew for a while over apple tea. It was actually kind of ridiculous. In between asking me whether I had a boyfriend and hinting that I should move to Istanbul and teach English because Istanbullas led such a happy life, he was telling me about his relationship problems and how he broke up with his long-term Spanish girlfriend because she wanted to live in Barcelona and he didn't want to move there with her. It was definitely an experience.
-After extracting myself from this situation, I actually manage to locate some food, which was a bit more difficult than it would have been if I hadn't been waylaid because it was pretty late and a lot of places were starting to close. Then back to the hostel.
Day nine (Saturday, 1 November 2008):
-My last day in Istanbul. I packed up all of my stuff, and then left my duffel at the front desk of the hostel because my train doesn't leave until the evening, and I don't want to have to lug it around with me all day.
-I spend much of the morning in various souvenir shops, buying gifts for various people. However, since these are going to be gifts, you don't get any details on this portion of my adventures until at least after Christmas, if anyone is actually interested, which I can't imagine why they would be.
-Then I walk to Gülhane Park, which is really pretty. It used to be the Sultan's private garden, and it's all green with trees and paths running through it. I walk around there for a while, then I sit by the fountain there and write up my postcards.
-After this, and lunch, I still have time to kill before going down to the railway station, so I sit in the Hippodrome for a while, then wander around an English-language bookstore for a while more. I was really tempted by a couple of the books in there, which I guess is what I get for wandering around a bookstore that I can actually read the titles, but I didn't have the money to buy them nor the weight allowance to get them back to the United States, so no Little Prince in Turkish or Tales of Nasreddin Hodja for me.
-Finally, it was a reasonable time to go to the railway station, so I went back to my hostel to collect my bag and took the tram to Sirceki Station.
-Got aboard my train (another sleeper, this one much nicer than the one I took from Thessaloniki to Istanbul, and this time I have the compartment to myself because there aren't very many people going from Istanbul to Greece on a Saturday night) and head out towards Greece. Go through the passport and baggage control when we reach the border, but no problems and this time I know what to expect.
Day ten (Sunday, 2 November 2008):
-Change trains in Thessaloniki to get to Athens, arrive at Larissa Station in Athens, take Metro to Evangelismos, walk back to apartment. The journey has come to an end, as much as any journey can be said to end.
Day one (Friday, 24 October 2008)
-Take train from Athens to Thessaloniki, leaving at about 11:00 AM. No particular drama, except that I didn't realize that I had been assigned a coach as well as a numbered seat, so I had to change seats partway through the ride when the passenger who had been assigned to Coach 1 Seat 32, as opposed to Coach 5 Seat 32, came aboard and kicked me out of his rightful seat.
-Arrive in Thessaloniki, have three hour layover before I catch my next train. So I go out and get a gyro (apparently in Thessaloniki, they serve gyros with ketchup and mustard. Who knew?), and then buy myself some ice cream to kill the time before my train comes.
-Board my Thessaloniki-Istanbul train. It's a sleeper, and the Orient Express it is not. The other woman who is assigned to my compartment is Greek, speaks English, and is really nice. I spend most of the train ride while I'm up in the club car listening to this woman talk with the two men in the compartment next to us in Greek. I understood some of what they were saying, but not a lot, and I'm too tired to really try to follow a conversation in a language I don't really know. So at about 10:15 I go to bed.
-I get woken up a few hours later by Greek passport control collecting everyone's passports. Then I get woken up by Greek passport control giving back everyone's passports. Then I get woken up by Turkish passport control collecting everyone's passports, and this time I had to get out of the train in the freezing cold to buy a tourist visa. After returning to the train, I get woken up by Turkish passport control giving back everyone's passports. Finally, I get woken up by Turkish baggage control checking that all I had was a bag with personal items.
Day two (Saturday, 25 October 2008):
-The train finally arrives in Istanbul at about 10:00 AM. I get off of the train and take the tram to Sultanhamet, the neighborhood where my hostel was located. I then proceed to get very lost trying to locate my hostel itself. I missed it the first time I passed it, and then I took a wrong turn when I attempted to retrace my steps. It is raining while I'm wandering the streets of Sultanhamet, and I'm just thinking, I really hope that my duffel bag is as water resistant as it says it's supposed to be.
-Finally, though, I located and checked into my hostel. I'm staying in a 13 person mixed dorm.
-I go out to get something to eat, since I haven't really eaten anything since the gyro the night before, and end up having a tavük donner yarim ekmek (none of which I'm certain that I've spelled correctly, but that's as close as I can remember), which is Turkish for a sandwich of chicken which has been roasted like a gyro served on half a loaf of bread.
-After I finished eating, I wandered in the Grand Bazaar for a while. The Grand Bazaar is kind of overwhelming, with so many people and merchants and things to see and look at and all of the merchants hassling you to try to get you to buy from them. I buy a pashmina from one of the merchants, because I need a scarf to cover my head for all of my many mosque-visiting adventures planned this week. It's a beautiful deep blue color that goes with just about every article of clothing I own (since I don't have anything that's orange, and that's about the only color that really clashes with this shade of blue).
-After leaving the Grand Bazaar, I (what a surprise) managed to get lost finding my way back to my hostel. But I eventually make my way back there via the Hippodrome, which is all lit up with the various monuments there.
Day three (Sunday, 26 October 2008):
-Have breakfast with three of the other girls staying in my dorm (two Aussies, one Canadian).
-It's still raining, so we try to think of something to do inside. We end up visiting the Underground Cistern. The Underground Cistern was built by the emperor Justinian (I think) to provide water for the surrounding area. It's this vast underground enclosed space supported by a bunch of columns. Two of the columns are resting on the heads of Medusas, one upside-down and the other on its side. There is still some water in the cistern, so you walk on these elevated walkways, and you can look down into the water and see fish swimming around below.
-We then attempt to visit the Blue Mosque. We get as far as the outer courtyard, but we can't go inside the mosque itself because it's closed for prayer time.
-We have lunch, linger over apple teas for a while, and then go back to the hostel and don't do a lot with the rest of the day. I'm not complaining, because I'm still pretty tired from traveling. We also hang out a bit with the five Dutch guys who are in the mens' dorm across the hall.
Day four (Monday, 27 October 2008):
-Went to Taksim Square with the two Aussie girls to see them onto their bus to the airport. This involves taking the tram from Sultanhamet across the Galatea Bridge, and then taking a funicular railway up to Taksim. Taksim is the transportation hub of the city. All of the buses and so forth connect there.
-I waved goodbye to the Aussies, and then wandered around the Taksim area for a while. There were a lot of shops in the area, most of which I didn't go into because either they were Westernized and didn't look that interesting or I didn't want to be tempted to buy any of it.
-While I was wandering, I passed by St. Anthony's Catholic Church, so I went inside. It was really pretty inside. There were really high ceilings with vaulting, and pretty stained glass. There were also many places where one could light candles in front of pictures of various saints, so I did. I like lighting candles in churches, I won't lie. I have no pictures of the inside of the church, because they asked that you not take photographs even without flash, but I took some of the facade of the building.
-While I was wandering around the Taksim Square area, I decided to try to find the Pera Palas Hotel, famous for being the place to stay when traveling on the Orient Express, and for a list of very famous guests who stayed there at various points, including Agatha Christie. I wandered around the same area for probably about an hour in the rain trying to find it. When I finally located it, I realized that there was a reason beyond my less-than-detailed map and not-the-greatest map reading skills why I couldn't find it: it's closed for massive renovations and is under layers of scaffolding. I took a picture of the outside of the building and the sign by the entrance, which the scaffolding left unobscured. I then tried to take a picture of the lobby of the building through the open front door. I wasn't trespassing: I stayed on the public sidewalk and just took a picture from there. The flash attracted the notice of someone working inside, who came out and yelled at me that pictures weren't allowed. I apologized, and luckily he didn't make me delete the picture. (I looked up why the Pera Palas Hotel was closed [basically that the building was falling apart and no longer providing the luxury level services that it was charging such a high price for] later when I had access to the internet. If anyone wants to see a particularly unnecessary Flash page, you can find one at http://www.perapalas.com/ ).
-Then I got really lost trying to find the tram stop to get back. I ended up in a part of the city that I don't actually know where it was, but it was certainly not part of the tourist quarter. Finally found a sign pointing back to Taksim, which I followed over steep hills until I got back to Taksim Square.
-Had dinner (another chicken donner. I basically lived on them in Istanbul, because they're the cheapest things you will find to eat anywhere), took funicular and tram back to Sultanhamet, and walked back to my hostel.
-Rested for a bit, then went out and walked up and down the main street in Sultanhamet, and ended up buying a ridiculous amount of lökum, which is better known in English as Turkish Delight. I didn't realize how heavy it was, so the small box that I asked for ended up being nearly 3/4 of a kilogram and costing me about 12 lira. It was a lot of Turkish Delight. Good, but a lot.
-I then ended up eating some of the lökum while sitting in the plaza in between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, both of which are lit up at night. The Blue Mosque in particular looks like something out of a fairy tale, with all of its minarets lit up.
Day five (Tuesday, 28 October 2008)
-Hagia Sophia! I can't even begin to describe how amazing the Hagia Sophia is. For one thing, it's absolutely gorgeous. There is so much space inside of it, and seeing the combination of the Byzantine and Islamic elements is so cool. For another, you can almost feel the weight of the history of the building. The stones in the threshold are worn down with the centuries of feet passing over them. And it was another site like Mycenae where I had first really heard about it in my junior year AP Art History class, and I would never have thought then that I would really ever get to see it in person in real life. But visiting Hagia Sophia was so cool that my mind pretty much shut down from being overwhelmed by the sheer awesomeness of it.
-After I wandered over every single inch of the Hagia Sophia that they'd let me (and I'm only slightly exaggerating with that), I had a cup of apple tea from the cafe in the garden outside to try to let my mind start functioning again. Then I left and went across the way to the Blue Mosque. I sat outside for a while having a simit (a type of bread ring sold by street vendors in Turkey) while I waited for prayer time to be over.
-After a while, I noticed other tourists going into the Blue Mosque, so I joined the queue. Took off my shoes, covered my head with the scarf I had bought for mosque-visiting purposes, went in through the visitor's entrance. The Blue Mosque is very pretty on the inside as well, all Iznik tiles and light. It was very peaceful inside as well.
-Left the Blue Mosque after a while, and went inside the tomb of Sultan Ahmed in the Hippodrome. No surprise, it was also pretty inside, though a lot smaller than the other buildings that I'd been in, and with most of the floor cordoned off for the green-velvet covered coffins of the sultans and their relatives laid to rest there (I can't quite call it buried or interred, because they're still above ground, and I can't quite call it entombed because the tomb is a pretty big building in the basic formation of a mosque, which doesn't quite accord with what I think of when I think of "tomb").
-Then I wandered down the Hippodrome, taking pictures of all of the monuments therein. There's the Column of Constantine Porphyrogenetus from the 10th century CE, which is this tall column made up of stone blocks. I don't know anything about it other than its name, which was on the label next to it. Then there's the Serpentine Column, which was brought back from Delphi in the 4th century CE. It's three serpents twining around each other, only the top of it has broken off and so it just looks like a twisted column, kind of like if you took a strand of licorice, made it of monumental proportions, and then petrified it. The last of the monuments is the Obelisk of Theodosius, which is this huge stone obelisk with Egyptian hieroglyphics inscribed on each side of it.
-After this bit of history geeking, I decide to walk over to the Sirceki Station in hopes of visiting the Orient Express Museum there. However, on the way there, I get waylaid by a carpet merchant. He invited me in for an apple tea and tries to sell me carpets. Of course, being a poor college student, there is no way that I could remotely afford even the smallest of the carpets in his shop, but they were really pretty to look at.
-Finally extract myself from the carpet shop, one business card later, and make my way to the railway station to discover that the Orient Express Museum is closed for the afternoon.
-So I take a quick look through the Spice Bazaar, but mostly in the streets outside of the Spice Bazaar proper and buy a very late lunch (it's about four o'clock in the afternoon by this point).
-Then I walk across the Galatea Bridge, and on the other side I walk through a fish market with fish so fresh some of them are still flopping around. It was rather disturbing to watch, actually.
-Dinner tonight I have at one of the many fish restaurants under the Galatea Bridge. I had a balik ve ekmet, which translates literally as a fish and bread. It's a fillet of fish put on half a loaf of bread, and it's a traditional food on the Bosporus waterfront. The view from the Galatea Bridge was terrific. I was looking out over the Golden Horn, and I could see the Bosporus Bridge and the Asian side. I could also see the New Mosque all lit up for the night. It was beautiful. After dinner, the waiter offered me a glass of tea on the house, and so I accepted, and stayed for longer looking out over that view. Then on the way back, one of the proprietors of another restaurant on the bridge pretty much pulls me off the street to offer me tea or coffee, again on the house. So I have a Turkish coffee, very sweet, and spend more time looking out over the view, this time looking more towards the other side of the Golden Horn. The proprietor of this restaurant also asks me if I wanted to go out with him some time and smoke a water pipe, and I respectfully declined. I did get a business card from him, though.
-Then I walk back to the hostel, walk up and down the main street that the tram runs down, going into some of the souvenir shops just to look around, and return to the hostel for the evening.
Day six (Wednesday, 29 October 2008):
-Walk down to Ermonioü, from where I catch a public ferry across the Bosporus to the Asian side of the city. The Asian side of Istanbul is exactly like the European side of Istanbul, except that it's in Asia, and it's not as touristy as the parts of Istanbul right around all of the historical sites. It's also a bit calmer, without quite as many people hassling you to go into their shops.
-I walk around for a while, since I'm here, and go into a couple of mosques. People look at me a bit strange when I walk into their mosques, which I can totally understand (after all, if a tourist walked into St. John and started taking photographs, I'd probably look at them funny too), but no one really says anything, and it's nice to look inside mosques without hordes of tourists also being there.
-After lunch, I catch the public ferry back to the European side of the city. Then I try to visit the Orient Express Museum at the railway station. I get there, and it's closed. I then realize that today is a national holiday in Turkey, and that's why for one the museum is closed, and for two why there are what seem to be an excessive number of Turkish flags and portraits of Ataturk around.
-So I go down and wander around the outside of the Spice Bazaar for a while (it's closed for the holiday as well).
-Then I decide on the spur of the moment to visit Topkapı Palace (the whole week I was there, I kept reading that name as being pronounced "Torkari". This is how I know I've been in Greece too long, when I am now reading the letter "p" as being a rho.) I wandered all over pretty much all of the palace that was open for an hour and a half, except for the harem, which there was a separate admission fee for. It was pretty, but it was also kind of overwhelming. After a while, it was like, how many Iznik tiles do you want? The palace also held collections of all the pretty and important things that were housed in the palace over the ages, so I got to see a lot of really shiny jewels and metalworked things, including a couple of massive diamonds. There was also a collection of Muslim relics, so I got to see things like the beard of the Prophet Mohammed, and the staff of Moses, and the arm of some other biblical figure that I'm forgetting at the moment.
Day seven (Thursday, 30 October 2008):
-Start walking towards the Süleymaniye Mosque, but get waylaid on the way there by a carpet merchant and end up having a glass of apple tea while I look at more beautiful carpets and kilims that I can't afford to buy, even with the "special student price" he was claiming to be giving me.
-Resume walking towards the Süleymaniye Mosque, get slightly lost on my way there, but make my way there eventually. Like everything else in the city, it is undergoing restoration, so most of the interior of the mosque is blocked off and you can neither go into it nor even look in at it. Still, the exterior of the building is there to be admired, as are the tombs outside of Suleiman himself and his wife Roxanna, both of which are very pretty on the inside.
-After that, I wound my way down to the waterfront via a very steep, cobbled street. I then commenced a search for the Rursa Pasa Mosque, but I soon heard the call for prayer, which meant that even if I found it I wouldn't be able to go inside for about forty minutes, so I went into the Spice Bazaar again for a more proper browse. This was a slightly bizarre experience. It seemed like every single one of the men working at the Spice Bazaar was hassling me, trying to get me to taste some of their lökum, trying to get my phone number, trying to give me their phone number, suggesting that we go out for tea later, asking whether I had a boyfriend, etc. On the one hand it was amusing, but on the other hand it really wasn't. I ended up with quite a collection of business cards with men's phone numbers on them, actually.
-Finally, I figured that enough time had passed for mosques to be open to non-Muslim visitors, so I left the Spice Bazaar and found the Rursa Pasa Mosque. The entrance is in the labyrinth of narrow streets around the Spice Bazaar, and I missed it the first couple of times I went by it. It is absolutely beautiful on the inside though, with the best Iznik tiles you will ever see. It's really peaceful on the inside too.
-It's now about 2:30 PM, and I'm at a a bit of a loss for what to do, since there really isn't enough time to walk to a museum that closes at 4, like most of them do, and still have enough time to visit to make the admission fee worthwhile. So I walk back along the tram line towards the hostel, and passing by Sirceki railway station I decided to go in again and see whether the Orient Express Museum was open. Third time's the charm, and it was. It was a really neat small museum, even though most of the interpretive signage was in Turkish so I couldn't really read anything. But I still really like looking at old railway stuff, and this was from the Orient Express, which automatically made everything ten times cooler than if it were from some random other train.
-Walking back towards my hostel, I passed a sign advertising a free art exhibition, so I went in to look. It was of a series of paintings by a local painter. They were really good. You could really tell how deeply he loved Istanbul. There were a couple of paintings there, one of a simit and another Cezanne(? I really wish I remembered AP Art History better sometimes) style one of the Hagia Sophia, that I wouldn't have minded owning, if I could afford them, be able to get them back to the US, and have someplace to display them.
-After that, I bought a can of cherry juice and sat just looking at the Blue Mosque for a while. Then, having some time to kill, I walked over to the Grand Bazaar, by way of the Cemberlitas Column (which, such a surprise, is undergoing restoration and is under scaffolding), and wander around there for a while.
-On my way back, I get waylaid by a restaurant owner, and since his prices look reasonable, I decide to have dinner there. So I'm sitting on the street, watching people go by, eating köfte, which are traditional Turkish meatballs. The owner gives me dessert (a type of doughnut in honey), and apple tea afterwards on the house, so I sit there for a while longer, just watching people walking by. Then, on my way back to the hostel, I get waylaid by the proprietor of another restaurant, who gives me a free cup of apple tea even though I'm not ordering anything from his restaurant. So I sit on the sidewalk outside of his restaurant, watching people go by.
-After this, I decide to go exploring in the direction toward the waterfront, instead of away from it like I had been exploring. As I'm walking down the tram line, I get invited into a carpet shop for an apple tea, and I accept. The carpet shop person and I talk for a while, which is interesting. He's a nice person, and he's just completed his military service and is currently studying towards taking his civil service exam while working at the carpet shop. So talking with him is interesting and diverting. Unfortunately, he's also really flirting with me, which is less diverting and in fact rather uncomfortable.
-Finally, he has to close down the shop, and I'm able to leave. I walk to a pastry shop and decide to have desert. I order ğaslu tavük, which is a traditional Turkish desert. The name means chicken pudding, which is exactly what it is, a sweet milk-based pudding with chicken breast in it. I don't know who in the world came up with the idea to make chicken into a sweet pudding, but it actually is pretty decent. The texture's a bit funny, but it tastes fine. Probably not something I'll order again any time soon, but not bad to have once just to try it.
Day eight (Friday, 31 October 2008):
-Go to the Archaeological Museum. The Archaeological Museum complex comprises three museums, the National Archaeological Museum, the Museum of the Ancient Orient, and the Tiled Pavilion. I basically spent four hours wandering all over every part of all three museums that were open to the public at the time. I won't waste everyone's time describing all of the things that I looked at; I have pictures if anyone is interested.
-After this adventure, I have a slight headache, so I scrap my original plan of walking over to the Pera Museum and instead walk back to my hostel to rest for a bit, and then venture out to find food. I let myself get waylaid by a pide place and have a lahmacun for a late lunch. I end up talking with two New Zealanders over tea afterwards, who are very impressed that I am traveling by myself.
-After that, I kind of wandered around for a while in various souvenir shops. Then on my way to find something to eat for dinner, I got waylaid for an apple tea by a man who claimed that we'd been talking earlier in the week. I don't know whether this was true or not, but he wasn't setting off any alarm bells, so I ended up talking with him and his nephew for a while over apple tea. It was actually kind of ridiculous. In between asking me whether I had a boyfriend and hinting that I should move to Istanbul and teach English because Istanbullas led such a happy life, he was telling me about his relationship problems and how he broke up with his long-term Spanish girlfriend because she wanted to live in Barcelona and he didn't want to move there with her. It was definitely an experience.
-After extracting myself from this situation, I actually manage to locate some food, which was a bit more difficult than it would have been if I hadn't been waylaid because it was pretty late and a lot of places were starting to close. Then back to the hostel.
Day nine (Saturday, 1 November 2008):
-My last day in Istanbul. I packed up all of my stuff, and then left my duffel at the front desk of the hostel because my train doesn't leave until the evening, and I don't want to have to lug it around with me all day.
-I spend much of the morning in various souvenir shops, buying gifts for various people. However, since these are going to be gifts, you don't get any details on this portion of my adventures until at least after Christmas, if anyone is actually interested, which I can't imagine why they would be.
-Then I walk to Gülhane Park, which is really pretty. It used to be the Sultan's private garden, and it's all green with trees and paths running through it. I walk around there for a while, then I sit by the fountain there and write up my postcards.
-After this, and lunch, I still have time to kill before going down to the railway station, so I sit in the Hippodrome for a while, then wander around an English-language bookstore for a while more. I was really tempted by a couple of the books in there, which I guess is what I get for wandering around a bookstore that I can actually read the titles, but I didn't have the money to buy them nor the weight allowance to get them back to the United States, so no Little Prince in Turkish or Tales of Nasreddin Hodja for me.
-Finally, it was a reasonable time to go to the railway station, so I went back to my hostel to collect my bag and took the tram to Sirceki Station.
-Got aboard my train (another sleeper, this one much nicer than the one I took from Thessaloniki to Istanbul, and this time I have the compartment to myself because there aren't very many people going from Istanbul to Greece on a Saturday night) and head out towards Greece. Go through the passport and baggage control when we reach the border, but no problems and this time I know what to expect.
Day ten (Sunday, 2 November 2008):
-Change trains in Thessaloniki to get to Athens, arrive at Larissa Station in Athens, take Metro to Evangelismos, walk back to apartment. The journey has come to an end, as much as any journey can be said to end.
Democracy: From Fifth Century Athens to Today
So, I'm back to Greece after my fall break in Istanbul, in one piece and with stories to share. Unfortunately for my viewers at home, the stories are going to have to wait for a little bit. I really want to record Election Day here in Greece while it's still fresh and before I collapse from sleep deprivation, so the next couple entries are going to be out of chronological order. A full write-up of Istanbul is forthcoming, though, I promise!
The first thing that you have to remember about following US elections in Greece is the time difference. Greece is UTC+2, while the East Coast is UTC-5, which makes for a seven hour time difference between the closest time zones. It's even worse for the West Coast, which is where I voted, a nine hour time difference.
There was an election night party sponsored by a Greek television station that a lot of CYAers went to last night. I was not among them, because it was scheduled to end at four in the morning, and I really didn't want to be walking the streets that late. Until about noon yesterday, I was seriously planning to go to bed at a normal time and just see the results when I got up this morning. Then I reconsidered. This was a historic moment, and I really wanted to be up to watch the results. Plus, I've watched the election results come in for every presidential election that I can ever remember, and I don't want to break my streak. And I was behind on my NaNoWriMo.
The solution: I went to bed from about 11:45 to 2:15 in the morning, then got up and worked on my NaNoWriMo while I watched the election results come in. It was a lot of fun actually. I had a box of cinnamon cookies, and I wrote a couple of hundred words, updated my progress spreadsheet, switched my window to look at the latest election coverage off of the Seattle Times website, refreshed a couple of other pages that I had open, went back to my novel, wrote a couple hundred more words, updated my progress spreadsheet, looked at the Seattle Times, refreshed the other couple of pages.... And repeated this until about 6:15 this morning, when the banner on the Seattle Times webpage, instead of saying something about the current returns for the election, said "Obama Sweeps to Victory" and that he had secured the number of Electoral College votes needed to be elected 44th president of the United States. I managed to get in over 3000 words this morning too, so I'm no longer behind on my wordcount at the moment.
Knowing this, and having it be 6:15 in the morning, I went to bed, figuring that I would be able to get about an hour and a half of sleep before I needed to get up for class this morning (oh yes, did I mention that I had an 8:30 class this morning? Luckily, my professor pushed it back to 9:00 and said that she didn't expect any of us to actually be awake for it). I had been in bed for maybe 5 minutes when my roommate and a couple of our friends came in, just having returned from the election night party. At this point I decided that it was pointless to try to sleep, and so I went out in the living room and joined them. It was so intense. All of them were so excited, and nearly in tears, they were so happy that Obama had been elected. We tried to open up CNN on the not-always-working-because-we're-pirating-it-from-someone-else wireless in our apartment, and we finally got it working long enough to watch Obama's victory speech. It was so moving, and everyone was kind of crying and being a mess. Then we were following the state by state and district by district election returns not only for the presidential election, but also for the other races, especially Proposition 8, which was still in really early returns (fewer than 10 percent of precincts reporting) while we were doing this.
Time passes in this manner, aided by tea and cornflakes, and it was time for us all to go to class. I show up at class (site class today, meeting point the Acropolis metro station), and everyone is just as sleep-deprived and excited as I am. Our professor tells us that she didn't even want to have class today, but there was an edict from the administration that all 8:30 classes must go on. And of course, I am really sleep-deprived and running on adrenaline. I'm sure that you've all seen me in something of a similar state, but I was at the point when I'm really excited and energetic and silly and easily amused and talking very very fast. Case in point: when one of our classmates wished our professor a happy Guy Fawkes day as we were walking from the Acropolis metro station to our actual class meeting point at the Pynx (she's British), I started skipping and reciting "Remember remember the fifth of November." I feel very sorry for anyone who had to put up with me this morning.
Our class this morning is atop the Pynx, which is where the Athenian Assembly met. Our professor was reminding all of us how with the democratic process, where we were standing was where it all started. It was kind of amazing to stand where all of the important decisions that Athens made in Classical times were discussed and voted upon, especially this election morning. The view from the Pynx is amazing too, even with all of the smog that Athens is perpetually under. Our professor brought tyropitas to class with her this morning for a special treat to celebrate Election Day and because she knew that most of us were running on fewer than 3 hours of sleep if that, so that was really nice of her.
I suppose that at this point I really ought to give some feedback on what I think of the election returns. It should be no surprise to anyone that I am happy that Obama got elected, though I am reacting with less of the fervor that I observe other people reacting with. Maybe that's because I'm further geographically removed from the election, maybe that's because I just don't tend to get worked up over politics. Gregoire is winning for governor in Washington, which is good because Rossi kind of scares me with his stances on a lot of issues. Gregoire's not perfect, but at least she doesn't scare me. The propositions in Washington went the way I wanted them to: yes on assisted suicide, yes on public transit, and, most importantly, a resounding no on the latest Tim Eyman half-baked inititive. I'm really disappointed in the propositions from other states that I've been following, though. The gay marriage bans in Florida and Arizona passed, and Arkansas passed an initiative banning gay couples from adopting or being foster parents. And Proposition 8 in California looks like it's passing, which makes me want to cry.
Congratulations, everyone, you just got a look into Lara's views on politics. Savor the moment: it will probably never happen again.
Anyway, elections are craziness in Athens even as they are at home, a bit less intense, maybe, but definitely made more interesting by the lack of sleep everyone is experiencing. Now I get to go back to my apartment, get my stuff for my afternoon classes, and write a six-page paper before tomorrow. It's going to be a blast.
Sometimes it's just great being here.
The first thing that you have to remember about following US elections in Greece is the time difference. Greece is UTC+2, while the East Coast is UTC-5, which makes for a seven hour time difference between the closest time zones. It's even worse for the West Coast, which is where I voted, a nine hour time difference.
There was an election night party sponsored by a Greek television station that a lot of CYAers went to last night. I was not among them, because it was scheduled to end at four in the morning, and I really didn't want to be walking the streets that late. Until about noon yesterday, I was seriously planning to go to bed at a normal time and just see the results when I got up this morning. Then I reconsidered. This was a historic moment, and I really wanted to be up to watch the results. Plus, I've watched the election results come in for every presidential election that I can ever remember, and I don't want to break my streak. And I was behind on my NaNoWriMo.
The solution: I went to bed from about 11:45 to 2:15 in the morning, then got up and worked on my NaNoWriMo while I watched the election results come in. It was a lot of fun actually. I had a box of cinnamon cookies, and I wrote a couple of hundred words, updated my progress spreadsheet, switched my window to look at the latest election coverage off of the Seattle Times website, refreshed a couple of other pages that I had open, went back to my novel, wrote a couple hundred more words, updated my progress spreadsheet, looked at the Seattle Times, refreshed the other couple of pages.... And repeated this until about 6:15 this morning, when the banner on the Seattle Times webpage, instead of saying something about the current returns for the election, said "Obama Sweeps to Victory" and that he had secured the number of Electoral College votes needed to be elected 44th president of the United States. I managed to get in over 3000 words this morning too, so I'm no longer behind on my wordcount at the moment.
Knowing this, and having it be 6:15 in the morning, I went to bed, figuring that I would be able to get about an hour and a half of sleep before I needed to get up for class this morning (oh yes, did I mention that I had an 8:30 class this morning? Luckily, my professor pushed it back to 9:00 and said that she didn't expect any of us to actually be awake for it). I had been in bed for maybe 5 minutes when my roommate and a couple of our friends came in, just having returned from the election night party. At this point I decided that it was pointless to try to sleep, and so I went out in the living room and joined them. It was so intense. All of them were so excited, and nearly in tears, they were so happy that Obama had been elected. We tried to open up CNN on the not-always-working-because-we're-pirating-it-from-someone-else wireless in our apartment, and we finally got it working long enough to watch Obama's victory speech. It was so moving, and everyone was kind of crying and being a mess. Then we were following the state by state and district by district election returns not only for the presidential election, but also for the other races, especially Proposition 8, which was still in really early returns (fewer than 10 percent of precincts reporting) while we were doing this.
Time passes in this manner, aided by tea and cornflakes, and it was time for us all to go to class. I show up at class (site class today, meeting point the Acropolis metro station), and everyone is just as sleep-deprived and excited as I am. Our professor tells us that she didn't even want to have class today, but there was an edict from the administration that all 8:30 classes must go on. And of course, I am really sleep-deprived and running on adrenaline. I'm sure that you've all seen me in something of a similar state, but I was at the point when I'm really excited and energetic and silly and easily amused and talking very very fast. Case in point: when one of our classmates wished our professor a happy Guy Fawkes day as we were walking from the Acropolis metro station to our actual class meeting point at the Pynx (she's British), I started skipping and reciting "Remember remember the fifth of November." I feel very sorry for anyone who had to put up with me this morning.
Our class this morning is atop the Pynx, which is where the Athenian Assembly met. Our professor was reminding all of us how with the democratic process, where we were standing was where it all started. It was kind of amazing to stand where all of the important decisions that Athens made in Classical times were discussed and voted upon, especially this election morning. The view from the Pynx is amazing too, even with all of the smog that Athens is perpetually under. Our professor brought tyropitas to class with her this morning for a special treat to celebrate Election Day and because she knew that most of us were running on fewer than 3 hours of sleep if that, so that was really nice of her.
I suppose that at this point I really ought to give some feedback on what I think of the election returns. It should be no surprise to anyone that I am happy that Obama got elected, though I am reacting with less of the fervor that I observe other people reacting with. Maybe that's because I'm further geographically removed from the election, maybe that's because I just don't tend to get worked up over politics. Gregoire is winning for governor in Washington, which is good because Rossi kind of scares me with his stances on a lot of issues. Gregoire's not perfect, but at least she doesn't scare me. The propositions in Washington went the way I wanted them to: yes on assisted suicide, yes on public transit, and, most importantly, a resounding no on the latest Tim Eyman half-baked inititive. I'm really disappointed in the propositions from other states that I've been following, though. The gay marriage bans in Florida and Arizona passed, and Arkansas passed an initiative banning gay couples from adopting or being foster parents. And Proposition 8 in California looks like it's passing, which makes me want to cry.
Congratulations, everyone, you just got a look into Lara's views on politics. Savor the moment: it will probably never happen again.
Anyway, elections are craziness in Athens even as they are at home, a bit less intense, maybe, but definitely made more interesting by the lack of sleep everyone is experiencing. Now I get to go back to my apartment, get my stuff for my afternoon classes, and write a six-page paper before tomorrow. It's going to be a blast.
Sometimes it's just great being here.
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