Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - Turkey, Day 13

Thursday, June 9, 2005

We woke up early, ate a quick breakfast, then took off for "L"'s apartment for some team debreifing time. We spent 2 hours discussing our experiences over the past 12 days. The goal was to discuss what we had learned, what God was teaching us, what God was calling us to do, etc. We shared, then spent some good time praying for each other about how we would apply the things we were learning from our experience here in Turkey.

After our debreifing time, we walked back over to the Pansiyon to bring our bags down from our rooms. I settled our bill with the White Garden Pansiyon, then joined the rest of the team in the garden to hang out before we were set to leave for the airport at 11:30. "P", "T", "L" and "I" joined us and brought some meat filled pastries for us to snack on. We spent about 45 minutes chatting with them, Metin & Salim from the Pansiyon and Catherine while we played games with her son, Conlaodh.

Finally, our ride arrived. We said our goodbyes to everybody (except for "I", who was going to join us on our trip to Istanbul). We said our goodbyes to everybody, then piled in the van and we were off for the airport. There was a bit of an awkward moment when we got in the van and "I" slammed the van door and then our driver (another missionary we knew in town) yelled at him. Then Jay turned around and sang "awkward..." and I thought I was going to lose it. Jay and I were in the front seat, so when the driver got in the van, I had to try my best to not crack up.

We got to the airport and started checking in when we realized that a couple of people in our group didn't have their paper tickets for our flight to Istanbul. If you remember, we had quite an ordeal back in Amsterdam with our tickets. Because of that, we had tons of different tickets and papers. Well, somehow, Jennifer and Megan didn't have their tickets anymore (they thought we would be E-Ticketed). By some provision of God, we had an extra ticket to Istanbul that "I" had purchased a few weeks prior for Jennifer. So now all we had to take care of was a ticket for Megan. We realized that it was in the trash can back at the Pansiyon, so we called "T" and had her go get it and take a quick taxi to the airport to get the ticket to us. She arrived about 5 minutes before we were set to board the plane. We made it on the plane just in time.

I specifically remember laughing a lot on that 1 hour plane flight to Istanbul. I don't remember why we were laughing or what we were laughing at, but for some reason it was incredibly funny.

We landed in Istanbul and grabbed our bags. Then we met a friend of Megan's named Yüksel. She met him in Florida last summer when she was at Kaleo. He was working at a waterpark as a part of a program that college students in Turkey can participate in called something like "Work and Travel", where they can go to some other country to... work and travel. Anyway, Yüksel turned out to be a really cool guy. We were heading to the old city in Istanbul, called Sültanahmet, which was quite a ways away, so Yüksel piled half of our team in his Jeep Grand Cherokee and the rest of us jumped on a Havaş (bus). We rode the bus for about a half an hour, then got on a train that took us to the heart of Sültanahmet.

I was already starting to get the sense that Istanbul is quite different than Antalya. In fact, Istanbul makes Antalya look like a sleepy little seaside city. Istanbul has this incredible energy and life. Not to give too big a history lesson here, but...

• Istanbul straddles the Bosphorus strait (which is the gateway to the Black Sea). One side of the city is in Europe and the other side is in Asia.
• It has been the seat of several massive empires, including the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
• There are now an estimated 15-17 million people in Istanbul.
• Istanbul sets the cultural pace for Turkey (kind of like New York City in the U.S.)

I quickly got the sense that I was going to like this city very much.

We waited for a while at the Sültanahmet train stop for Yüksel and the other half of our team. Somehow, we forgot to give them one of our cell phones, so we weren't sure exactly how to call them and they were late. Finally, they found one of our numbers and called us saying that they would meet us at the Side Pension, our lodging for the next 2 nights. We walked a couple of blocks to Side and there they were.

Our Pension was in the heart of Sültanahmet, and about 2 blocks from the Golden Horn, a part of the Bosphorus that juts into the heart of the city. We were 1 block from the Blue Mosque (one of the largest mosques in the world) and Ayasofya (once a church, then a mosque and now a museum, it boasted the world's largest enclosed dome until the Astrodome in Houston was built in the 60's). We were staying in quite an amazing place!

We got settled into our Pension. I roomed with "I", so I was looking forward to some good time of hanging out and talking before we left Turkey. Our rooms were very nice. Each of them had these huge heavy wooden doors and really nice bathrooms with lots of water pressure (which was lacking at the White Garden Pansiyon in Antalya). All of this for something like 40 bucks a night per room!

We then gathered downstairs and with Yüksel as our guide, we took off to walk around Sültanahmet a bit, with the Grand Bazaar as our ultimate destination. This covered market dates back to 1461 and is one of the largest covered markets in the world. There are an estimated 4,000 shops in the Bazaar! I guess this was one of the first malls.

A view of the Grand Bazaar

We split up into a couple of groups and wandered around the Grand Bazaar for about and hour and a half. It turns out that the other group got a little lost and turned around, but finally they called us on the cell phone and we found them.

Then it was off to find a place to eat dinner. We finally decided on a nice place near our Pansiyon. We had a wonderful dinner at the nicest restaurant we had eaten at yet on our trip. I got sea bass, which was amazing and we had dessert as well. It was a really enjoyable meal.

It was already getting a bit late (around 9:30), so after dinner, most people headed back to the Pension to get some shuteye. Some of us decided to walk around to take in some of the sights. I took this opportunity to get some nice shots of the Blue Mosque.

After shooting for about 30 minutes, Jay came up to me to tell me how friendly the people in the city are. As I was shooting pictures, apparently, he had converstions with several people who were really friendly. One guy even asked if he wanted to go drink some beer, which he declined. We had a bit of a laugh, then Jay went back to the Pension and I continued to shoot pictures. After I was done shooting, I packed up my camera and tripod and then a guy stopped me asking if we could talk. He said that he was Turkish, but lived in Cologne, Germany right now and was back home visiting. He quickly asked if we could go get a beer together. I got a really strange feeling that something fishy was going on, so I said no thanks and headed back to the Pansiyon. As I walked away, I noticed that he was already walking up to someone else to talk. I began to theorize about what this guy was doing. Either he was some sort of con artist. Or he was a homosexual and was trying to proposition me. Or he was a male prostitute. Or some combination of the 3!

I walked over to Jay and James' room and as I told them about my experience, Jay and I realized that this was the same guy who asked him to get a beer and we agreed that something just wasn't quite right about the guy.

Jay and I decided to head out to a cafe to chat and maybe grab one last Efes (the local beer). James, being underage (at least here in the U.S.) decided to stay at the Pension. So I took my camera back to my room and we headed out. I sent a text message to "I" (who was hanging out with Megan) to see if he wanted to join us. Jay and I found a cafe a few blocks away from our Pansiyon and "I" soon joined us. Jay ordered an Efes and me and "I" ordered a very popular, traditional drink in Turkey called Rakı (pronounced "rahk-a"). It is made from aniseseed (the same stuff that gives black licorice its flavor). They serve it in a short narrow glass and it is clear. Additionally, they serve it with mineral water. What you are supposed to do is pour the mineral water in the Rakı, which then turns it a milky white color. In fact, the nickname for Rakı is "lion's milk". We all hung out for about an hour chatting. One of my favorite things about our trip was experiences like these when several of us would just hang out and chat. It was very refreshing.

A couple of funny observations about the Rakı. It is a very mild liqueur, so by drinking one, we suffered no effects... sort of. Mind you, we didn't feel any of the traditional sensations you feel when you drink alcohol. Instead, it made my tongue numb. And "I" claimed that it made his scalp tingle. Weird.

Anyway, after chatting for a while, we all headed back to the Pension. I wrote in my journal for a while, then me and "I" continued to talk for quite a while. I think we finally turned in at around 2:30 a.m.

It had been a very good day.