Istanbul (not Constantinople)

The last few days have been absolutely crazy! I guess I will start from the beginning—prepare for a long post!

We arrived in Istanbul on Tuesday around 7am, and we woke up early to watch the ship pull into port. We watched the sunrise over the Asian part of Turkey and passed by the famous mosques we had learned about—the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia—on the European side.  It was amazing! After our diplomatic briefing, we were told that we all had to carry our passports while in Istanbul. We’ve had 4 people lose their passports already (2 people found theirs and 2 were left behind in Greece and had to meet up with us in Turkey) so I wonder how many people will lose theirs this time. Anyway, off we went on our 6-hour city orientation. We saw all of the major sites in the city and it was very worth it. Our first stop was the Sehzade Mosque, where we enjoyed the architecture and detailed mosaics after we took off our shoes and I covered my head with a shawl. We learned that icons are forbidden in the Islamic religion, so you will never find a person, face, or animal in a mosque. The next stop was the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, better known as the Blue Mosque because of its blue mosaics inside. It was huge, more than twice the size of the previous mosque. We had some free time to look at the mosaics and then we were off to the Hippodrome, where chariot races used to be held. All that remains are 3 columns: a very tall one made of stones, part of an obelisk stolen from Egypt, and the bronze serpent column stolen from Delphi (which we learned about in Global Studies—it was made by the Greeks from the melted weapons of the defeated Persian army—ha!).  A road is now in place of the former track so there is still a feel of the shape of the Hippodrome. The next stop was the Hagia Sophia, which was first a church, then was converted into a mosque, and is now just a museum. It has the largest dome in Istanbul, and the inside of the building was amazing. We could see how the Muslims covered the Christian icons with their mosaics, some of the icons had been uncovered so we could see the juxtaposition of the two religions in one building. On our way to our next stop, I grabbed an ear of corn from a street vendor, hot and delicious!! The final stop was the Byzantine Cistern, a huge underground vault where water for the city used to be stored. We walked through the pathways and looked at the modern art that is now exhibited there. To give you an idea of the size of the cistern, it contains 336 Corinthian columns! We went back to the ship to shower and eat dinner, then walked around the port area trying to find a place for dessert. We happened upon a string of hookah bars, and everyone was trying to get us to come in and smoke. Ick. We finally pulled away and found a little ice cream stand. Good stuff! Turkish ice cream is really thick, not as creamy as gelato but still very good!

The next day was our overnight trip to Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey. We met in the Union bright and early at 6:15am and received SAS’s version of a continental breakfast, which apparently includes a few pastries and orange juice. I, of course, had planned ahead and brought a baggie of cereal and a granola bar. Go me! We boarded the motorcoach and were off to the airport! It was crazy trying to organize 81 people with their passports and plane tickets, it probably took us an hour to get to our gate. Our flight was slightly delayed, but soon we were taking off. The flight was only about an hour long, but they served us a sandwich and almond bread! I was amazed—for our 2 hour flight to Halifax, we didn’t get anything! Almost as soon as I finished my lunch, we were preparing to land. We landed safely in possibly one of the tiniest commercial airports in the world. It was basically one runway and a small building. And it was in the middle of nowhere. Our tour guide met us there and we were off! We stopped at so many places that I may not remember the names of everything, but here we go! The first stop was the Kaymakli Underground City, where Christians had built houses, churches, schools, and other buildings to live in during times of persecution. It was 8 stories deep and went about 130 feet into the ground, but we were only able to look at the first 4 stories. The passageways were small and we had to crouch down and crawl at some points to get through. The passages would branch off into other passages and open up into rooms, our guide said they were used to confuse enemies. There were also trapdoors and hiding places so the Christians could surprise their attackers. It was amazing to see how they could carve an entire working city out of rock! They even had a winery—important things! The next stop was a panoramic view of Pigeon Valley. Pigeons were apparently very important in Cappadocia as they served as food and fertilizer. Yum. There were pigeon houses carved into the rocks.  After that, we were well overdue for lunch. We stopped in an area with several restaurants and were given an hour to eat. We went to the first restaurant we saw: Steven got some kind of meat dish with tomato and egg, and I got chicken kebab. Quite tasty. Our tour guide took us to many different places, and this was where I started losing track of what was what. Everywhere we went, we saw these large conical rocks made out of volcanic stone with doors and windows carved into them. The volcanic stone is pliable enough that it can be easily carved and people made houses and entire cities out of these rocks. The guide also took us to two “fortresses” where the castles were also built in the same fashion. We got to the hotel completely exhausted, but we had to grab dinner and get ready for a Whirling Dervish ceremony. Dinner at the hotel was pretty good, but dessert was amazing. Everything was buffet, and there were probably 40 choices for dessert. We hopped back on the bus for the Whirling Dervish ceremony, which was held in an old camel caravan resting station. The ceremony was very involved, I was glad we got a pamphlet explaining the different parts or I would have been completely lost. The Dervishes apparently spin approximately 800 times during the entire ceremony and are in a trance the whole time. They spun around so fluidly –I would get dizzy! After the ceremony we were given cinnamon tea, which was delicious. We went back to the hotel, which had rather sucky air conditioning, and instantly fell asleep after an exhausting day.

My hotel roommate had a hot air balloon ride the next morning and had to wake up at 4am, I woke up with her alarm and then went right back to sleep for 2 more hours. I called my mom from the hotel phone =) and then got ready for breakfast. Not as good as dinner, but it was a lot better than the ship’s breakfast! The group who went for the hot air balloon rides met us at breakfast and then we were off for our second day of sightseeing. In the morning, we visited the open air museums of Goreme Valley and Zelve Valley, more cities carved into rock. In the Zelve Valley, our tour guide led us up a path to a rock with a tunnel inside. None of us had brought flashlights, so everyone was using the flash from their cameras to light the way. It was pretty scary! It was completely pitch black, and we were crawling through a downward-sloping tunnel until it became a set of stone stairs. We made it out alive but rather dusty (I washed my clothes when I got back to the ship and the water in the sink was a nice dark brown—yummy!).  The Goerme Valley was more developed and we explored the different chapels and buildings in the city. After Muslims took over the city, they scratched the eyes out of most of the icons in the chapels, again because icons are forbidden in Islam. Some of the frescoes were still very well preserved and have been there since the 11th century! Our last stop of the morning was to see the “fairy chimneys.” It’s hard to describe these, basically they are very tall cone-shaped rock formations with “caps” on top. Go search them on Google images!! They are made of 2 different kinds of rock from 2 different volcanic eruptions: the “cap” rock on top is much harder than the rock below, and wind has eroded the bottom rock to make it look like the cap is precariously balancing on the cone. Quite cool! We then stopped in the town of Urgup for lunch (I had Turkish pizza which consisted of meat, cheese, and egg, and Steven had a meat shish kebab) followed by some delicious apple tea, and then we were on the road to the airport. We were apparently going to a different airport than the one we arrived to, this one was thankfully much bigger. Our flight was delayed half an hour—boo! We again were fed on the flight, this time there was a chicken sandwich, a weird salad with sour cream and lettuce (?), and banana chocolate mousse. We returned to Istanbul safe and sound. Although Cappadocia was amazing, I was very happy to see the ship, my air-conditioned cabin, and my comfy bed again!

All right, it’s pretty late over here and I have class in the morning, so I will talk about the last 2 days in Istanbul tomorrow! But now (drumroll please) here is the stupidest comment of the entire voyage:

--A girl was talking about her time in Istanbul. She said, “I made it to the Europe side and the Asia side, I wish we were going to Africa!”

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

One person apparently lost their passport, we don’t know yet if they made it back to the ship or not. I believe the two people we left behind in Greece made it back. Fun times!