Istanbul is an absolutely amazing city. Our first full day here (Friday) was filled with Turkish lessons. It is the most peculiar language, and sounds like a mixture of Norwegian and Japanese. Our professor is very intense but really cool at the same time. The hardest part though is that she expects us to know the words or the grammar as soon as she tells us. I never thought I would wish I was back in Spanish classes.
Yesterday (Saturday) we took a tour in the old city. Our first stop was the Blue Mosque, but because it was so crowded we decided to go to the old Saltan’s Palace. It was really cool and I have officially decided that I am going to be a Saltan. I got to see an 80 karat diamond (Carrie though yours is pretty, this one kind of puts it to shame) and a huge box filled with uncut emeralds! It was awesome. After the Palace we went to the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia is over 1500 years old and is absolutely breathtaking. It was originally built as a church during Constantine’s rule (or something like that). It is about 5 stories high and completely covered in marble. The ceiling was originally filled with mosaics, but most of that has not survived. However, the few that have are absolutely amazing. They are gorgeous pictures of Saints made with tiny little square centimeter tiles. When Muslims took over the area they converted the church into a mosque and whitewashed the walls to purge the place of its iconography. The funny thing is, this ended up preserving a lot of the mosaics and other artwork much better than had it been left alone! I will figure out how to put up pictures soon so you can see it. After the Hagia Sophia we went across the street to the Blue Mosque. It is an absolutely gorgeous mosque.
A few of us decided to stay in the old city in order to see the iftar or breaking of the fast because currently Ramadan is being celebrated. Iftar is at sundown or about 8PM so we had about three hours to kill. We went to a place called the Green Café where we got to sit on a floor level couch and ordered ice cream. Then we went to the grand bazaar, which is almost unexplainable. It is indoors, but yet looks like there are a bunch of houses with shops inside and out front. I didn’t buy anything but saw a lot of really cool things and definitely want to go back.
At sundown we sat in the middle of a park and broke fast with all of the locals. It was a really cool experience that I will never forget. Next we snuck into the Blue Mosque to see the call to prayer. I honestly mean snuck because visitors were not supposed to go in, but they let us stay.
All in all it was a very awesome day.
Today (Sunday), we had another full day of Turkish lessons, which are just so overwhelming. We have a huge test on Tuesday so most of us are cramming tonight. I better get back to studying!
If it sounds like Japanese, that means its really awkward to say, yes? WIth Japanese I just have to say things out loud a billion times so I get comfortable with words like shitsureshimasu. But you're lucky that you at least will use roman letters rather than し連れします (which is the word from above XD). But I thought learning Japanese for an hour four times a week was rough. Getting to use it though will hopefully make it easier.
ReplyDeleteBut it sounds like you're all having a wonderful time!!!! And seeing some truly awesome things. And getting to see a prayer would be so cool, so its great you got to see it!! :)