This morning contained a smattering of mosques. I went again to the blue mosque (totally better the second time,) this time with a tour group, so I learned a lot of interesting things about the architecture. For instance, the majority of the fine detailing is actually paint directly on the wall- all the way around the walls and the ceiling. It is crazy to think that, like Michelangelo, the artist had to lay on his back in the 17th century painting with the paint dripping onto his face.
The second mosque that I visited was one on the tip of the golden horn. In the back there was a cemetery that had gorgeous tombstones with Arabic writing. My favorite part of all the mosques I have seen is the gorgeous calligraphy that wraps around all of the columns in the mosques. Normally it is gold Arabic calligraphy detailing Muhammad, his sons and grandsons, and the four caliphs. To me though, not being able to read Arabic, it just looks like a gorgeous, shiny, picture J
After that, the friends I was with went to the Turkish bath and I amused myself with the English newspaper I found while sipping tea at the café outside of the Turkish bath. It was ridiculously relaxing and kind of weird to hear about what is going on back home knowing that I am half a world away.
Then, it was back to the Grand Bazaar for the last time to do a bit more of browsing and dickering. Even though I have been to the Grand and Spice Bazaar multiple times, I still didn’t retrace any of my steps. The overload of colors, beautiful shiny objects, beautiful tea sets, scarves, and the excess of leather was still overly stimulating to my senses.
After the Grand Bazaar it was definitely time for dinner. Well, we came across this restaurant that had decent prices and when the guy showed us to our table we went up 4 stories to the rooftop terrace for dinner. The view was wonderful! To one side there was the bay with all of the cargo ships and fishing boats floating in the water. On the other side was a gorgeous panoramic view of the Blue Mosque. It was incredibly beautiful especially since the sun was setting at that time and the light created the most picturesque views of the mosque. In addition, it is Ramadan right now which means that Muslims do not eat or drink from sun up to sundown. This means that from about 4 am to 8:30 pm they cannot consume any food or drink at all. But, once sundown hits the streets become alive- especially at the Hippodrome.
The hippodrome was the ancient site of chariot racing but today is just a long street that during Ramadan hosts a bazaar. Shops everywhere, cotton candy, popcorn, curros, and pretty much any other type of Turkish food you can imagine. Once the sun went down the streets were crazy! Everyone was eating (I literally don’t think I saw anyone who did not have some sort of food or drink in their hand) and everyone was so happy (and lots of little kids running around.) My friends and I walked around for a bit just taking in the general splendor, letting all of the happiness around me rub off on me and putting me in an excellent mood.
On the way walking back to the ship (around 10:30 pm) this shoe polisher who was walking in front of me dropped one of his brushes. I picked it up and ran up to him and told him he dropped it. He thanked us profusely and then literally pulled my friend Ian to the side and started polishing his shoes saying something to the effect of “for free”. He then cleaned each of our shoes, which was weird because I had sandals on, so it was like cleaning my feet. Then, as we went to leave he started asking us for money. Since he had said it was for free we were all under the impression that we didn’t have to pay and I only had a 50 TL and I wasn’t about to give him that. He then got pretty frustrated, picked up his things and walked away. It was kind of an odd encounter in general.
No comments:
Post a Comment