I'm writing from the terrace, watching the light fade over Istanbul's skyline, listening to music, and eating my 1 lira rice-with-chickpeas dinner. It would be perfect but for the seagull brawl that is taking place on the tin roof right above me, both making a huge ruckus and giving me an uneasy, 'The Birds'-like feeling.
I need to find new ways of starting posts other than, "Wow! The past day(s) have been incredible!", but that's all I've got for now. The past days have been incredible! Yesterday was pretty quiet, which was a nice change of pace. We mostly stayed in, watched a documentary about trains, and discussed industrialization and city-planning in the late Ottoman Empire, a topic about which all of you are already so well versed as to not merit a summary of our discussion. Highlight was another delicious dinner at Prof. Shields'. Today's been a bit more busy, to say the least.
So one of the projects we're doing here is a site project, wherein we, in teams, pick a site, take the group to it, and teach them about it. Yekta and I chose (thank you Professor Connor!) the Byzantine church-turned-Ottoman mosque-turned-museum Kariye Camii. Since we weren't supposed to meet until 2 or so this afternoon, we decided to go check it out this morning. Woke up early (8:30, and oh my god was it hard), took the tram and a dolmuş (a cross between a bus and a taxi, and, at 2 lira, probably one of the best transportation options here) to get all the way out to the site- it was closed. Apparently it always is on Wednesdays. Undeterred, we went on a five hour trek that took us to six mosques and across a good third of the old city. Some highlights of a long journey:
Yes, these are sheep. Within the city's old walls (it now extends miles beyond the Byzantine walls). In the midst of a neighborhood. I really don't have anything else to say.
A good part of the old neighborhoods by the walls looked like this. Pamuk talks, in his book Istanbul, obsessively about the hüzün (or melancholy) all Istanbullus have from constantly being reminded that the city they inhabit is in many ways a shell of its former self; walking through some of these neighborhoods, I can at least begin to understand it. Also- these neighborhoods were palpably more conservative; we hardly saw any women without headscarves, and the vast majority wore black burqas. The children were just as friendly and outgoing as ever though:
These little boys saw us, identified us immediately as Americans, and said in rapid-fire English "HellomynameisXwhatisyourname?" Yekta spoke Turkish to them after my feeble Merhabas (hello) and memnun oldums (nice to meet you). They also demanded that we take their pictures. The kids here are just great.
This is the dome of the mausoleum of Mehmed II Fatih, 'the Conqueror' of Constantinople. In fact, he captured the city 555 years ago tomorrow (May 29), so there'll be big celebrations. The mausoleums are jewelboxes, so intricately detailed and colorful. His was particularly beautiful I thought.The next mosque we stopped at was Şehzade Camii, commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in honor of his son's early, unexpected death and executed by the great architect Sinan (one of his first buildings). It was great because:
a. it was completely empty, a first for a mosque in my experience, especially one so huge, and
b. it was so incredibly beautiful. Obligatory neckbreaking ceiling shot:
Next, we headed over to Süleymaniye Camii. Here's Suleiman's mausoleum (at this point, I think I've seen about half of the Ottoman sultans); the lighting and shape of the building are really complex, so taking pictures was difficult.
Tiles, marble, stained glass- this place had it all. Fitting for the greatest European monarch of the 16th century.
The thing on the left is a huge elephant tusk. Most of the earlier sultans are buried flanked by one. I guess a symbol of imperial power, but it looks kind of weird. And of course the huge white turban in the middle is that of Suleiman himself.(Bird war update: the birds have either started using projectiles or one just dropped dead on the roof.)
Finally it was time to meet the group, so we drifted over to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art near the Blue Mosque. There were so many stunning pieces, but I was most impressed by the manuscrips and calligraphy.
For some reason this picture will not rotate! Anyways, this is the bottom half of the page, 8 or 10 inches wide, and a foot and half tall. The book was hugely thick as well; I can't imagine how long it would've taken to complete. Definitely click to see the large version too. Not a bad view from the porch either:
Kind of a jarring image, isn't it? It's the obelisk of Theodosius and the Blue Mosque. In such incredible shape, it's hard to believe it's a real obelisk but it is, from 1300 BC or so and brought to Constantinople in the fourth century AD. After our guided tour through the museum, we had our first (and hopefully not last) actual Turkish lesson! I hesitate to say that I'm more than a complete stranger to the language, but I really have learned so much in the past week.
Four seagulls just swooped down in unison from the roof about 15 feet in front of my face, so I should probably get back downstairs. İyi akşamlar, and I'll talk to you soon!
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