I heard Michelle whisper my name this morning, and then say something along the lines of “My alarm clock never went off…”, so I was up in a heartbeat, thinking we might have missed the sunrise over the supposedly beautiful Istanbul. Glancing at my own clock, my pulse slowed. It was only 5:30AM. The sun wasn’t supposed to come up for another 17 lovely minutes. We walked upstairs in our PJ’s, bleary-eyed and wide awake.
Turkey, or rather Istanbul, was not what I had expected. But is anything ever what one expects? It both surprised me and unnerved me. It made me smile and made me want to cry. To state the obvious, Turkey is not anything like the other countries we’ve experienced thus far. After watching the sunrise (it was foggy, and I could not really see the magnificent views…but it was breathtaking, nonetheless)) we ate breakfast and nonchalantly headed off of the ship to get a feel for the city.
Head scarves, everywhere. Women in black from head to toe, nothing but eyes peeking out to glimpse their surroundings. We had been briefed before we were let loose that Turkey, especially the Istanbul area, is 99% Muslim. It’s not that I was at all surprised to see the women completely covered…I was more in shock that I was actually in a country where women were clearly treated differently than men. It was certainly eye-opening. We were all wearing capris and T-shirts, and looked exactly like the stereo-typical Americans, minus fanny packs.
We eventually made our way to the famous Aga Sophia, the Mosque that was turned into a museum when the Blue Mosque was built. It was really pretty with mosaics and lots of beautiful architecture. Then we waited in line to go underground to the Cistern. I didn’t even know one could walk around a cistern, but apparently I was very mistaken. It was this large square block underground, poles everywhere with red lights…so the place was pitch black save for those red lights. It was really eerie, like something out of Harry Potter, or an underground horror film.
After cooling off below the sidewalks, we toured through the famous Blue Mosque. I have never been to a mosque before this one, so I didn’t have too many expectations. We took our shoes off and quietly shimmied around other curious tourists. The mosque proved to be one gigantic square cut off in sections by golden rails. The men prayed toward Mecca throughout the entire mosque. The women prayed in the thin strip of section at the very back. I found this disturbing. I also found it so humbling to see the women on their hands and knees in the very back, while the men took up all of the surrounding space. They couldn’t even pray together.
We proceeded to buy ice cream because Turkey is a very hot, hot place and I ordered vanilla/chocolate swirl thinking this looked refreshing. I took my first lick and the ice cream would not come apart. I took another lick, thinking something was wrong with my tongue, and the ice cream looked like silly putty being strung from the cone. I laughed. Then I saw my friends having the same issue. Then I noticed my chocolate and vanilla did not taste like chocolate or vanilla, but rather a big pile of raw dough. I took a bite, a bite, out of the silly putty and had to literally break it apart with my teeth. Then I became disgusted. This was no longer a game, but really gross silly putty/dough fake ice cream. Needless to say, I walked away very unrefreshed, my mouth tasting of paper and sludge.
With our mutual feelings of disgust about the poser “ice cream”, we concluded that actual lunch was in order. We stopped at this tiny, family-owned café and the waiter came over and began to immediately joke with us. He brought out two baskets of warm pita bread and about 7 different kinds of dips and meats to put into the pita, without us ordering a single thing. His daughter, who was 12, spoke English to us and took our drink orders. She was incredibly sweet. I chatted her up, and she told me that she would be my Turkish teacher and I could be her English teacher. We exchanged a few words in the other language and laughed a lot (because I clearly cannot speak Turkish). Lamb, chicken, rice, eggplant, lettuce and tomato, onion and peppers, garlic spread, and spicy tomato spread covered the entire table and we all mixed and matched our pita fillings. The entire meal was amazing, even though we didn’t order any of it. The waiter ended up sitting down with us toward the end of the meal and began talking politics for at least a good half-hour. We all just stared at him, nodding our heads in the appropriate places because A. He clearly had very different views from many of us at the table and B. Because I don’t know my politics well enough to articulate my views out loud, and C. Because I do not talk politics in America, let alone Turkey. So I sat in uncomfortable silence along with Michelle and Paul and Lindsey, and listened to him ramble for way longer than necessary about our government. As interesting as his Turkish views were, I had to sit there with my mouth shut. After he finished and delivered our check, I told the little girl to come here, and I stuck a Euro in her little hand. She shook her head and said she couldn’t take it, and I told her that she was such a good teacher, and that she deserved it. As we got up to leave, I gave her a hug and she kissed me on both cheeks, which I thought was too sweet.
And what better to end our night with a movie? We decided to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Turkey :)
Making our way to the nearest theater, we had to walk through the Grand Bazaar to get there. I was a bit overwhelmed and super excited. Rugs, jewelry, people, rugs, clothes, shoes, rugs, magic genie lamps, jewelry, people…it was a never-ending cycle of craziness. Sadly, we did not get to shop around because we needed to buy tickets for the movie, but I vowed to definitely come back.
The movie theater was not air-conditioned very well. I felt sticky the whole time, but enjoyed every minute of the experience. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was amazing…even though I am not a devout Harry Potter fanatic, I understood the gist of the movie and thought it was even better in Turkey because the timing for the words were off. It was hilarious. The movie played in English with Turkish subtitles, but the timing was off...Harry would say something and 3.5 seconds later, his lips would move. I couldn’t stop laughing.
And laugh I did, the whole cab ride home.
A.
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