We're Baaaack...

After a long, and incredible but tiring summer, we've arrived home in Istanbul last night. I am going to work on putting up some pics etc of our trips before I start work. In 5 days. And on my birthday! :( But Chris and I have hit somewhere over 10 countries this summer, between the two of us, and there's a lot to write about so it may take a little while. In the meanwhile, check out our friend Scott's blog of his trip through Turkey with Chris, while I try to figure out how he did that map thing!

Buyukada

After we had a great few days exploring Istanbul with Chris' parents, we decided to go off the beaten path (sort of...) and hit one of the Princes' Islands. They are a group of islands right off of Istanbul and the city ferries make a few trips to the islands each day. Despite our reading the ferry schedule wrong and missing the first one we wanted (seemed to be a theme of the trip, unfortunately...More on that later) we ended up driving a ways to another Iskele (Turkish word for ferry launch) to get over to the largest island, Buyukada (Buyuk in Turkish is Big and Ada is Island)

The islands are unique in that no cars are allowed. Of course being that we're in Turkey, the land where rules don't apply, this meant "No cars are allowed. Except for some. Sometimes. So don't expect to not worry about getting run over." Regardless, it was gorgeous. Comparisons were made to Charlston and to Bermuda. Huge, old, waterview mansions with amazing, fragrant flowers were seen at every step of our walk. We decided, despite the close to triple digit temps, to walk to the Monastery of St. George, which was up a long and steep hill. Chris thought it was fun, but his parents and I were a little skeptical. Here are the Emerson's at about 1/2 way up...

At the top, we started talking to a group of kids who had also climbed the hill. It turned out that they (with the exception of a friend visiting from Columbia, i think) were all Turkish and were former students at Chris' school. They had all just graduated from college, most in the states and one in Ankara. It was really interesting to chat with them all. This is the whole group of us at the monastery.

After chatting for awhile, we realized we were going to miss our ferry off the island, so we took a horse and carriage ride back to the Iskele. Unfortunately Chris had an awful allergic reaction and was sneezing and tearing up the whole time! But we did make it back just in time for the ferry home...

Another stop on our sightseeing tour was the Dolmabahce Palace, which I found to be the least interesting of all of the different sights we hit. The funniest/worst part was that they made you wear these elf shoe shaped shower caps on your feet while walking through the house. They were hot and made your feet really sweat AND i'm pretty sure they were recycled :(

We did so much sightseeing that it's tough to remember everything we saw but this was definitely a highlight - we had snacks and drinks at the Ciragan Palace, which is this super fancy hotel (literally a can of Coke was around $10...) and it's here that we saw one of these "only in Turkey" moments - At the pool at the Ciragan, which is crawling with women in bikinis, we saw this poor woman, fully covered in all black (on an incredibly hot day, I have to mention!) running around after her children... 

Our first set of visitors were the Emersons. We started out in Istanbul with the full Istanbul tour with them and here's a picture at our Monday market... 

Wow, I have been so terrible at updating this! My (very good, i think...) excuse is that I've been away for the majority of the past month or so. I have been trying to think of the best way to update everything and I think I'll try to start from the beginning. Hopefully I won't leave too much out, but it's already starting to blend together. I just got back from Spain last night and today I kept saying things like "Gracias" and "Si" to the poor man who was trying to sell me hummus!

Tour Guides...

This weekend began the beginning of our visitor extravaganza, and we leave in a few days for two weeks in Cappodocia, the Mediterranean and the Aegean, so I'll probably not have computer access very often.

We've had a great time so far showing Chris' parents around on their first trip to Istanbul. We've seen some sights, relaxed and shopped, but the highlight came last night when, after a chance stop into a rug shop, we peered into the proprieter's garden around the corner from the shop. As tends to happen in Turkey, he invited us to join him and his friends for a barbeque dinner. The other guests ended up being a famous Turkish movie star, a Turk who's lived in NY for the past 20 years and just returned for a visit that night, and several beautiful women who worked in Government. It very much seemed like the 'cultured elite' of Istanbul, and they treated us to lively conversation, amazing food, lots of drinks in this gorgeous garden with a view of the minarets of the Blue Mosque, and even paid for our taxi home!

It was an unplanned, magical evening!

Fruit, fruit everywhere....

Today I realized the one thing I dislike about the city: People are forever offering you fruit. And it's rude not to take it. Now I realize that this would be a positive for most people. Even I find the fruit allllllmost tempting here, it's so colorful and fresh, but not tempting enough. Since I've arrived, I've been given the following from vendors or just so-called nice people:

5 cherries
2 apricots
2 dried apricots
1 unidentified fruit off of a tree in the yard of a church
I'm sure there are more that I've tried to block out

As a point of comparison, so far I have been given the following non-fruit items:

0 pastries
0 cheeses
0 simits (like giant bagels)
0 isla cakes (yummy chocolate cakes)

The above picture (of our new trivet), should give you a great idea of my day yesterday...

I met up with Rob and Lauren, my friends who are traveling around the world this year, and their Turkish friend Tefik, to go to this hamam. I was a little nervous (Chris' cautionary tale of his friend who actually "bled" from the scrubbing had it's desired effect) but excited for what I hoped would be a day of pampering. What we ended up with was very interesting....

When we paid at the door, we each got a little scrubbing mitt and a few things that look like rectangular poker chips, each one designating a service we'd paid for (scrub, massage and clay mask for me). We split up (men in one part of the hamam and women in the other) and we went into the locker room to change into a very thin towel/sheet type thing. We then went into the heating room - a large, all marble, room, with a raised marble slab taking over the middle of the room. Unsure of what to do next, lauren and I approaced two of the low sinks with copper bowls floating in them around the edges of the room, and started to rinse off with the hot water. We then followed suit of the other people in the room, and lay on the big marble slab in the middle of the room. Suddenly, a woman with the largest, untethered breasts i have ever seen, wearing nothing but underwear walks in. She points at me and waves me over to her. Hmm, I think. This is the woman who's going to give me my scrubdown? Yes, it was. And you get absolutely, truly bathed. It was really relaxing, and cool to see scores of skin falling off of your body, but slightly less cool when she was grabbing and scrubbing my arm and it kept bumping into her ... stuff. Anyway, after the scrub, she had a bucket of incredibly sudsy soap bubbles and cleaned me with that. Then, to really bring you back to age 3, i was taken into another room, where she washed. my. hair! After all of that was done, I was led back out into a sort of waiting room, for the 'hot oil massage' - This ended up being fantastic and done by a woman who was actually clothed! All in all, a great day, but definitely something you couldn't find in the states. Well, at least something I wouldn't have found in the states!

The below posts are all from the Monday market, which takes place weekly outside of the apartment. As you can see, it's chaotic, crowded and very colorful. Lots of fun!!
It's not a tourist area at all, so when the shopkeepers saw my camera, they all wanted their picture taken...



















This is one of the artichoke heart sellers. These vendors spend all day cutting the heart away from the rest of the artichoke so they end up as the disks you see below...















This is my favorite area, the refrigerated mobile cheese truck....














and it's purveyor...

Pictures from the market...

More pictures from the Monday market:

This weekend was gorgeous! Friday night Chris and I hosted our first dinner party, which I think went quite well! I actually cooked(!) this! And it was actually tasty! Then Saturday we went all around Sultanhamet, which is the touristy area of Istanbul. We visited a couple of carpet salesmen who Chris and his friends know quite well. One of them, Ibrahim (from whom I bought a great ring! He doesn't just sell carpets...) was kind enough to drive us out a ways to one of his favorite restaurants. We had a huge, delicious meal, before heading back into town for some beers and World Cup viewing. It was later that evening that we met up with my friend Robert, who's travelling around the world for a year, and has been in Turkey for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this day, as I thought my camera had been stolen. Imagine my surprise when it turned up in Chris' car. Oops.

Sunday, we went rock climbing here:
It was really warm and so nice to get out of the city!

This is Chris' friend Natalie who came climbing with us...


















Here's a picture of Chris, almost at the top of the rock he was climbing... When I tried, I got about as far as.....





Here.











But I didn't mind, because I got to look at this all day!












Today's Monday, my favorite day of the week due to the Monday market! I'll venture out in a little while, with my non-existent Turkish (these days I find it easiest to use "Turkce yok", the Turkish equivalent of "No English") so we'll see what kind of wares I'll bring home!

I nearly forgot...this is our bookshelf - All organized with our travel guides up top - If you come to visit, you'll have no problems getting around. And if you look very closely, you can see Chris and his friend Doug are posing in that photo with none other than Willie Nelson!

Also please note our 'game box' on the bottom shelf. I've been told it's lame, but I love it! 

Here are some pics of our apartment...They're a bit dark, but you get the idea!
This is our living room/dining room. Note the beautiful flower left for us by one of Chris' very nice coworkers!

















This is our living room/kitchen area...













View from the living room- the pole in front is going to be a streetlight, apparently - the tower behind it is beautiful at night. It is just out this front door that there is an amazing market on Mondays! Miles of fresh produce, cheeses, household goods, clothing etc. I'll take some photos of it next week!












Bedroom and guestroom: This side of the apartment overlooks the campus...

These are the rest of the pics from before...5th Floor (note the beaded curtains) and the cute kittens...


 

It's been close to a week since I've arrived in Istanbul but we've done so much, it definitely feels like a lot more! After settling in to the apartment and unpacking, Chris' brother Alex and his girlfriend Jane arrived back in Istanbul after a trip down south to the Mediterranean.Since Chris was working, I got to play tour guide for the day and went with Alex and Jane to the Grand Bazaar (largest, oldest ... i assume ... shopping mall in the world!) and then to the Cistern, an enormous underground place that held all the water for the city, centuries ago and was only uncovered in the last 50 or so years!
After that, Chris met us and we hit Topkapi Palace, where the Ottoman Empire Sultans lived - it was amazingly beautiful. The treasures these sultans had were unbelievable - Giant jewels, 50 karat diamonds, solid gold flasks, mother of pearl thrones...It wasn't hard to belive that they had this much money, after seeing that the palace cafe was trying to sell us cans of Coke for 5 lira apiece (about $4.50) but at least it had a great view!
After our palace tour, we strolled around and did some browsing in the souvenier shops and then watched some of the World Cup in a fun little bar. Chris took us all for a great dinner at 5th Floor restaurant, which was delicious and rekindled my love of the beaded curtain!

Other than that touristy day, I've been trying to get settled with lots of help from Chris. Trying to find my way around and get acquainted with the neighborhood. Our apartment building is attached to Chris' campus and there are the cutest kittens out back...I think I posted a picture of them!

I haven't quite gotten the hang of posting everything yet, so the photos might come up separately than these descriptions. But i'll work on making it more user friendly :)

 

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