Ahoy folks,
As of noon today, we've been anchored off the shore of Bulgaria, which according to the schedule we're not supposed to arrive until tomorrow. So for now, we can look but we can't touch. So I thought I'd take this moment in limbo to yammer about Turkey, from which we daparted last night at 2330 hours.
We were docked in Istanbul for 5 days. At the pre-port meeting, they told us about how if we (girls) show skin above our wrists or ankles, we would get mugged or raped. They described it as an invitation to guys. They warn us like this at every pre-port, and I'm starting to not believe them. So I ask around, read some books, and discover that Istanbul is just as safe as any other major city. Surprise. But I did find that it is a very gendered city. I rarely if ever saw any women swimming at the beach or in the ocean. It's all guys that are out in the street. The guys fish, swim, dive right off the docks. So there are just all these shirtless men sitting or standing around the parks and waterfront. Not a woman in sight. There are guys sitting out the stoop in the street, no women around. There are women that do the whole cover their hair thing, and there are a few that dress in all black with only their eyes showing, but there were definitely casually dressed women. The covered hair garbs were not the majority by any estimations.
I went to a carless island again.It was one of the Prince's Islands and I couldn't tell you its name, but I can tell you it's the second stop on the fast ferry. They didn't have donkeys, but they did have horses and carriages. This was a really small island. This island had a lot of restaurants, grocery stores, bike rentals, but not as many souveneir shops as the carless Greek island. It was really quaint and cute. We ran into a bike rental with a tandem for rent, but we didn't have enough time left on the island to rent it.
There are two bridges in Istanbul that connect the Asian side to the European side. Istanbul is the only city in the world to be on 2 continents: 77% in Asia, 23% in Europe. We were docked right next to the pedestrian bridge. The top level is available for vehicles in addition to a walkway, but the bottom is only for people. It is a long stretch of restaurants, hookah bars, cafes and seating. Getting across the bridge gets you to all the bazaars and a lot of markets and shopping.
The Grand Bazaar. Is HUGE! There are so many vendors. Words cannot describe the magnitude of this place. You could spend days there and never see all of it. It's so easy to get lost and never find an exit. We only spent our time in one section: the gifts and souveneirs part. Everybody pretty much sells the same things, so it makes me wonder how it is possible for them to maintain this livelihood when the competition is so fierce. Everybody's selling what you're selling. You're supposed to haggle. They'll tell you a ridiculous price at first, and then they'll ask what you can offer, and then they'll laugh at you, and then you'll walk away, and then they'll start shouting lower prices at you. It isn't quite as low as you would like, but it's pretty easy for them to drop some lira. Their currency is lira ($1 = 1.5 lira). The spice bazaar smells amazing. They have all these colorful and gorgeous piles of spices, teas, coffee, Turkish delight. It's so overwhelming to all your senses.
They're all trying to get you to buy from them. If you even look in their direction, they will think you are interested. If you approach their merchandise, they will talk to you as if you will buy from them, but most of the time I'm just looking. They are super aggressive. One right after another: "Do you want to buy something you don't need? Can I help you spend your money? Come take a look in my shop....." By the end of the day, I felt like a broken record, "No, thank you. No, thank you..." I had said that so many times, the words had become meaningless and automatic whenever he so much as looked at me.
There are mosques everywhere. Five times a day there is a call to prayer and each mosque has at least one tower from which somebody sings the call to prayer. So you can pretty much hear the prayers from all over the city. It's kind of cool. We drove by a mosque one time and everybody was lined up perfectly straight like it was choreographed, but it wasn't - and that's why I thought it was so cool. Talk about coordination and devotion. All the guys were on one side and all the girls were across the street. They're not allowed to pray together.
I also watched Harry Potter. There were Turkish subtitles, but I would have watched it in Turkish too.
Istanbul's been trying to get into the EU for years now, but Germany and France are objecting. Part of the reason is that most of the people are Muslim and in Asia. This is the most impoverished country we've been to thus far. The tour guide said they're really feeling the economic crisis right now. Istanbul was fun, but if you've seen one mosque you've seen them all, and I'm not much of a church person to begin with. Although there were these cool underground cisterns that they used for water storage back in the day.
shockingly humid,
JT
No comments:
Post a Comment