Turkey Day Four

Today was our mosque day! We started out at 10am and headed out to see the Tokpaki Palace. This palace is actually a museum, the only one that we’ve seen that that’s way. We walked around, saw the different artifacts. There weren’t any rooms like the other ones, but there were jewels and pearl chairs and gilded outfits. The main one was the Spooner’s Diamond. I guess that there was a huge diamond that someone sold to a peddler who made spoons. I guess the rock wasn’t cut, so there was no way to really tell it’s value, but as soon as the Sultan of the area found out about the stone, he bought the Spooner’s diamond from him and had it refined. The diamond is an 85 carat stone…..85 karats. It was ginormous. The turned it into a turban ornament, but it started out as a ring. Now it’s on display in this huge palace that was built on the sea side. It was pretty awesome.
After the palace, we saw some of the mosques that were around the area. The first was the Hagia Sophia. The color scheme was slightly strange, but this gigantic work of architecture was built in like 500 AD. It makes sense that Istanbul (which was Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire) was once a part of the Roman Empire back when it was in its hay day. There’s some history and really impressive architecture. The St. Sophia mosque is supposed to be the most impressive. Supposedly, the statue of liberty (minus the torch and the base) could fit inside. It did not look that big, but I believe the stats. We walked across this great garden and ended up at the Blue Mosque. This one was a little more exciting. The color is just like it says, it’s a dark blue and light gray color and the architecture is just breathtaking. We went inside just as a call to prayer was happening though. In the Muslim religion, practicers pray towards Mecca 5 times a day. Every so often, you can hear the call to prayer playing from the mosques. It’s basically a man singing in Turkish. Friday, also, is the Sabbath day. So calls to prayer last an hour or so. Lol. We waited and waited outside (because they kick you out). We saw the column of Constantine (400 AD), an Egyptian Obelisk (300 AD), and the Serpent Column. The SC is an interesting story. If you’ve seen 300, you know the story. Basically, the Persians defeated the 300 Spartans at Thermopolii. Then the whole Spartan army came and defeated the Persians and wiped them out. The Spartans took their weapons and burnt them down and then molded the material into a huge column with a serpent’s head. Pretty BA if you ask me.
We ended up not going in. But we might tomorrow. We ate lunch on a fourth floor terrace afterward. We had a really good time. Our server talked to us for a long time about the different opinions he had of Americans and the Turkish government. It was very interesting. Cultural things too. Example: The Turkish think that if people are jealous of something and too many people are, it’ll break. Like our server had really good teeth, so too many people were jealous, so his tooth broke. Interesting thought process. He ended up buying us some Turkish apple tea for free too! Exciting! First time trying it and I must admit that I love it.
After lunch, we headed to the Cistern. This is like a huge underground place to get water for the city that is supported by Doric and Corinthian columns that are absolutely huge. You can walk through and see where the people got water hundreds of years ago. There are also these huge Medusa head columns. Not sure the history on that one, but they were cool to see.
Next was the Spice Bazaar which is just like the Grand Bazaar but only teas and Turkish delight and spices. We ended up getting a lot of different fresh teas and they even air-vacked them for us.
We headed back to the ship and ate a quick dinner so we could make it in time for our last trip in Istanbul: the Sufi dance. We all dressed up and headed by bus to this place that used to be a Turkish bath. Now they have Sufi dances in there which is basically a religious ceremony for a mystical branch of Islam. The Sufi dancers are the men with the weird top hats and the white dresses that spin. They’re called Whirling Dervishes. This is another must see, must do thing in Turkey. The men believe that when they are spinning, they have Allah inside of them and they are closer to heaven. It’s all very interesting with lots of bowing and different rituals. There is a boundary across the floor between the spirit world and earth, and they must bow before entering each one, but when they spin, they are limitless, so they don’t HAVE to bow. The symbolism is all very interesting, but we didn’t talk about it for a good hour as it was so strange. We’re still processing it I think.
Afterwards, we took a quick walk with James’ roommate and some friends. Just for some fresh air. It was a long day. Nice, but we packed a lot in.