On the second day we started out by going to the hippodrome and other sites in Istanbul. There were several monuments we went to. This is the day that I saw workers all over the city to help clean. The shop keepers were also out washing the floors outside of the store. It was like the store keepers had such pride in their job.
One interesting thing about Istanbul and I think Turkey in general is that they have cats and dogs. The city pays for them to get fixed and given their shots, and then they let them live in the city, and the people of that city will buy food and leave it out for them. They are literally the cats and dogs of Istanbul, and they are all very healthy and happy looking. It is kind of odd, but also really cool.
We went to the Blue Mosque, which was exquisite. It was built by a sultan like 400 years ago I think. It was build by a sultan when he was like 19. He wanted to have the most exquisite mosque in the entire world, to trump everyone, so he decided to make a mosque that had 6 minarets (the tower looking things). The one problem with this is that there was only one mosque that had 6 minarets, and it was in Mecca, and he couldn’t trump that one, so he had his architect go to the one in Mecca, build another minaret for it (so it had seven) and then had him come back and build the blue mosque, with 6 minarets.
Next we went to a cistern that had been part of Constantinople. It it shocking how huge it is. Also, it was never meant to be seen by people so they took a bunch of mismatched Roman pillars to create the room. Two of the pillars were too short so there are these two blocks of Medusa heads used to make the two pillars tall enough, and one of them is upside down. The Romans just kind of took what they had and made this cistern out of it.
We also went to Topakaki Palance, which would have been in use from about 1750-1800 I think. It was a huge elaborate palace. Kind of reminded me of the Gilded Age Houses like the Breakers in Newport, RI.
The Grand Baazar was amazing. Basically they told us to go have fun and at ten to 5, to asks storekeepers how to get to gate 1 and we were meeting there. The place has 21 gates and you really do get lost in a sea of shops. The shops sell everything imaginable and you could shop and explore for hours there. It was very culturally enriching experience. There were little black ribbon posters for Soma Turkey all around the shops, as the country was in mourning for the mine disaster that occurred a couple days before. They actually cancelled a bunch of the Independence Day celebrations around the country because of the disaster. There also were some demonstrations in some of the public squares, but we never saw anything.
Next we walked down to the Bosphorous strait and went on a river cruise. They said it was going to be the most romantic thing we ever did alone. I agree with him. It was super beautiful, and the weather was perfect. It made me want to jump in, but then I saw all the jelly fish, and the temptation was gone.
One funny thing about turkey, they have some cognates of things, but in Turkish they are written phonetically. One of the best ones was their taxis. They all have “Taksi” written on the top of them.
Then we went and saw the whirling dervishes. This was a very interesting experience because the premise of the whirling dervishes is that they spin in place until they are almost out of control, and this lack of control leads them closer to God. It was interesting to watch, but after a long day the spinning made me feel kind of dizzy to watch.
It was an exhausting day, but I loved every minute of it.
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