After about a month of living in Odessa, I invited Anya to come visit Istanbul with me for a weekend getaway. Istanbul is the iconic city that is now the largest city in Turkey (and one of the largest cities in the world, with something like over 15 million inhabitants) and was once the seat of the Roman Empire when it was established as Constantinople in around 300 AD. Istanbul straddles the East and West, quite literally: the Bosporus Strait runs through it, and separates Europe from Asia. So, on one side of Istanbul you can be in Europe, and on the other, you're in Asia. Let's take a look at some awesome photos of my trip there back in the Spring of 2017.
This is what happens when you arrive at the Istanbul airport in the middle of the night. You're walking to get your luggage, and these very friendly guys walk up to you, invite you to sit and have some sandwiches with them (in the airport), ask you whether you need a hotel, a taxi, and so on. So: we sat there and had traditional Turkish food with them. They got us a great hotel near the main attractions, and ordered us a taxi. It actually wasn't a scam. But, very strange experience in an airport!
If you visit Istanbul, you'll see what's popularly known as the Blue Mosque. When you enter the mosque, if you're with a woman, she'll end up looking like this. It's of course the required garb for women entering a Muslim place of worship. Here's Anya.
The Blue Mosque is huuuuge. It's hard to capture it really. Here's the back of Anya entering the mosque, with me following along snapping pictures.
Front view of Blue Mosque. The official name of this mosque is the Sultan Amad Mosque, completed in 1616. It's a spectacle that you can't miss if in Istanbul. In the 1960s Bond movie From Russia with Love, you see the Blue Mosque in many scenes, looking pretty much exactly as it does today. It's been around for centuries--why would a few decades matter?
Ditto.
I believe this is the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora or just the Chora Church. I'll have to do some research as we were sort of agog and listening to our tour guide, walking from one visual spectacle to another. Keep in mind that these photos don't really do justice to what it's like to actually be there. The places are huge and ornate and powerful.
This is like four billion years old, and was an original site for I think first pagan and then Christian and then Muslim worship. Again, I'll have to research all this more. Point is: really, really old and a kind of landmark site in our history going back centuries (it's not really four billion years old).
Another historic landmark, presently lost on me. (Again: I will go back and properly describe these sites of major significance.) A key emotional experience when visiting Istanbul is this obvious humble appreciation for the history of the city. The United States is like a little three hundred year old speck of history compared to walking through these places, built during the Roman era when Istanbul was Constantinople and before.
We took a cruise on the Bosporus Strait, separating Europe from Asia, and saw some really awesome historical architecture as well as the areas of modern wealth in Istanbul. The cruise is really worth it! When you disembark you go to the Spice Markets, where basically you get deluged with other sites and sounds and smells.
We ended up in this basement tour of ancient pottery. Part of the plan here is to interest tourists in purchasing the items, but there's no real "hard sell," and you can simply enjoy the ride. By the way, be prepared to be propositioned about a million times to look at different hand-made carpets, which are beautiful and clearly intended for attraction for sale to visitors. Some of them are reasonable, and some of them can be quite expensive. We didn't buy a carpet, or any of these items. We did love browsing them.
Turkish food is great, especially if you like lots of spicy meat and bread.
This is the stone indicating the entrance to one of the world's largest Turkish baths, which is just something you have to experience for yourself. The place is massive inside, all steaming stones and water that people splash on you as you sit sweating out toxins. There's a list of all the famous Hollywood and other folks that visited this particular bath. It's quite an experience.
The entrance to the famed Grand Bizarre, where you must abandon all hope, ye who enter. It's a huuuge open air market selling everything and anything under the sun. Daunting as a Westerner, the entire system involves lack of clear indications of price tags, so that you must haggle and barter your way to a purchase. All part of the fun, turns out, though there's an adjustment required first as a Westerner. We had a blast in the Bizarre, ending up with an assortment of cheap knock-off apparel, spices, and I think a Turkish tea maker. And yes, you really can get lost in there. I'm not sure how many acres it is, but it's large enough to make it easy to end up in the maze of shops and endless people, perplexed as to how to get back out. All part of the fun.
Yeah, there's a Starbucks in Istanbul. And yes, the barista speaks English. Don't expect to get a traditional cup of joe there, however. All is European: a cup of coffee is an Americano, a fact that I became accustomed to living in Europe only gradually and begrudgingly.
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