Sultanahmet and Eminonu

There are only a few places in Istanbul that I actually knew anything about when I came here, and so far I have seen all but one of them: Topkapi Palace. Today I set out with three friends from Robert College and we went to go see it...only to discover it's closed on Tuesdays. Why Tuesdays? That's anyone's guess. Most of the major attractions here seem to pick a random day of the week on which they are not open. I knew this before, but didn't think Tuesdays were one of the days when they would close places. Oh, well. We decided to cross another of the major monuments off my "to do" list: The Blue Mosque. After snapping a few photos and wandering around the whole building looking for the entrance they wanted us to use, my friend Melissa and I talked the guy into giving us clean head scarves and removed our shoes as we entered the quiet semidarkness of the mosque. Once inside we discovered that we were nearly the only ones actually using the borrowed headscarves to cover our hair; most of the tourists who were given them ended up needing them to cover their bare shoulders or legs, or simply disregarded them altogether. The mosque itself is beautiful, with layers of domed ceilings, Arabic script, and stained-glass windows. After the mosque we followed our friend Phil (the men on the street kept jokingly congratulating him on having a mini-harem of three wives) to a beautiful cafe facing the water for a relaxing lunch, and then made our way into the famous Egyptian Spice Bazaar, which holds dozens of shops and hundreds of bins filled to overflowing with every kind of spice you can imagine. It smells heavenly there, a mix of curry and pepper and cinnamon that makes you instantly understand why so many explorers have spent so much of history trying to get to these flavorful essences. The Spice Bazaar also has numerous small shops in it that sell everything from Turkish pottery to Anatolian tablecloths to evil eyes to flip flops. The shopkeepers are invariably willing to bargain with you at every turn, although they will usually wind up accusing you of being either Turkish or Jewish if you play hardball too often.

Bosphorus Boat Trip

In Minnesota at the end of the school year many schools organize trips on paddleboats on the Mississippi River. In recent years, it became my job to prevent my students from getting into mischief on those paddleboat rides, namely, to prevent their version of dancing from producing the next generation. In Istanbul, there is another kind of boat trip, one thankfully far more tame: the end-of-the-year Lise Prep Boat Trip. The worst mischief I witnessed on this trip was one student making an offensive gesture with her finger (supposedly in response to a boy on shore's single-finger greeting), and she was quite embarrassed when she discovered me standing behind her. I spent the majority of this boat trip along the shores of the Bosphorus pointing at important-looking buildings and asking my students Recep and Cosan what they were, then snapping a half-dozen photographs before we moved on to the next important-looking building. They didn't mind, in fact, Recep volunteered the information at every opportunity and looked relieved to have an excuse to avoid dancing with his classmates. The music was Turkish pop music; if you're interested in hearing it you should begin by listening to MFO to hear what Turkish pop music used to sound like, then move on to more contemporary artists like Tarkan. Needless to say there is quite the Turkish flavor to it, and dance moves that mimic those of belly dancers at times.

Between the dancing and important buildings I finally completed one of the goals I've had since my first trip on the Bosphorus: taking a hundred or so pictures of the yalis (yahl-uhs). A yali (which should technically have a "short i" but I'm using my American computer) is a seaside home, ranging from what I would term a "normal-sized" home to a mansion in size. In Ottoman times, these homes were mostly owned by pashas, noblemen whose social rank afforded them certain benefits. Today, these are mostly million dollar+ homes owned by the wealthiest families in Istanbul, most of whom also own a speed boat or two for getting across the Bosphorus without having to deal with traffic. At the beginning of the year, one of the Robert College trustees had us over to her yali for dinner; I finally managed to get a picture of it while on the boat trip yesterday. Here it is, with the family speed boat parked out front:

Birthday in Istanbul

First of all, I'm sorry it's been awhile since I last posted. It's finals time at Robert College, and I have been extraordinarily busy preparing grades and grading finals, listening to pleas for extra points, and finishing all of the end of the year things we teachers all endure. That being said, today is my birthday, so I thought it would be fitting for me to post a few words about what it is like to celebrate my first birthday away from home. My birthday celebration began with my students, who had secretly prepared a little party for me at the end of the day yesterday. They had bought a gourmet cake (a tradition among these kids) for me, gifts (a purple necklace, a journal, and pictures of them-one seen here), and the Turkish version of "Happy Birthday" sung in English (same tune as the American version, with slightly different lyrics). They bought me birthday card but none of them signed it, in a gesture that shows how they "almost" understand American traditions (birthday cards are not very big here). Very sweet kids. After my birthday celebration, we went to the usual Friday flag ceremony, only to discover that it was time for the kids to learn the Robert College school song, which also had a familiar tune: it's sung to the tune of "O Tannenbaum!" After almost ten months of the Turkish National Anthem, which is pretty severe, this was quite the change. I suppressed my laughter and sang along.

Last night it was time for the adult celebration, a joint birthday party with my friend and fellow English teacher Jake, whose birthday was yesterday. We went to a bar/ restaurant/ brewhouse called Taps; one of the few places I've found where they serve fresh microbrew and mostly American food. Their view is amazing, their front window panels were wide open, and it was a beautiful summer night. Most of our department showed up, as did several other campus residents with whom I have become well acquainted this year, and a good time was had by all. My fellow Minnesotan Ann Marie Mershon also joined us for the celebration; she is the one who had been my source of information about Istanbul in general and Robert College in particular last year after I found out I was coming here, and it was great to see her again. At nine o'clock the waiters began to get nervous about the size of the tab being generated by our group and asked us to cash out and start again; we decided it was time to go someplace where the beer was a little cheaper...the lojman of one of the other English teachers, Phil. His apartment also has an amazing view, and it turns out that he makes fantastic soup (which was consumed in abundance by us in the middle of the night). So we walked from Bebek to Robert College (about a mile or so) along the Bosphorus, which was filled with fishermen and women, families, old folks, and a few odd characters, one of whom had a motorcycle covered with odds and ends: empty film canisters, buttons, bottle caps, and other miscellaneous small items. He posed for pictures as he ate his dinner beside his bike, and told us he was actually a photographer (and a very good one, if his business card is any indication). Just one more reason I love wandering in Arnavutkoy in the middle of the night along the Bosphorus.

Back at Phil's place, we continued our carousing well into the night, had a celebratory toast at midnight in honor of my birthday, watched boats with advertisements go by and watched the moon rise, and eventually parted ways after what was undeniably one of the most fun birthdays I've had in a long, long time!