"If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul." - Alphonse de Lamartine

 

Before I begin this post I will apologize ahead of time that this post is as much for your reading pleasure as it is my own personal record of the things that we did while we were in Istanbul for the week. I would not blame you if you skipped the reading and rushed straight to the pictures. But alas, here we go.

I must note that the quote that I chose to title this post with is truly fitting of this city. Istanbul, the famed city that rests on two continents and has been the seat of empires for thousands of years and is also still a massive and thriving city where history and future meld and clash in a beautiful mixture. With people from literally all over the world speaking languages and expressing cultural values in a strange and beautiful combination unlike anywhere else, a city where Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as well as other major religions coexist all respecting each other in an age old relationship that requires work and patience and understanding. The massive red flags graced with the crescent moon and star grace the skyline along the Bosporus. Even though Alphonse de Lamartine and I viewed very different skylines of Istanbul I cannot help but agree with him that every person should see the world through the gaze of Istanbul at least once.

This entire trip was a great test of how much I have changed over the past few years. If you had told me three years ago that I would be riding in a Mercedes Benz with 2 Turkish guys who live in Istanbul, my friend from study abroad, my friend’s fraternity brother, and his sister who is preparing to go to Law School in St. Louis while listening to Avicii and looking at the nightlife along the sea, I simply would not have believed you. Life changes and moves pretty fast and taking the time to realize where you are is something I am beginning to realize the true value of. And the more free and easygoing I become the better my life is.

Well I guess we can start from the beginning of the trip and work our way from there. This entire trip was booked through a Jordanian Tour Company that had no functioning website, limited open hours because of Ramadan and lack of people who were fluent in English. We booked the trip a week before take off and we had a great time planning it all out but as we have noticed with most things in Jordan and especially Amman, everything is so close to being like home, except it isn’t. The travel agency had a nice office and was very professional but we couldn’t pay on credit card, we couldn’t pick up our boarding passes or know the exact time of our flight or which airline it was till the night before. All of this is exactly like booking a trip back at home except not quiet the same. We arrived at the airport the next day, mind you this airport is the one that used to be a military airport until just a few years ago, we arrived at the airport by way of taxi as usual but again nothing in Jordan is ever very straight forward. The taxi driver rolls up and yells from the cab across the passenger he already has in the car, “I’m gonna kill you guys! Get in!” This might have put me off a month ago but now we simply got in and agreed it would probably just be a great story. Turns out he thought we were other Americans he had driven the previous week. He drove us to the airport and on our way we found out that he was a US citizen who had been living in southwest Chicago for the past 21 years and was back visiting family for a few months, again, never a dull moment in Jordan. We were greeted by military personnel at the entrance to the airport and unloaded our stuff. Entered the airport to see that we were the only flight leaving that day. We checked our luggage and proceeded to the one gate. The tarmac overlooked east Amman and the other part of the airport tarmac had several C-17 camouflage large military carriers. To say it was a weird airport experience would be an understatement and yet I found myself unfazed. Honestly if it was a normal flying experience through this pop-up Jordan Aviation Company flight from the almost non-existent airport I would have been more hesitant than I was with the current situation. And just as with everything else in Jordan there is no real attention to being prompt or valuing time efficiency and airlines operate the same way. Our flight was supposed to leave at 3:30 and we finally began to board the plane at 3:30. We boarded a bus after they checked our tickets and drove out onto the tarmac and boarded a completely unmarked Boeing 737 that had nothing on it except the standard 6 number code. We boarded and took off around 4:10. We arrived at the Asian side of Istanbul about an hour outside the downtown area at around 6:00 PM. The tour guide who greeted us at first didn’t believe that we were part of this tour group considering we had just exited a plane where we were the only non-Jordanian nationals. We took a bus into the city and got to our hotel around 8:30 PM. We were staying in this beautiful little boutique hotel in the historic Sultanahmet next to the Blue Mosque. We had a great dinner at a local place called Doy Doy butn before I continue I must mention that one of the great things about this city are the places where you can eat. You can enjoy one of the cities thousands of terrace or rooftop eateries where there are breathtaking views of the city or grab a bite to eat in the European style open-faced cafes. This particular café was on a rooftop that overlooked the Blue Mosque, which is truly breathtaking when lit at night. We then took the great public transport to the Taksim Square area and walked around until late into the night before grabbing a cab to come home.

Our first real day, after eating breakfast on the roof of our hotel overlooking the Bosporus we then saw thenwalked a short five minutes and visited the gorgeous Blue Mosque and the rest of the Roman Hippodrome before going on to try and see the Hayat Sophia which happened to be closed for the day due to Eid celebrations. We must have looked quiet confused and we were, but we experienced our first Turkish hospitality from a carpet sales guy who worked close to the Hayat Sophia. We were welcomed into his store and offered coffee and tea and we sat and talked for a while before realizing that however genuinely welcoming this was there was also a sales pitch to buy a gorgeous Turkish carpet in process. Parker bought one and we thanked him as we set out to see the rest of the city. We visited Gulhane Park and had a wonderful snack overlooking the water with traditional tea, cheese toast and stuffed potatoes. We then walked the grounds of the Topkapi Palace the seat of the Ottoman Empire on the peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. We then went and experienced a true traditional Turkish bath, complete with suffocating heat, salt water, cold showers, confusion by being yelled at by half-naked Turkish men, and general exhaustion from an already jam-packed day. We then went back to our hotel room and took a nap and cooled off for a bit. Had dinner at a restaurant on top of a hotel in the old Ottoman District of the city, we then walked down to the Galata Bridge and had drinks on thee bridge as we watched the sun set over the beautiful mosques that grace the seven hills of Istanbul. I have also come to realize that all ancient cities and empires have declared themselves to be founded on seven hills. An interesting coincidence that once pointed out you begin to see everywhere. We then went home and passed out after an exhausting day in paradise.

Day two consisted of waking up a bit later and then going on an adventure. It’s amazing to start your day overlooking a city that has had such a famous role in this world’s history. We decided to go to the Princess Islands, a group of 4 islands that rest is the Sea of Marmara about 20 Km away from the Asian side of the city. We got on the Tram and took it the ferry where we met a middle-aged professor from the University of Istanbul who helped us buy our tickets and get on the right boats. People like him and so many others along the way make we want to help those traveling in the US when I see them. All of these people were truly lifesavers and in a country where we don’t speak the language, English, Arabic or Spanish speakers were all welcome relief in helping us figure out where to go. We boarded the boat and as we traveled steadily out into the Sea of Marmara we enjoyed the sites the city had to offer and live music from a band on the ship. I have truly come to enjoy times when we were the only people who were foreigners. I love being amongst people who are welcoming to us but also knowing we are clearly doing what people who actually live in the place we are visiting are doing. We got to the islands around 1:00 and had a great lunch by the sea, the island was packed due to the holiday and we walked around until we found the “beach” which is a sidewalk with breakwater rocks on one side and grassy areas on the other side. People drop clothes and swim in the breakwater and then tan and dry off on the grass. Seeing people from all over Turkey was great while also witnessing women and men wearing practically nothing next to their family members in conservative hijab, nikaab and men in full length thobes was definitely an interesting site to see. And just another example of how the city truly encompasses everyone from Europe to Asia and conservative to liberal and Muslim to Christian and everything in between. After getting Turkish ice cream and taking the boat back to the mainland we took showers and had a wonderful dinner in a neighborhood close to our hotel that was full of hostels and saw all the young world travels just like us enjoying the nightlife.

Day three began just the same as any others but we immediately went back to our new friends at the carpet shop this time with the intention to buy a carpet for myself. We sat with our new friend Ibrahim for 2 hours and talked about life, religion, education, and the workings of the current Turkish state, government, marriage, travel and the future. We enjoyed our Turkish coffee and truly had a wonderful time. I know this may sound strange but I know at some point in my life that Ibrahim and I will cross paths again, I don’t know how and I don’t know when but we will and I will be so happy for that. Anyways I bought a beautiful 50-year-old kilim that I will cherish for the rest of my life. We then met up with Parker’s friend named Tom who he goes to school with a George Washington and they are in the same fraternity. He was with his sister who just graduated from GW and is going to law school in the fall and their two cousins who live I Turkey. They are both originally from Chicago but have dual citizenship and visit Turkey every year for a few weeks. They took us around to see a famous restaurant and the one and only Hayat Sophia. We then took a long walk to a pretty obscure part of the city with their cousins to this beautiful tea garden terrace that serves teas that are the same that ancient Ottoman Royalty would drink with flavors from Macedonia and beyond. The views overlooking the entire city were breathtaking with the Suleiman Mosque at our backs bearing down on us. We enjoyed the afternoon there before heading down to the water and grabbing a cab to Oratkoy, a beautiful little neighborhood that resides beneath the bridge that connects Europe to Asia, the only bridge in the world to span two continents. We enjoyed walking around and seeing the beautiful Mosque that sits along the water. We had fresh seafood as freighter ships went by and the sun was setting. Truly a magical evening spent meeting new friends. After dinner Tom and his sister, Gizem, took us to meet up with their friends for a night out. We all piled into a car and took off for the Taksim neighborhood. We had so many good laughs and fun times walking around the neighborhood and experiencing the nightlife of Istanbul. The night ended with Gizem and I eating street corn, a popular dish in Istanbul and driving home. Truly exhausted after a 14 hours day Parker and I were ready for bed.

We awoke the next day and had our last breakfast at the hotel, we then checked out and had to return to our other hotel that we were supposed to be staying at all week. We had booked a second hotel in a nicer area of town closer to where we wanted to stay but to avoid confusion with the tourism company we checked into both. After walking around trying to find our hotel to no avail with luggage we eventually stumbled upon it. Istanbul is an enchanting city but like most things that are enchanting it’s like a maze and there were several times we got hopelessly lost trying to find things. We finally left our bags and took a break to spend our last afternoon walking around the Grand Bazaar; the largest enclosed marketplace in the world that stretches over 61 covered streets and has over 3,000 shops. Although we had finished our shopping and did not look in any of the shops but came to be amazed by the history of such a grand place and understand that a building built in 1455 is still visited by around 250,000 people a day in 2014. We then grabbed one last drink before heading to the airport. We arrived at the airport around 4:00 only to find out that they will not begin checking people in until 2 hours before departure, which would be fine except no one truly knew when the departure time would actually happen. We ended up at the gate waiting until leaving just shortly before 10:00 PM and arrived in Jordan at around midnight. The immediate culture shock stepping off the plane and back into the Amman civil airport was having to switch back to complete Arabic, lack of public transport and taxis that refuse to start the meter. Struggling through Amman traffic that has no rules and finally arriving back at home an hour later.

All in all it was a whirlwind and beautiful trip that I would not trade for anything. The memories I made with Parker and our new friends will be ones that last a lifetime. Before I go and finish this blog post I must say that Istanbul was truly a fascinating city, not just for the people or the sites or the history or the food or any one thing in particular but as someone who studies comparative cultures and politics there really is no better place to go then Istanbul. A city truly at the crossroads of the world in industry and in society, a place that Europe views as Middle Eastern and Asian, a place where the Middle East and Asia view as Europe. A place that has a strange mixture of religion and cultural influences in a secular and yet Muslim state, a place where in an ever-changing world is constantly redefining itself in a category all to itself without intentionally doing so.

Istanbul is a city that has captured my heart and that one-day I will return to.