Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Let the recounting of Turkey begin

After a short flight, we landed in Turkey.  Istanbul is a buzzing metropolis of 16 million people and you can feel it starting from the moment you land. It is as foreign and exotic as Jordan but feels much more modern and cosmopolitan and I could feel myself noticabley relax - I guess I am truely an urban girl. 

In doing research for accommodation here, I found this great website called AirBnB.  It is rooms and apartments that people let out to make some revenue.  We went this route because hostels were in the $30-40 Cdn range per person per night - expensive by hostel standards.  We also wanted to have a private room for Monique's first night as she was scheduled to arrive just after midnight and would be suffering from jetlag.  I found this very cute apartment owned by Onur (click on link to see pics of the apartment) for a comparable price to the hostels and it was great.  There was even a small reading nook made up inside the middle arch of the living room windows.  Anyway, if you like using BnBs then you are going to love this website.

After we had checked in, we went for a stroll along Isktlal Street which is a huge pedestrian shopping street where thousands of people congregate.  As we had arrived the day before Monique was due to arrive, it was a nice way to just chill out.

April 28
The next day, Veve wanted to do some more relaxing so I left him at the apartment and went to the Pera Museum and saw an exhibit of Goya prints and paintings.  The exhibit was mostly of his prints (link to pictures of his prints) - my understanding is that he used his prints to make commentaries on politics, religion and society.  They were very dark and disturbing. He tended to add animal features to the people and I found many of the prints to have a sadistic feel to them.

Later that day, we went to the airport to pick up Monique.  Yay!!!  A little piece of home for us!

April 29
Three or four days is just not enough time to see the sights of Istanbul.  You could spend a very active month in Istanbul and probably see quite a bit of it but with only a short few days, we needed to hit some of the high lights. 

We had intended to see the 3 major sights (Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace) on our first day but when we got off the metro, a nice man offered to show us the way to the Blue Mosque.  Monique took him up on his offer.  Now, Veve and I had become jaded by our interactions with "salesmen' in Jordan and if he had only pointed us in the right direction, we would have been fine but he walked us the 2-3 blocks to the mosque and it only took me about 15 seconds into the interaction to realize this guy was some kind of salesman.  When we got to the mosque, the line up was several hundred people deep and there was a prayer time coming up (it is a working mosque and tourists are not allowed in during services).  So, that is when our helpful Turk tells us the best times to come to the mosque and that his family had a carpet shop around the corner and we should come for a cup of tea.  Now, you need to know that having tea is an integral part of the carpet buying process - we were hooped!!!!

The Blue Mosque
Tourists everywhere!!!!
Being good Canadians, we felt the need to at least look at the shop since the guy had made the effort to help us - this is what you need to avoid in the Middle East and Turkey as they know this about westerners and exploit this trait against us.

So, once our friend showed us the showroom and the stunning view from the rooftop patio, he disappeared (to go hook more potential buyers) and his "uncle" took over the uncle says "Since you are here for tea, you might as well look at some carpets while you relax".  And so the rugs started coming out.  You need to understand that all the rugs are rolled up around the edge of the showroom and the buyer sits comfortably sipping tea while the seller and his helpers start throwing the rugs down. 

He started with large rugs and it took me about 30 minutes to work him down to small rugs.  I learnt to say "yoke" (Turkish for no) very fast (big thanks for Monique taking the time to learn basic Turkish and teaching me some of it!).  When you say Yoke to a carpet, the helpers just pull them off the floor and start a Yoke pile.

I had read that you should visit at least 3 shops and look at carpets before deciding to buy but the uncle kept bringing out carpets. I started to feel bad for uncle.  Monique and Veve made fun of me because my Yoke pile was apparently quite large and I didn't know how to bring it to an end without buying something. I only saw the Yoke pile after many carpets had been re-roled and it was still quite big.

So, in the end, Veve and I became the proud owners of two small kilims (carpets with no pile) and Monique owned one of her own.

We probably paid much too much for the carpets but I am going to choose to believe that some of the money went to pay for the great memory of the experience.

Me, Veve, Monique and Uncle
After the sale

With our precious but heavy purchases in their carrying bags, off we went to try and see the Blue Mosque........again. However, we made a rule that Monique was not to talk to any salesmen.

All the line ups were long so, being frustrated, we decided to eat.......it has worked for me most of my life so why change my coping strategies now!

During lunch, Veve had a nice chat with the restaurant manager where in he tried to sell both Monique and I to the manager in exchange for 12 cats (there are cats everwhere in Turkey). The guy thought the price was too steep to pay, so Veve was stuck with us.

At the restaurant where Monique and I were
almost bartered away for 12 cats.

We decided to try and see Topkapi Palace after lunch.  The line up was long but we decided to endure it as we felt we needed to see at least one sight in the day.  It was worth it.  It is a beautiful example of ottoman architecture and decorating.

Beautiful tiles, tiles and more tiles - they
really liked tiles

Do you think Frank Lloyd Wright
may have gotten inspiration from the Ottomans?

It gets cold in Turkey so they needed big
fireplaces to heat the big rooms!

Three great friends!
But mirror, mirror on the wall,
who is the fairest of the three?

In our wanderings after the palace, we came across a restaurant that also had a show scheduled for that night of Whirling Dervishes. We had a good time chatting with one of the employees, Adem. In the end, we bought tickets for dinner and a show later that night.

When we got back the the restaurant, we had more fun talking with Adem and learnt that at some time in his past, he had learnt to dance while standing on wine glasses. At first we gawaffed at this but he said that if he could prove it, we would owe him a drink. Well.........he took Veve and Monique to the back office and showed them pictures..........and this is how we ended up owing him a drink. He told us he was not allowed to drink in the workplace, so we would have to take him out after the show was over.

The show itself was not as inspiring as I had hoped. Whirling Dervishes do just that, whirl......and not all that fast, at least from my perspective. It also felt just a tad uncomforable to be watching someone undertake a religious ceremony. Now, I have gone to several church ceremonies and witnessed religious ceremonies but I was never eating my dinner during them. I felt it was a tad disrespectful. The fact that these people perform this show several times a week in this manner, I believe, diminished the sanctity of such a ceremony. I hope the performers were not actually worshippers but just that........performers.  Otherwise, I think they are cheapening their religion in some way.



There was also a belly dancer who performed but I felt like she was more of an exotic dancer wearing a belly dancer's outfit.  Her dancing made me a little bit uncomfortable. (When did I become a prude?!?!?!?!?)

After all this, it was off for drinks with Adem.  He took us via cab to another part of Istanbul called Komkapi to a street lined with restaurants with lots of locals and wandering bands.  Turkish people definitely know how to have a good time and a large wedding party at another resaurant had a small girl (around 6 or 8 years old) that danced on the table most of the night. They were having a fabulous time! Adem got one of the wandering bands to come over and play some songs from the area of Turkey where he grew up.  He sang along on many of the songs - he had a nice voice.

One of his friends, Haki, worked at the restaurant and he and Adem wanted to have a drink together so, once again, we moved restaurants.  They must have been regulars cause the restaurant we went to looked like it was closing down and they opened the place up for us.  We were also joined by Gerald, another of their friends.  There was much drinking, munching, singing (at one point Ibrahim, a tabla player joined us - hence the singing).  Haki kept telling us he had 300 girlfriends but we just kept making fun of him because he drank lots of Raki (the national drink of Turkey) so we called him Haki, who likes Raki.  We drank and talked the night away with these locals and had a great time.  Adem made sure we got home safe and sound (I think he may have been a bit sweet on Monique) and we crawled into bed at 4am. 

I think this experience on Monique's first day in Turkey probably helped her overcome her jetlag.  Of course, it could have been the fact that we slept in until almost noon the next day that may have helped her as well.

And that was just her first day.....keep tuned for more adventures!





1 comment:

  1. You are way behind on your blogging!!!!!

    ReplyDelete