Actually, not only were we punishing Richard for pestering us to post, but our internet went down for a little bit, from what we are told is part of an ISP strike that is going on right now. Yes, the strikes are striking in Istanbul to.
Anyway, since Mardi requested detailed senses-based descriptions of Istanbul, today’s blog is
broken down into categories.
The Sights.
Istanbul
in the winter is not exactly snowy, but there is quite a bit of rain. The day
we arrived was perfectly sunny, and since then the weather has oscillated
between that and gray rain. The gray rain is chilly, but it’s actually not too
bad. And best of all it keeps the tourists at bay (that is, they wait until the
summer). Even with the gray skies, though, Istanbul is a colorful place. As we
mentioned, the bazaar is full of clothes, cloths, and rugs, and they come in
blues, browns, reds, yellows, oranges, greens… even this new-fangled white
color. When you walk into the produce areas of the bazaars or even down the
street, perfectly stacked pyramids of tomatoes and tons of green vegetables
light up the tables. As the sun sets, the pedestrian streets with fish,
produce, and souvenir shops are lit with warm orange lamps, which looks so
welcoming against the dark blue sky, and with the cold air it seems like you
are walking into a hallway lined with fireplaces (although I’m pretty sure any
warmth we are feeling is because of the elbow to elbow crowds that frequent the
area…).
We
caught a ferry to “the Golden Horn,” an inlet
of the Bosphorus, and floated up to an area called Eyüp. The trip took an hour,
and allowed us a duck’s-eye-view of Istanbul’s
mosques and palaces, as the sun was beginning to set (what can we say, we’re
late risers). The area is near the tip of the Golden Horn,
and has a hill that looks out on quite a bit of the city. As we approached the
hill, we saw strange gray rocks speckling the tree-filled area. Once we got
close enough, we realized the entire hill is covered in graves; a huge
cemetery. Kinda creepy, but we were told the view from the top was worth it. To
get to the top, we had to take a füniküler. Adding this to our list of fairly
uncommon forms of transportation, the füniküler (funicular) is usually a car
that traverses a hill by cable or tracks. Andrew remembers taking one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
when he was a wee seven years old, but since then had not seen any until we
took one in Paris.
I really just like the word. Füniküler. It sounds like it could be used to
describe pleasing things. Like, “Do you like eating simits?” “Heck yeah, man,
they’re füniküler!” Anyway, this one had two cars on each side of a huge cable,
powered by an even huge-r wheel, much like a ski-lift. It was cool, although
ominous at times when the wind would shake and we looked down, realizing that
if the cable snapped we would conveniently land in a grave. The view from the
top was worth it, and we made it just
before the sunlight disappeared, so we got to see the buildings beginning to
light up from the inside. Istanbul is a beautiful
beautiful city.
The
Sounds.
Today
was particularly full of sounds, as there was a protest going on at the
riverside, complete with loudspeaker yelling and rock music, and there was a
soccer match between two rival Istanbul
teams, so there was plenty of drunken chanting, honking, whistling, and
cheering emanating from the stadium when we passed. The other usual sounds of
the city include, well honking is a big one. It’s not exactly “New York” levels of
honking, but anytime a person gets the slightest bit impatient, or if they see
someone is contemplating turning into their lane, or if they see that a
pedestrian is contemplating doing the “3 meter dash” across the road, they will
tap their horn. Just a tap, although they will pull out the “laying on the
horn” for special bouts of road rage.
Another
sound is one that is hard to replicate, mainly because we don’t know what they
are saying, but all of the street vendors and shop owners shout and sing…
something, usually the name of the product they are selling. For instance, the
umbrella men will stand on the corners singing (by this I mean shouting
rhythmically), and it sounds something like
“marlimah-marlimah-marlimah-marlimah!” One thing that most people shout that we have
finally figured out is Bir Lyra, over and over, which means one lyra we are
happy to say and often one of us will spend the afternoon chanting this to the
other.
As
mentioned before, still the most interesting sound in Istanbul is the call to prayer, which is
harder to write out, but may sound something like “HayaaAAaAAaaaa ey ooh
yaaaaAaaaAAAAaa.” Which when written
like that kind of looks like an Enya song, but definitely isn’t. Each time we walk through the market we feel
like we are walking onto a Matt Damon soundest.
So Istanbul, in a nutshell,
sounds like this: “honk-honk-marlmimah-AaAaaaAAAa-honk-whistle-honk-birlyra-birlyra-aaaaAAAaaa-marlimah-marlimah-malimah-aAAaaaa.”
The
Smells.
There
aren’t exactly specific smells that we have noticed yet, except any time you
walk past a fish shop… Even the crowded buses and markets aren’t too heavy on
the unpleasant “odour de bodies.” Actually, the market does have enough produce
that it smells like a fresh, eclectic salad. That’s a nice smell. The simits
smell like sesame seeds, the ferries smell like cigarette smoke, and streets
have a tendency to smell like bus exhaust.
The
Tastes.
Ah
the tastes, believe it or not, today marks the 12th day in Istanbul and we have not
bought one thing from a McDonald’s. This
is in large part because the milkshakes are 2.50 obviously, but really because
you can buy so much street food like Doners or Kebaps for 1.50 that it is
becoming less economical. The first day
we were here, Collette and Hande ordered us two pizzas (think canoe shape), and
four doners (think burritos). Andrew ate
two doners and a pizza, Alex ate one doner, a pizza, and many bites of Andrew’s
second doner. One thing we forgot to
mention about our trip to starbucks, is that they have their red cups here too,
which has made for a very merry holiday season.
That night Hande cooked us a delicious vegetarian dish for dinner, with
very authentic vegetable chicken. We
also stopped by a simit shop one day and had a couple of pizzas and a chocolate
simit. It was füniküler.
In
more Recent Times
Well,
we have once again lucked out. Our hosts
here are phenomenal. Hande teaches
Turkish to Americans, and Collette teaches English to Turks. They both have taught us how to explore Istanbul, and really are
just beautiful people. We love
them!!! Some of our hosts in recent
times have been less than Valerie and Benoit standards, so it is nice to be
staying with people who aren’t crazy or hermitish…although if you are thinking
of traveling, err on the side of hermitish.
Anyhow, Valerie and Benoit would approve. Quick news update, Valerie and Benoit had a
beautiful baby boy named Armand. We will post an updated picture soon. So anyway, Hande (pronounced like the Korean
car Hyundai) and Collette have traded off days of sheparding us from place to
place. Hande is studying for the GRE
(which she is taking as we type), and so we have had many excuses to visit her
at Starbucks during her study sessions.
Collette has an awesome book and movie collection, so we have had many
excuses not to go outside at the slightest chance of rain. Collette’s birthday fell last Wednesday and
she celebrated it in style in Taksim.
We ferried ourselves over to Europe and
took the TramVay to the füniküler which we took to Taksim Square. There we met up with about ten of Hande and
Collette’s friends, and dined like Sultans (pre-Republic). You pay a fixed price for each person, and
get unlimited alcohol and about a seven course meal, replete with two desserts. Now, the cost of these meals is a little
high, but you have to realize that a beer can easily cost 8 lira, so Andrew and
I needed to make sure we drank up the cost of our meal. Hande and Collette ensured that this
happened, making sure our beer glasses never emptied. There is so much to say about the food. Every
piece of it was awesome. The first
course—Appetizers went on for about three rounds, it consisted of three
eggplant dishes, beans, salad, cheese, tempura like seafood, fried cheese
(think mozzarella sticks), then the main dish was either a fried fish,
sardines, or chicken and steak kebabs.
Then dessert consisted of a honey soaked cake, followed by a fruit
plate, and some tiramisu that one of the guests brought from the Italian
consulate. It wasn’t quite as good as
Valentina’s, but it did have coffee.
The
company at the party was superb. Across
from us, were two expats from Britain
who worked for an American shipping company which designed boats, the man Simon
reported having spent 8 pounds on a single tube of imported Pringles that were
Salt & Vinegar flavored. When he
opened them he discovered they were in crumbles, but it didn’t seem to take
away from the 16 dollars can. Next to us
was a German guy, a Turkish guy, a Polish girl, two Americans, and some more
Turkish and German people at the other end of the table. Needless to say there was a great mixture of
people and food. It was an excellent
time.
Since
then we have pretty much hung low, we went to the market with Collette and some
German girls from Switzerland
en route to Damascus. (Collette is part of a wave of couch surfers
we have run into recently and the two girls were CSing their way to the middle
east). Couch Surfing is this interesting
program Marina introduced to us in Florence. There is a webpage where people who have
extra couches, beds, or rooms and are willing to host people free of charge for
a day or two meet up with people who are traveling and need a couch, bed, or
room free of charge. It’s a fascinating
program, and Andrew and I are going to get in on the action when we go to Ephesus, we hope. On that particular trip to the market,
Collette took us to one of her favorite restaurants where you can get Turkish
pancakes, called gozleme. They stuff
them with potatos, or spinach, or cheese, or hamburger, or all of the
above. When we walked in, there were
ladies sitting in the front two tables rolling the dough for the pancakes and
then stuffing and throwing them on the grill.
It reminded Andrew of the tortilla factory at Rosa’s. But lets not make him think too much of
Mexican food :)
I
think that’s it for now. We will post
more later,…when we’re damn good and ready.
