Güzel Bir Gün!

A beautiful day!

Today’s weather was exactly what we have longed for – fantastic sunshine! We headed up to a different part of the city, Ortaköy, where we met up with another of Tay’s cousins for lunch. We had a local specialty, kumpir, which is a baked potato topped with butter, cheese, and anything else you want. (Choices include olives, corn, carrots, mushrooms, pickled red cabbage, chopped hot dog, ketchup, and mayonnaise.) Then we enjoyed the requisite post-meal çay at a café right on the water.

Istanbul straddles Europe and Asia, with the Bosphorous Strait dividing the two continents and connecting the Sea of Marmara to the south with the Black Sea to the north. (We are staying on the European side, where most of the sites are; sometime in the remaining few days, we hope to go over to Asia!) After wandering the cute, cobblestoned, shop-lined streets for a bit (and possibly buying some books and a pair of earrings…) we took a sight-seeing cruise on the Bosphorous. The views were really spectacular, and it was a perfect day to be on the water. The shot below shows the mosque right on the water (on the European side) and one of the bridges spanning the Bosphorous.


Next we strolled for quite awhile and returned to the tram, taking it to an area called Nişantesı, which boasts some of the city’s higher-end shopping. Also on the European side of Istanbul, it is separated from the section where we are staying by a bay known as the Golden Horn. We spent a few hours browsing, still enjoying beautiful sunshine, and finding a really pretty long flowered dress. :)

For dinner, we headed back across the Golden Horn and, along a different stretch of water, got some delicious fish sandwiches. Men dressed in black uniforms with gold decorations cook the sandwiches on these ornate little boats that bob right at the dock and then pass them up to you when you order. They only make one simple kind, so all you have to do is tell them how many you want and then go grab drinks from a freezer. For dessert, we grabbed a few of a pastry that I hadn’t yet had, which I call baklava balls; sort of like baklava but spherical and lighter. I guess today’s themes were sunshine and special Turkish treats, as we grabbed little cones of maraş dondurması, a type of ice cream that’s kind of sticky, on the way back to the hotel.

So what happened yesterday? Well, it rained. But we still saw some pretty amazing sites, starting with the Hagia Sophia. Originally a church, it was converted to a mosque during the time of the Ottoman Empire, and then became a museum after the Ottoman Empire became Turkey. Because of this, there is the interesting juxtaposition of a mosaic of Christ and Madonna flanked by two large medallions with words written in Arabic. The whole thing was literally breathtaking. See for yourself:


Then we checked out Topkapı Palace, former home of the sultans. It’s absolutely huge, but we visited the Harem (where apparently the concubines were supervised by eunuchs), a display of the sultans’ clothing, and the treasury, which contains dozens of amazingly ornate goodies, including the famous Topkapı Dagger (set with 3 enormous emeralds in its hilt) and all 86 carats the Spoonmaker’s Diamond (so called because it was originally found in a garbage dump and sold for 3 spoons).

After making our way back to the hotel, we met up with one of Tay’s friends, whom he met it college, but who is Turkish and was raised and still lives here in Istanbul. He drove us to yet another part of the city that we had not seen: Bebek. It was truly amazing! Just when I thought that I had gotten the picture that Istanbul has a number of modern sections, the areas he showed us blew my mind! They were so chic and upscale, with gorgeous views of the Bosphorous. This city is truly a marvel.

Tomorrow our plan is to take a ferry to the nearby Princes’ Islands and then to go out with both of Tay’s cousins and their wives (2 of whom speak English; yay!) My goal is that, the next time we come back, I will be able to chat with them in Turkish. I’ll keep you posted, both on tomorrow’s adventures and progress with Türkçe.