A mosque, a church, a palace, oh my! - Turkey, Day 14

Friday, June 10, 2005

I woke up this morning and took a shower with plenty of hot water and lots of water pressure. Thank you, God. Then upstairs to the roof for breakfast. The breakfast at the Side Pension wasn't quite as good as at the White Garden back in Antalya. Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Rolls, Simit, Olives, Cheese and Tea or Coffee. I sat down at an empty table and soon James and then Mandy joined me. Just after James sat down, someone from our group at a neighboring table pointed out that he had something in his hair. He was still quite sleepy, so it took him a minute to get his bearings and realize what they were saying to him. It turns out that at the same time, the waiter was asking him what he wanted to drink and he was telling the guy "Su" (water). Somehow, the guy didn't understand and got a bit frustrated because James was distracted by trying to figure out what was in his hair. Chill out waiter guy...

After breakfast, we walked a couple of blocks over to the Blue Mosque. This is a massively huge mosque. As we started to go in, we had to take our shoes off and put them in a bag. We walked into a huge room that was decorated with thousands of geometric designs paited on the ceilings and on the stained glass windows. This mosque was built between 1603-1617 and was Islam's answer to Ayasofya (see below). They don't let you walk into the middle of the room where they have prayers (which were scheduled to happen later on the day we were there). It was impressive and all, but I experienced a real heaviness in the room. I was also struck with sadness as I realized that thousands of people had worshipped a false god in that room. We looked around for about 30 minutes, and then walked out.

We then crossed a huge courtyard with a fountain in it, crossed the street and headed over to Ayasofya (also known as Hagai Sofia), or The Church of the Divine Wisdom.
This church was built by Emporer Justinian in 537 A.D. Many people say that this was the greatest church in Christendom until St. Peter's Basilica was built in Rome a thousand years later. It is awe-inspiring, to say the least. It has this massive dome in the middle that was said to be the largest dome in the world until the 60's when the Astrodome was built. It was later turned into a mosque when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople. The muslims then proceeded to paint over the thousands of mosaics in the building (there are over 30 million gold tiles) because they don't believe in iconography.
Now, the government is in the process of uncovering those mosaics as it has become a historical building and is no longer used as a space for public worship. In fact, there is this massive scaffolding that is about 17 stories tall that rises up to the dome so that they can restore it. It is so tall that there are 2 elevators installed in the scaffolding for the workers. They are also leaving up the HUGE pieces of arabic script that was installed at each corner of the great room by the muslims. The building inspires awe. It is not the awe of religion or God, since it is church or mosque no longer. Rather, it is the awe of age, of history and of miraculous architecture. When Emperor Justinian walked in on December 26, 537, he proclaimed "Glory to God that I have been judged worthy of such a work. O Solomon! I have outdone thee!" We walked around and marveled at the building for at least an hour and a half. I tried my best to imagine thousands of believers gathered in this space worshipping God. That must have been amazing.

One thought that continued to echo through my mind as we toured these two magnificent spaces used for worship was that they are just buildings. Just bricks and mortar. They are temporary compared with the eternal God. They will someday crumble, but he will rule forever.

Our next stop was Topkapi Palace. This was home to the Ottoman Sultans for nearly 400 years. It is a sprawling campus right on the Bosphorus. While impressive, it didn't really hold my attention like the Blue Mosque and Ayasofya did. We walked in dozens and dozens of different buildings on the campus. By the time we were finished, I was tired and hungry for lunch.

Upon leaving the palace, we met up with another missionary that we knew in Istanbul, then we walked across the street to a kebap restaurant. We scarfed down some amazing kebaps - I was hungry no longer.

Next stop was Yerebatan Saray (Sunken Palace Cistern). This is an underground cistern that can hold up to 21 million gallons of water and dates back to the Byzantine Empire, when the city was called Constantinople. There are hundreds of columns holding up the ceiling and some really cool medusa heads at the bottom of a couple of them (they are turned on their side or upside down to show that medusa has no power).
After the cistern, we walked back over to our pension to gather anything we would need for our night. We were planning on meeting Yüksel in an area of town called Beyoğlu and then going to his house for dinner. After a little freshening up, we took off again. We rode a bus to a part of Beyoğlu called Taksim Square. This area of town is considered the heart of modern Istanbul and was developed and inhabited by many Europeans in the 19th century. We met Yüksel and then proceeded to walk down Istiklal Caddesi (Independance Avenue). This is huge pedestrian mall and is compared to Times Square in NYC. There are hundreds of shops, restaurants, coffee and tea houses, galleries, cinemas, banks, consulates, etc. In the 19th century, travelers spoke of Istanbul as the Paris of the East and it was said that they were usually referring to Istiklal Caddesi (then known as the Grand Rue de Pera).

After walking for about 10 minutes, James and I realized that we had already passed about 3 music shops... Coldplay! We almost sprinted to the next shop that we saw and were excited to see that they had a huge display in the front window for Coldplay's new album X&Y. Now, let me say that I didn't NEED to buy the CD in Turkey. I was just going to borrow James' CD player to listen to it later, so I could have just used his CD. It wasn't even a different CD than the one I could have bought in the states (sometimes bands release different bonus tracks in different countries). It even cost more in Turkey than it would have in the U.S. (about $20). However, I didn't care. I wanted to say that I bought it in Turkey. I wanted it in my grubby little hands. So I bought it (so did James and "I") and was satisfied.

We continued to walk down Istiklal Caddesi for about an hour and a half. We occasionally meandered into a shop or down a side street, but mostly we were just taking in the sights and watching the people. We stumbled into an old church at one point and walked in for about 15 minutes to observe some sort of small mass going on. The cathedral could have sat about 800 people, but there were only about 20 people up in the front. I couldn't really hear what they were doing very well, but I don't think they were speaking Turkish. There were tourists (foreign and Turk alike) who would wander in and observe for a few moments before heading out to the hustle and bustle of Istiklal.

Finally we were starting to get hungry, so we made our way from Istiklal to a subway stop. We rode the subway north to the end of the line (about 20 minutes). Then we got into 2 taxis and rode for another 20 minutes or so to some northern district where Yüksel lived. We had by now traveled for miles through Istanbul and everywhere as far as the eye could see was just more city!

We went into Yüksel's house and met his parents and a cousin and an aunt (or something like that). His family was extremely friendly and welcoming. We spent some time talking with them and then dinner was served! We started with soup and salad. I think many of us thoght that was the meal. It was very filling. Then they brought out these huge plates loaded with chicken, beef, lamb, spaghetti, rice, bread and some kind of green beans. We were stuffed. We then made our way to the chairs and couches and proceeded to chat with the family. It was a good time of getting to know them and getting to tell about ourselves. Yüksel's family are Alevi Muslims. Alevi is a branch of Islam that is quite tolerant and open. Because of that, we were able to share about our faith quite freely and they seemed genuinely interested. I know that Yüksel has heard the gospel many times before. Now we were able to share some with his whole family. More seeds planted...

They brought us çay (tea) and then these huge plates of baclava. I was already very full from dinner, but I did my best to stuff down some baclava. After the baclava, they brought out these huge bowls full of fruit. It was at this point that I had to call it quits. If I put another scrap of food in my mouth I was going to hurl chunks. Jennifer was sitting at the kitchen table with some of the women from their family and allegedly she bravely shoved copious amounts of fruit in her mouth so that the family wouldn't be offended.

Well, it was getting late and we had to be at the airport by 3:30 a.m., so we said our goodbyes, embraced Yüksel's family and left. This time Yüksel and his father drove us back to the Side Pension. After about 30 minutes we arrived and said some more goodbyes.

An interesting note... in Turkey, it is common to greet and part with someone by kissing them on each cheek. This usually only happens among members of the same sex - men with men, women with women. Usually Turks won't engage in this process with you unless they know you well, but for some reason, Turks seemed really comfortable with me because they would often do the double kiss thing with me. On our first day in Turkey, we were instructed that if a Turk does lean in for the kiss, we should let them lead regarding which cheek to kiss first. This way you could avoid an inadvertant lip smack. Well, on Thursday night as I was saying goodbye to Yüksel, he leaned in for the kiss and I forgot to let him lead. Long story short, we came within millimeters of a full on mouth kiss! Luckily we both pulled out at the last moment while the team cracked up with laughter. Well, tonight when I was saying goodbye to Yüksel, I made sure to let him lead and we did the cheek kiss without incident.

At this point it was about 11:30 p.m. Our airport shuttle was picking us up at 2:30 a.m. Some people went up to their rooms to catch a little shuteye. Some others just stayed up. I decided to grab the camera and take one final walk around Sultanahmet. Why sleep when I could spend a few hours in one of the most amazing cities in the world, right? I walked around for a while and shot a few pictures. For a while I just sat on a bench in the courtyard between the Blue Mosque and Ayasofya and reflected on the trip. I was sad to leave this amazing country. I was ready to see my family, but sad to leave. If I could have flown them there to be with me I would have been comfortable staying for quite a while longer.

Finally I headed back to Side Pension and went upstairs to shower and pack my bags for the trip home. I finished just in time to head downstairs to meet everybody and jump on the shuttle to the airport. Jennifer was going to stay in Turkey with the M's for the rest of the summer, so we said our goodbyes to "I" and Jennifer, then got on the shuttle and were off to the airport.