So...a summary of the past week:
Monday--My flight from Paris was good...though I tried to do my Pre-Departure reading for my classes and fell asleep with my head and arms sprawled awkwardly over the tray table and my book. I jerked awake when the captain turned on the fasten seat belt sign and realized that I had also fallen asleep on my highlighter. A check in the mirror revealed that not only did I have a massive bright yellow line down my left cheek, but print from the book on my forehead as well. It was good stuff. At first, I wished I had someone with me to take a picture, but then I realized how ridiculous I looked and was quite happy that I didn't know anyone on the plane. Thank goodness I got it all off before the plane landed!
As the plane was landing, it was amazing to see all the mosques on the ground below. Minarets stick out everywhere...I even tried to count them but lost track somewhere around 75. It was amazing.
Got to my hotel, and we had a group dinner at a restaurant looking out at the Bosphorus and the Galata Bridge, and took my first stabs at ordering in Turkish (not too pretty--I keep confusing Spanish and Turkish, and often say equis, the letter X in Spanish instead of iki, the number 2 in Turkish).
Tuesday-- The Hagia Sophia!! It is gorgeous, but it is more like a massive construction site these days. There was scaffolding everywhere and the whole thing just looked run-down. It is no longer a mosque and has been turned into a museum, but it is in need of massive renovations. There is currently a huge debate about funding for these renovations, and how exactly the Hagia Sophia should be restored. It was first built as a church, with Christian icons depicted in mosaics everywhere, but when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, they turned it into a mosque and plastered over much of the mosaics. Over time, earthquakes have cracked the walls, plaster is flaking off, and mosaics that survived or were uncovered from under plaster have deteriorated. The problem with restoring it, our guide told us, is that there is a debate over what the Hagia Sofia (or Ayasofya to the Turks) should be restored to. It is a museum today, so choosing to restore it to either a mosque or a church would ignore parts of its history, and that is (I think) what makes the building such an interesting place to see. 
In the first picture above you can see a really good example of the mosaic...that ceiling was all one huge mosaic. The second picture above shows the deterioration of the ceiling and the arabic script from when it was a mosque, and the picture on the right shows differences between original mosaic and plaster where it was covered up.
Wednesday--Yedikule
. It is a castle built along the Theodosian wall. The Theodo
sia
n wall was built to protect the city of Constantinople from land attacks, and is similar to the Great Wall of China (but much shorter).
This my group in the castle's torture chamber. The whole room was creepy...it was entirely rotting wood planks and we were all holding our breaths as the photo was taken and hoping that no one would fall through. It was no suprise that the room was used for torture...there was literally a chute to dump bodies down and various torture instruments.
Thursday--Basilica Cistern
This is a massive underground cistern that was used during the Byzantine empire. It was really cool, but hard to take pictures. It was hard to imagine that the whole cistern was once full of water...today there is just a platform that visitors walk on and it stands over about 3 feet of water with fish in it. It's like walking over a giant pond. I am doing a presentation on the water supply for the city of Constantinople so I spent waaayyy too much time here and took a few too many pictures. The architecture was really cool though...below is a picture of a Medusa head that was the base of one of the columns...it's all mossy because rainwater still drips into the cistern (I got hit in the head a few to many times by those massive drops)
Friday--Bosphorus boat trip. Cool, but not that historically exciting. I did see the Black sea though, and made friends with the entire Turkish Navy. (well a massive Navy boat crammed with men in uniform who were waving frantically at us). It was interesting to see all the massive, mulitmillion dollar mansions on the Bosphorous, and I was amazed at how
many there were.
Saturday--Whirling Dervishes
We went to a cultural center to see the Whirling Dervishes. It was cool to be able to say we saw it, but it was really slow and I was a little more than glad when they finally stopped spinning and finally left the room.
Sunday--Prince's Islands
The Prince's Islands are islands off the coast of Turkey accessible by ferry. We thought it would be a nice break to get out of the city for a day and hopefully be able to swim, since there aren't really any beaches around Istanbul and we've only seen men diving off the rocks of the Bosphorus. Of course, after a scorchingly hot ride on the ferry (that felt like the Titanic, by the way, but not because it was sinking but because of all the people packed on it) it started raining the second we got off the boat. We took cover for the worst part of the storm, but it never really stopped raining, and we left without ever getting to a beach.
Monday--Spice Bazaar The spice bazaar is this massively huge building in the middle of the Old Town district of Istanbul. Everywhere I looked, there were mounds of spices, dried fruits, and coffee, and it smelled amazing. There were huge jars of tea too. I spent a lot of time watching watching the vendors as they measured out spices on antique scales and haggled with their customers. It was also fun to learn the names of all the spices in Turkish, though considering I can hardly count to ten in Turkish, I will likely forget the spice names. I definitely want to come back to the Spice Bazaar though. It is connected to the Grand Bazaar, a massive shopping area with over a thousand stores where you can get all kinds of Turkish souvenirs, like tea, rugs, towels, Turkish Delight, postcards, coffee, tea, and pottery.
Well, that is just about everything...I' d better go do some reading for my classes now. Tomorrow we are going to Asia. As dramatic as that sounds, all it means is that we are taking a ferry to the other side of the Bosphorus and walking around a bit. I am still excited though!
Miss you all at home! Hope everyone is doing well!
Chelsea
In the first picture above you can see a really good example of the mosaic...that ceiling was all one huge mosaic. The second picture above shows the deterioration of the ceiling and the arabic script from when it was a mosque, and the picture on the right shows differences between original mosaic and plaster where it was covered up.
Wednesday--Yedikule
. It is a castle built along the Theodosian wall. The Theodo
sia
n wall was built to protect the city of Constantinople from land attacks, and is similar to the Great Wall of China (but much shorter).This my group in the castle's torture chamber. The whole room was creepy...it was entirely rotting wood planks and we were all holding our breaths as the photo was taken and hoping that no one would fall through. It was no suprise that the room was used for torture...there was literally a chute to dump bodies down and various torture instruments.
Thursday--Basilica Cistern
This is a massive underground cistern that was used during the Byzantine empire. It was really cool, but hard to take pictures. It was hard to imagine that the whole cistern was once full of water...today there is just a platform that visitors walk on and it stands over about 3 feet of water with fish in it. It's like walking over a giant pond. I am doing a presentation on the water supply for the city of Constantinople so I spent waaayyy too much time here and took a few too many pictures. The architecture was really cool though...below is a picture of a Medusa head that was the base of one of the columns...it's all mossy because rainwater still drips into the cistern (I got hit in the head a few to many times by those massive drops)
Friday--Bosphorus boat trip. Cool, but not that historically exciting. I did see the Black sea though, and made friends with the entire Turkish Navy. (well a massive Navy boat crammed with men in uniform who were waving frantically at us). It was interesting to see all the massive, mulitmillion dollar mansions on the Bosphorous, and I was amazed at how
many there were.
Saturday--Whirling Dervishes
We went to a cultural center to see the Whirling Dervishes. It was cool to be able to say we saw it, but it was really slow and I was a little more than glad when they finally stopped spinning and finally left the room.
Sunday--Prince's Islands
The Prince's Islands are islands off the coast of Turkey accessible by ferry. We thought it would be a nice break to get out of the city for a day and hopefully be able to swim, since there aren't really any beaches around Istanbul and we've only seen men diving off the rocks of the Bosphorus. Of course, after a scorchingly hot ride on the ferry (that felt like the Titanic, by the way, but not because it was sinking but because of all the people packed on it) it started raining the second we got off the boat. We took cover for the worst part of the storm, but it never really stopped raining, and we left without ever getting to a beach.
Monday--Spice Bazaar The spice bazaar is this massively huge building in the middle of the Old Town district of Istanbul. Everywhere I looked, there were mounds of spices, dried fruits, and coffee, and it smelled amazing. There were huge jars of tea too. I spent a lot of time watching watching the vendors as they measured out spices on antique scales and haggled with their customers. It was also fun to learn the names of all the spices in Turkish, though considering I can hardly count to ten in Turkish, I will likely forget the spice names. I definitely want to come back to the Spice Bazaar though. It is connected to the Grand Bazaar, a massive shopping area with over a thousand stores where you can get all kinds of Turkish souvenirs, like tea, rugs, towels, Turkish Delight, postcards, coffee, tea, and pottery.
Well, that is just about everything...I' d better go do some reading for my classes now. Tomorrow we are going to Asia. As dramatic as that sounds, all it means is that we are taking a ferry to the other side of the Bosphorus and walking around a bit. I am still excited though!
Miss you all at home! Hope everyone is doing well!
Chelsea
I like your blog. I haven't quite read it yet but i look at pictures.
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