So I have now returned from Istanbul after a fantastic time but before I jump into all the details of my adventure with Jack, I must tell you about you about the brief excursion I had to Graz the week before. Also, if you were curious about my title, it is just me preparing myself for Harry Potter and quoting some Dumbledore.
Two weeks ago was mid-terms week at IES Vienna. The unfortunate part of this week is not the tests but rather that IES does not reveal the schedule for the tests until a couple weeks before when flights are already too expensive to go places. That meant that I did not know I had from Wednesday to Monday off until only two weeks before. Since it was already too late to plan a trip far away from Vienna, I decided it might be a good time to see what the rest of Austria had to offer. I asked Jack whether he would be interested in going to Graz for a night once he was off as well. He said yes so then I asked him to bring it up with some of our other friends. They were all excited to do it and before I knew it, my idea had flourished into a trip to Halstaat (another place in Austria) for two nights leaving on a Thursday and then heading to Graz for one night. On this trip was Jack and about six girls. I did not really have any intention of going to Halstaat, although it is supposed to be pretty, so just told them all I would meet them at Graz. That left me with three extremely relaxing days where I could organize myself for next semester at Davidson and also for internships for next summer. Anyways, I met them all in Graz and we had a very fun afternoon and night together. We saw almost everything Graz has to offer and the next morning we took the train back to Vienna. The leaves are changing colors here so the train ride in itself was worth it for how pretty it was. Following are a couple pictures and stories that go along with them.
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| Me at the top of the hill looking over Graz |
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| The leaves are changing! |
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| Again at the top |
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I of course had to climb up the big statue of the lion and reenact disney because Jack and Katie have had an effect on me
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The lion apparently did not like me so it killed me
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| The group at the top |
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| The modern art museum looks pretty wild from the outside |
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| The cafe in the river that I decided I needed to see |
Now onto Istanbul and I must say, I really enjoyed it. The city is littered with history and also has a very interesting east-west feel. As the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul also has the appropriate name of “the city of mosques” as you will see from some of my pictures. Many of these mosques were built in the Ottoman Style of domes on top of domes so look a little bit different than the simpler mosques Jack and I encountered in Cairo. On the topic of Cairo, Istanbul is much more hospitable. People do not haggle and yell at you all the time and seemed friendlier. Istanbul’s modernity also means the streets are cleaner, women exist outside of their homes and walk the streets without covering themselves, taxi’s have working parts besides the gas, brake and clutch and everyone speaks English (I spoke three languages while there and none of them were Turkish but more on that later). Unfortunately, one can still not drink the tap water there. One other thing I found somewhat surprising was the cost of living. I guess in part the weak dollar contributed to the higher prices but let’s just say I spent a little more money than I thought I would and leave it at that. Overall, our trip was extremely successful. We methodically crossed off almost every item on the list of things you must do in Istanbul and were proud of what we accomplished. One last thing I want to point out before I move on to the play by play of the trip is that this trip is the last big one I will take with Jack for some time. So one of my customary shout outs goes to my partner Jack, and by partner, I mean my fellow adventurer and friend. We have had some great experiences together over the past couple of months and I could not have done it without him!
I left Thursday morning and had relatively few problems arriving in Istanbul. Once there, I took a roundabout way to get to the Metro line and took it six stops before hopping one of two tramlines in Istanbul. I believe Istanbul has two subway lines and two tramlines but apparently, they are slowly expanding their public transportation. I got off at Sultanahmet after about a 45-minute ride and with only knowing the street name and general area of my hostel I eventually found it. I did ask a man for directions and after he spoke back to me in Turkish, my first reaction was to speak back in German. After realizing my mistake I switched to English but it was a little funny. The manager offered to upgrade Jack and I to a suite for an additional 5 euro a night. I took it since the room was much nicer and situated myself. I had quite some time before Jack arrived so wandered the neighborhood, ate dinner at the “Meat House”, and had a beer at the bar across the street to watch some soccer. Jack arrived fairly late and we just decided to call it a night since we had a big day the next day.
The next morning we woke up and headed out to explore the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, a couple of other Mosques and the bar district.
After we had walked around Sultanahmet and the Bazaar district for 5 ½ hours we headed to go take an afternoon rest back at our hostel. We woke up after 5 and were planning to go to the happy hour at our hostel but it was not happening. We then just decided to head to Beyoglu to have dinner and a drink. After dinner we went to one of the bars listed under the “favorite” sections in our guide book. It did have a great view but a small beer also cost around $9. I opted for the Raki, which was the same price and also a famous Turkish drink. It tasted just like black licorice and had a little bit of a kick to it.
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| Blue Mosque |
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| Me inside the blue mosque |
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| Prayer leader |
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| Both of us in the square in between the blue mosque and the aya sofya |
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| Jack taking a picture of the aya sofya |
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| Mosaic inside, it used to be a church and then was turned into a mosque and now is a museum |
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| It is huge |
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| Another mosaic |
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| Me inside on the second level |
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| To give an idea of the detail (this is the blue mosque though, not sure how it got here) |
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| Basilica cistern which is underground and pretty eery |
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| Tried to get a picture |
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| Madusa's head at the bottom of one of the columns |
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| Done this before... |
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| The Bazaar goes on forever! |
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| And then there is the spice bazaar! |
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| Here I am outside |
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| New Mosque |
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| Tomb of Suleiman the Great who actually attacked Vienna |
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| Outside of Suleymaniye Mosque, unfortunately we could not go inside |
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| Walking back to our place, this is the blue mosque again |
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| Roof top view from the bar. One thing I found pretty disappointing was how dark the city was! They could have so many more lights! Many of the mosques only have a couple lights on them at night, they should take some notes out of Paris's book |
After the bar we went back to the more touristy area around our hostel and relaxed at a place called Backpackers for a fair amount of time. We just sat there (and by sat and I mean lay down on pillows) drank beer and smoked hookah.
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| Lounging Turkish style |
The next morning we planned to do the Topkapi palace and check out the main shopping street. We got moving a little late in the morning so ended up missing out on the archaeology museum which I was a little disappointed about but the palace itself, and the harem, was still really interesting. There were longer lines than normal because apparently the Queen Victoria had just docked and 1000 tourists flooded out into Istanbul, many of whom decided to come to the palace. We still managed to see the treasury and the sacred items we were just rushed a little bit and had to wait in longer lines. The extra people allowed us to try and snag a couple pictures of some of the treasures, which we were not supposed to do. Similar to how the treasury in Vienna has artifacts and relics from Jesus, the palace had artifacts from Mohammed such as his hair and his tooth and his footprint.
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| The state room |
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| A throne room |
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| An add on to the palace, they loved those tiles |
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| In the Harem with the queen! |
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| King's room |
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| A side room, again very ornate |
After the palace we had lunch rested for a little bit and then headed to Galata tower for the sunset. Galata tower has the best view in Istanbul and although it was spectacular it could have been even better if it was not so hazy!
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| From the top of the Galata Tower |
From the tower we headed off to walk the main street Istikal Caddessi to Taksim Square. As you can see it was quite crowded and was a happening place. We had dinner and then since we did not want to spend too much money on drinks again we headed back to Backpackers again. We drank and had some hookah and then went to a café nearby that had live music and a whirling dervish. We tried to see an actual whirling dervish performance but we were not there long enough to do it. I can imagine the allure of it though since Jack and I were most impressed by just one man and his ability to do circle after circle in the same spot. After having some tea we headed back to our room and went to bed.
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| Istikal Caddessi, also very crowded |
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| Statue in Taksim Square |
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| Iskender Kebap |
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| Tower at night |
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| Lounging again |
On our final full day we woke up early and headed down to the ferry terminal. The plan was to spend the day going up and down the Bosphorus and then relax afterwards at a Turkish bath. That is exactly what we ended up doing. It took 1 ½ hours to go up the strait and then we got off the Asian side. We saw some ruins of a castle, looked out over the Black Sea and then headed back down to take the ferry back. The timing was perfect as the sun started to set right as we came back into the dock.
From there we headed to one of the more famous Turkish baths which all of the Hollywood stars go to, such as Harrison Ford. You can see the full list of famous people
here. Jack and I had no idea what we were doing and opted for the “self service” option because it was cheaper and we were a little afraid of the Turkish men. We did witness two other people who got the scrub down though, and I am pretty glad we went for the self service. All men are supposed to wear a light weight towel (you cannot see through it) for the entire time. You sit down in an incredibly warm and steamy room and just pour water on yourself and use some soap. You have the option to lay down on a really warm stone in the middle of the room and also can go to a “hot room” which is about 50 degrees Celsius. If you get the extra service then a big Turkish man comes in with a course cloth on his hand and uses it all over your body. Yes, you still have the towel on, but he goes pretty far up the leg from what we saw. After an hour in the bath, we went to dinner and then to a different bar on our street.
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| Hanging out again with Jack the dragon |
The next morning Jack left early to catch his flight and I decided to wander around to see what else our neighborhood had to offer. I headed off toward the water and after running into a number of dead ends, I finally made it. I wanted to see the little Aya Sofya and also a Byzantine palace. I could not find the entrance to the little Aya Sofya but did take a picture of it and then on my way back I saw the remains of the palace. I also ran into a policeman who started talking to me. He asked me my name, where I was from (at this point I was nervous), where I studied and then invited me to tea so that he could practice his English. I said I had to leave but he gave me his email address, told me I was both handsome and well dressed and proceeded to tell me he loved me. I eventually made it away from the policeman and back to the hostel in which I finished my packing and headed out. Before heading out though I ran into some Japanese people in the lobby who made eye contact with me. Feeling I had to say something, I opted for ohayou gozaimasu. They were floored that the first words out of my mouth were Japanese and proceeded to talk to me for a while. As I said earlier, I spoke three languages and none of them were Turkish.
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| View from the top of the hostel, the sun was right in my eyes |
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| Old palace |
Great blog!! It's a tough call... I can't decide whether my favorite picture is the beautiful one you caught of the sunset or Jack conked out on the boat ride back. But per usual, very informative and fun to read.
ReplyDeleteContinuing on the Harry Potter theme, another quote from Dumbledore I rather like-
ReplyDelete"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
Your choices for your adventures have been outstanding.