Well, this is it, the time as come for me to join the ranks of the thousands of college students before me who chronicle the excursions to the farthest reaches of the earth in semi-cliché blogs. So far the internet has welcomed me with open arms.
For those of you who don't know and haven't figured it out from my incredibly clever blog title (get it? get it? its a pun!), I'm in Istanbul!
I’ve been here about a week, which was preceded by a week in Paris, both of which I spent with my dear mother. I dropped her off at the airport this morning.
I won’t bore you with our adventures in Paris—suffice it to say that we mostly ate and went to the things that one goes to in Paris. I also saw a good friend from camp who is living there and a friend from Mac studying abroad there. If you wanna know more, check out my photos of it.
As for Istanbul, I’ll just start at the beginning and hopefully everything I want to say will find its way in chronologically.
Technically, my mom and I spent 1 day and 2 nights here before going to Paris, but they were a whirlwind of nerves, jet lag, and culture shock with very little sightseeing and one great meal. After the jaunt in Paris, we returned actually ready to get to know the city a little bit. Unfortunately, we were met with the worst weather possible. The past 5 days, in fact, have been snowy and cold without break—until today, after my mom left, when it was 50 and beautiful. This is an important detail to keep in mind throughout all the adventures I will detail in the next paragraphs: It is cold, snowy, and our shoes are wet.
Deterred by the snow and general exhaustion, our first day had two highlights:
- We purchased the book Istanbul Eats by Ansel Mullins and Yigal Schleiffer at the recommendation of a kind salesman. BEST. THING. EVER. You will hear more about this in the future.
- We went to a Turkish bath. Have you ever been to a Turkish bath? No? here’s what happens (when you are me):
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| Like this, but a little less beautiful. This is from the internet. |
We (my mother and I) opened the door to find a room fool of rotund, older-but-not-elderly Turkish women in moo-moos drinking tea. After a short debacle with credit cards, we each enter small chambers with glass doors paying homage to the idea of privacy. After disrobing and wrapping myself in a large piece of fabric one of the women guides us into a sort of steam room, confiscates our fabric wraps, motions for us to sit on the hot stone, and disappears. We are now completely naked, giggling like school children, and disturbing the relaxation of the only other person in the room—a younger woman who did receive the memo to bring a bathing suit bottom. About fifteen minutes later, after the laughter has subsided almost entirely, our original guide and her buddy return to us, this time each naked except for little undies (mine is wearing lacy white boy-shorts). My bather then goes to a nearby basin and after running the water for a while and splashing 5 or 6 buckets on her own crotch, returns and dumps one bucket of hot water on me. This ritual turned into a full scrub-down with a lufa-type glove, followed by a soapy, foamy mini-massage full body massage. Supposedly relaxed now, I am guided to the same basin, the woman repeats her process of 5 to 10 buckets to herself before she washes my hair and, quite aggressively and with no warning for eye-closing or breath-holding, rinses me off. All the while, as we have no shared language, my bather communicates mostly through hand movements and not-so gentle spanks on the butt. Finally spotless, we sit a few more minutes on the hot stone and then have new towels given to us, after which we get dressed and return to brave the cold Turkish winter.
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| Unrelated view of the New District. We stayed right next to that tower, Galata Tower. |
Now, you are probably wondering a lot of things right now, but the one I’m going to address is, why is the purchasing of a book about food as exciting as that moment of cultural immersion?
WELL
I don’t know how many people who read this are familiar with the concept of nomscaping. It is when one examines the landscape of Noms. Noms, for those completely out of the loop, are foods that taste delicious. Istanbul Eats is the Ultimate Nomscaping Guide. The remainder of our trip after this bath experience, starting that night at a fabulous fish restaurant just down the street from our apartment, was shaped entirely be the recommendations of this book. If you are REALLY curious, these are the restaurants we went to:
Çiya: Loquat Kebabs and Mesopotamian Truffles at Istanbul’s Culinary Shrine (this actually came from Lille!)
and maybe some more...
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| ^Kaymak, Bread, and Mom^ |
If you don't want to read their wise words, I will only describe to you one delicacy, my new love: Kaymak.
Kaymak is the wonderful cream made from waterbuffalo milk, boiled in heaven, and served on a plate with honey and white bread. Or, it can be served on a stewed quince. Or on baklava. Or with a spoon. Or with angles.
And without of friends Yigal and Annsel I never would have experienced this magic. In fact, it never would have occurred to me to order something called “buffalo cream” on the menu at a somewhat rundown looking restaurant near the Karakoy ports and tram station with a kind old man in a cute knit hat beckoning us inside.
This is par for the course with the recommendations in this book—we get slightly lost, until I doubt myself, and then the kinda dirty, tiny restaurant squeezed between two others which we are standing right next to, ends up to be the one we were looking for and is THE BEST. I have yet to have a bad meal.
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| The Blue Mosque |
So, if anyone hasn’t had the opportunity to dine with the Raffel family yet, this only deepened our genetically determined habit of spending most of our meals planning the next ones. Only we also planned our days around these meals, an experience which reached its climax when we wondered upwards of an hour around the massive Sulimanyye Mosque complex, through the snow, after already having walked at least 3 hours and through another museum, to find beans. No, we did not end up going to the mosque because it was sunset by the time we found them and it was closed. Yes, we did take a cab home.
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| Inside Hagia Sofia, a byzantine church bilt in the 6th century, then turned into a mosque, then a museum |
The one thing I have noticed about these cute little restaurants is that, on more than one occasion, my mother and I were the only women in the entire establish. This has been most apparent in the restaurants along Istiklal Avenue, the pedestrian only shopping street right near our apartment. I felt this most acutely tonight, perhaps because it was my first time being alone, but I’m not sure. Tonight, I had the Turkish equivalent to pizza (called Pide), and ate it as the only woman in a room where every table was filled with silent, single men between the ages of 30 and 60. I felt a little like I was invading someone’s sanctuary of Turkish man-ness.
Now, let me specify, in no was is this unpleasant. I don’t feel animosity, I have had absolutely no negative experiences with Turkish men yet, in fact, I’ve found them a little more friendly than Turkish women, but I’m drawing no conclusions. (they also have such cute lil’ mustaches! I want a cute lil’ mustache!) It is just a tangible difference. Where are the women?
My last bit of excitement was actually in a blog I found when reflecting on my days here. Incase you have never looked at my facebook pictures; I have a small obsession with street art. Now, in Beyoglu (pronounced Bey-o-lu) and up Istiklal Avenue, graffiti and street art are more of the rule than the exception—blank walls are few and far between. So I was poking around on the internets and I found This article, written by a Northeastern University student of journalism, all about Turkish street art. I encourage you to read it and maybe gain some understanding of what I find so cool about the movement and also see explanations of lots of the pictures I have taken around the city.
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| Mural near Galata Tower |
Also exciting is that one of the guys interviewed has an organization that teaches kids about street art and organizes large-scale projects and festivals. Once I settle in a bit and see what my days look like, I’m hoping to get in touch with him and see if I can learn more and maybe help out somehow. COOL ADVENTURES.
My program officially starts on Monday, with registration and then a little trip to Cappadocia and some other places in Anatolia.
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