A Lull in the Action: Istanbul: Day One

The next morning we woke up at 5am to start our 8 hour drive to Istanbul. We had packed the night before so we pretty much just woke up, put our bags in the car, and got in, but it was sad because we had to say goodbye to Irmak’s grandmother, since she was not coming to Istanbul with us. We were all crying, but as we were pulling away she threw a bowl of water into the street. It is typical to do that in Turkey when someone who has come to visit is leaving, because it symbolizes that the people leaving will come and go as the water flows. Although it was really sad to say goodbye, we know we will see her sometime again in the near future.

We watched the sun rise as we drove out of Cesme, and we slept most of the way in the car, only stopping to get out for food, gas, and bathroom breaks. We made it to the ferry outside of Istanbul just minutes before it left! Since Istanbul is two parts, one half in Europe and one half in Asia, we had to take a ferry to get to our side. It is also possible to drive there if you cross a bridge, but it takes longer.
The Bosporus itself which separates the two halves (the Bosporus is the waterway connecting the Aegean and the Black Seas) is actually pretty narrow, but we took the ferry starting from much further down the coast, so the boat ride took about an hour. We drove our car right onto the ferry, and then went up to the upper deck to sit and chat. We played games and looked at the view of the Istanbul skyline quickly approaching.
When the ferry docked we were off the boat within minutes. We got a little lost on the way to the hotel, but it was ok because we got to look at the magnificent buildings out the window.

When we got to the hotel we got settled in our rooms and then we met our tour guide, Sarkhan. He had orange curly hair and pale skin just like Suzy even though he was Turkish, so we took a picture of the two of them and joked all week they were long lost siblings.
We changed quickly and then walked up the hill near our hotel to the Hagia Sofia Mosque. Nowadays, it is not a functioning mosque, but it used to be. It changed hands many times between the Christians and the Muslims, and it was amazing to us that it was never destroyed during the Crusades or the World Wars. However, since it has functioned as a worship space for two different religions, the architecture and design is very interesting. There are several places where Muslim symbols have been painted over with crosses, and the original Christian mosaicking that was done on all the walls and ceilings in the mosque was completely covered over with plaster by the Muslims, since in the Islamic religion they do not show paintings or replicas of the faces of religious people inside their mosques. Some of the plaster had been peeled away and we were able to see bits and pieces of restored mosaics, but our guide told us that they recently had decided to stop uncovering the tiles, since it was doing more damage than it was worth. We saw the place where they used to crown the new emperor, and we saw lots of precious works of art and religious materials hanging on the walls.

After touring the inside of the Hagia Sofia, we went to look at the mausoleums of the former sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Each sultan and his immediate family had their own mausoleum. There was one large green tomb for each sultan with a sultan crown on top, and several smaller tombs for the wives. There were also many (as many as 15 in one room) small coffins for the babies and children of the sultan that died young. All of the coffins of the male children had small crowns on them as well, as sultans pass their rule on from father to son.

After that we were going to go see the Blue Mosque across the street, but since it is an active mosque and we were visiting Istanbul during Ramadan, the Blue Mosque was closed to tourists when we wanted to see it because one of the daily prayers was about to start. We decided to visit the Blue Mosque the next day, and instead we went across the street to an area with lots of old pillars. Some had hieroglyphics on them and dated back to the BCE time period, and others were from the Constantine period.
After we looked at the pillars, we went across the street to a tiny ceramic shop, where a man explained to us how they made the pieces and also how this type of ceramic work had come to be popular in Turkey. The pieces were some of the most beautiful pieces I had ever seen, and they gave us apple tea while we toured the three floors of the shop. The apple tea was delicious, and the tour guide was telling us that giving people tea when they come into your shop is common Turkish hospitality. After we saw the ceramics shop we walked down the street and through a small bazaar where they were selling spices and traditional Turkish crafts.

After the bazaar, we headed back to the hotel to nap, change, and meet for dinner. We went to dinner at a place down by the water. There is a small river that divides the European part of Istanbul in half, and there is a bridge that connects the two. Under the bridge there is a walkway and several restaurants.
We picked a table right by the water, and started ordering our meal. However, a few minutes into dinner we saw a large dinner cruise boat coming into port and all of a sudden it sounded its horn several times. A few seconds later we heard a crunch, and realized that a tiny motorboat (the kind most people own to drive on the lakes) had been split down the middle by the large ship!
Luckily there was only one person on the boat and he managed to jump off before the ship hit his boat, and we watched as he was rescued out of the water by crewmembers on the big ship. We think the accident happened because the other boat was so small and it had no lights on, and the big ship coming into port had no time to react when it finally saw the boat.
The coast guard arrived on the scene within minutes, and as far as we know, everyone was ok. But we got to watch the interesting show during our dinner, as boats were maneuvered around the harbor to avoid the wreckage, and a construction boat came and towed the remnants of the motorboat out of the water.

After our action-packed dinner adventure, we headed home to sleep before our big day of touring the city in the morning.

Julia Marie