If you visit Istanbul I can guarantee you that "Hello, yes please?!" is something you will hear more than once on the street corner. Don't get me wrong I was extremely impressed with the amount of English that was spoken, but it quickly became clear that those must be the first three words that are taught in their English classes. And they used that phrase over and over again to try and get you into their store. In other words I think the Turkish are born and bred to be salesmen. It was difficult to walk past a store and not have the store owner step outside and call out to you... this of course was most prominent in the Grand Bazaar, home to over 4,000 vendors of carpets, clothing, leather, jewlery, and other traditional Turkish crafts. Aside from the most common, "Hello, yes please?!" here are perhaps a few of my favorite quotes from our afternoon in the Bazaar:
"It's free!"
"It's almost free!"
"You look American..."
"You can't tell me you don't have money to spend."
But let me take a step back and tell you about our weekend trip from the start.
Istanbul is incredible, and is likely the most interesting and cultural city I have ever visited. As a melting pot of 20 million people it bridges the gap between Europe and Asia as we could sit and have lunch in Europe while looking out over the water and seeing Asia just a short distance away (see the photo with Asia on Steve's left and Europe on his right!). But first of all let me say if you go to Turkey, fly Turkish Airlines. Ok, so maybe both of our flights were a slight bit delayed and the seats seemed a little tighter than on other airlines, but during our 2.5 hour flight we got perhaps the best airplane food that I have ever ate and perhaps better than many restaurants! I would fly it again needless to say.
In our two full days we had in the city we tried to pack in as much as possible. Aside from the first day being rainy and a little cold (we seem to have a theme on our trips so far), the second day was beautiful and we got to visit many incredible sites. Istanbul is a fascinating melting pot of cultures and religions that outdates most of the rest of Europe. We toured the Blue Mosque (also known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque), which was built in the early 1600's. It is famous for it's 6 minarates (like steeples, or pillars), 9 domes, and an interior designed with over 20,000 handmade ceramic blue tiles. It still is open for prayer and even to enter the mosque you must take off your shoes, and those going in for prayer wash their feet as well (see photo). Here's a look inside the mosque:
We visited the Hagia Sofia (also called the Aya Sophia), which was originally built in 360 A.D. as a Greek Cathedral and then in the 1400's it was converted to a mosque, but today only serves as a museum. It is a spectacular display of Byzantine architecture and was used as a model for many other mosques. It was difficult to distinguish whether the Hagia Sofia or the Blue Mosque was more impressive as both the interiors and exteriors of these buildings were immaculate in size and architectural detail. Here's a look from the inside, which reveals just how massive the Hagia Sofia really is...
Although these two structures topped the list during our visit - we also enjoyed visits to the Basilica Cistern and the Topkapi Palace. The Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient underground cisterns in Istanbul. Prior to becoming a cistern a large Basilica sat atop of the grounds but later burned down around 400 A.D. The cistern was reportedly built by more than 7,000 slaves with the purpose of being used as a water filtration system as it has the capacity to store 100,000 tons of water for many nearby structures.
The Topkapi Palace sits on the edge of the Bosphorus Strait and has some of the most specatular views of all of Istanbul, spanning both Europe and Asia. It served as the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans and has many fascinating artifacts of the Muslim world. Perhaps one of my favorites was the 86 carat diamond... reportedly one of the largest in the world. However, we both found some of the clothing and garments worn by the emperors and sultans very fascinating as they all appeared to be about triple the size of normal clothes. We still cannot understand why they were so very large. It was here when looking at what was reportedly children's clothes that the security guard called me out for being pregnant and laughing was trying to compare my belly to the baby's clothes in Turkish... still not sure what he was trying to say, but I think he was being nice. Guess that means I'm really starting to look pregnant now when a stranger calls me out...
Aside from visiting these four historic sites and spending 3 or 4 hours getting lost in the Grand Bazaar we enjoyed just walking the city and taking in the architecture and culture. At first I was intimated by how quickly the Turkish people approached us trying to sell anything and everything possible, but once I adjusted to it we actually found everyone to be extremely friendly and helpful. One man approached us just outside the Blue Mosque and after telling us several times over that he was not a tour guide he basically gave us a tour and answered many questions about the mosque... the catch? On our way into the mosque he said he was not going in but hoped to see us after we came out and would tell us where his family's carpet store was at just around the corner from the mosque in case we had time to visit. We thought surely we won't run into him again, but there he was waiting for us on the other side as we exited the mosque! And no he wasn't just going to point us in the direction of the store, he walked us there and then we were sat down to a full presentation about rugs! They were beautiful and we found ourselves genuinely being interested, which we did not expect, but then we heard the prices and our mind quickly changed... for a few minutes I was worried they would hold us hostage if we didn't buy one, but instead they just wished us well as we left the store when we told them no.
I also was approached by several 10 or 12 year old students who were anxiously working on improving their english. They asked me a list of questions they had written out in English and took a photo of their interview. Steve was busy taking photos and when he came back and watched me being interviewed he was convinced it was a joke and they were actually videotaping and now I'm probably out there somewhere on the internet as the dumb American trying to help them "learn english."
After these experiences and shopping in the Grand Bazaar we quickly learned that you don't so much even stop to pause and look at something unless you want to be interrogated about buying something or eating at their restaurant. Yet, it wasn't just when walking by stores and restaurants that you had to be prepared, it was also around every tourist site as people tried to sell several items that we noticed were indicative of the weather. On the first rainy day on every street corner people were selling umbrellas. On our second day with good weather the men sold tour books and the women sold scarves. We expected them to be selling sunglasses, but maybe that was on another street corner... regardless if you forget an item when visiting I'm sure you can find someone selling it...
And of course no trip would be complete without trying the local food. We both enjoyed kebaps several times (basically kebab meat served on or with bread, sometimes served with grilled vegetables) and we tried Turkish Delight, which I must say was a bit disappointing and not as "delightful" as I was hoping it would be. Steve tried the one local beer and now knows why Turkey is not famous for their beer. I also tried (with no success) to talk him into trying a local favorite, a Narghile (also called a water pipe or Hookah), which is an instrument for smoking flavored tobacco through a water basin. Instead we settled for just sitting in a coffee shop watching the locals enjoy it and trying to understand how it worked.
Finally, a few last things we learned in Istanbul.
- There are "evil eyes" everywhere - hanging in shops, restaurants, our hotel, and even the airport where we saw this one! However, these are not in fact evil, but they are actually good luck charms!
- Feral cats run the city. They are on every street corner like squirrels are in the midwest. It did get very exciting as we saw several cat fights, and we watched as they were a constant nuisance for restaurants with an outdoor patio.
- Don't be surprised by who you might see in the Grand Bazaar, like Pamela Anderson. Evidently she was in Istanbul for a photo shoot and was just stopping in to do some quick, cheap shopping there like the rest of us.
- Finally, make sure you are carrying exact change if you know what you want to buy. Although street vendors will take many different forms of currency (Turkish Lira, Euros, and even sometimes US Dollars), they many times will tell you they don't have change in a method to get more money out of you. For us it happened the one time we decided to take a cab instead of the $1 train ride from the city. Steve tried to reason it out with our cab driver (who supposedly didn't speak much English) but after almost 10 minutes we gave up and just gave him more money then we wanted to. Oh well, it just emphasizes why we almost always take public transportation everywhere we go!
