Believe me, I’m well aware of how tardy this post is. I actually started writing it waaaay back in September, but then life got in the way. Since I’ve last written, I’ve managed to turn twenty-one, start back working at the café, begin taking Spanish, perfect my Irish brown bread recipe (don’t worry I’ll share it), start training for a half-marathon, and begin to plan my next adventure! Now that I’ve nailed this post down though, I plan to get back to regular blogging, and hope to send you stories and updates more frequently!
The final stop on my trip was a visit to Istanbul. My roommate and I visited the city that bridges Europe and Asia over spring break in March, so stopping here on this past trip occurred simply because it was cheaper to fly home from here rather than a need to see all the sights. That being said, I adored the city the first time around and was all too happy to pay it another visit.
Also, just for clarification, my roommate and I go to school on the East Coast and live on the West Coast. It is therefore just as costly to fly to Istanbul as it is to fly home. It’s not like we’re crazy travel addicts who look for any chance to get out of the country, we were simply prioritizing. So, because I was in Istanbul twice in such a short period of time, I’ll give details from both trips, just so I paint a complete picture. Also, all my photos are from that first trip, so if the skies seem a little grey and the streets a little tourist-free that is the reason.
Backing up to Greece, my ferry (this one was nothing more than a glorified motorboat) from Santorini arrived to Athens around one in the morning. Nothing too exciting to report from the ride save for my Greek salad exploding on me and everything I own, hence the lack of photos from Istanbul (don’t worry, after some intense de-olive oiling my camera is in fine working order). My plane to Istanbul left at eight in the morning so I decided it wasn’t worth getting a hostel room for all of the three hours I would actually be there, and instead decided to head straight to the airport. During what may have been the sketchiest hour of my entire trip (though really not that bad), I searched and searched for the unmarked bus parking lot whilst fending off ride offers from cab drivers, and room offers from random men who seemed slightly less gentlemanly than Misters Denmark one and two.
Eventually I found the bus and made it to the airport. While researching whether I would actually be permitted to spend the night in the Athens airport, I came across one of the funniest little gems the good ‘ol world wide web has to offer. That would be “sleepinginairports.com,” which is essentially a site devoted to reviews (of the Travelocity and hotel booking sites variety) of the sleeping conditions in airports, I suggest checking it out for a good chuckle. The more hardcore airport sleepers had already taken the good sleeping spots when I arrived (in the chapel and on the padded benches in McDonalds) so I made my way to a quiet hallway, rolled out my quick-dry towel and tried to catch a few zees (is that how you would spell that?). Unfortunately the Elefthérios Venizélos Athens International Airport was one step ahead of the airport sleepers and had taken it upon themselves to play the most obnoxious music known to man (it sounded like it should be the score to some very intense and heroic battle of Greek goods) so that sleeping was out of the question. Cursing the music, I rested until around five in the morning when I was greeting by a Greek security guard making the rounds and waking everyone up by saying “good morning, sleeping is not permitted here!” in an “all too chipper for five in the morning” voice. So I packed up my stuff, drank a strong coffee, ate my final yogurt, and made my way to Istanbul.
Since I want to reflect on both of my experiences in Istanbul, I think this post will be more of disconnected ideas of what I like and saw as opposed to a blow by blow recap of my trip, so here goes!
To begin, let’s talk about the weather. When I went to Istanbul in March, it was very cold, cloudy, and at points, rainy. I obviously wasn’t scared off by the weather (Oregonian here), but for some reason I had been under the impression that Istanbul was a ‘hot weather city and that I was missing out on some aspect of the atmosphere by not coming in the summer. Now that I’ve experienced both hot and cold weather, I realize that I prefer Istanbul in cold weather and I highly suggest visiting the city in the off-season. Why? Firstly, less tourists, always a plus. But more than that, there’s a definite coziness about Istanbul that can only be felt when the temps are less than stellar. After walking around the chilly city for a while, popping in an out of airy and beautiful stone mosques there’s nothing better than heading into a little café and warming up with some apple tea or Turkish coffee and a nice nut and spice filled pastry or a few cubes of gummy Turkish delight. The grand bazaar and spice market are also great respites from the cold, and the mounds upon mounds of fragrant spices and teas that can be found in the markets really add to this cozy feeling. However, if the previously mentioned spots don’t quite warm you up, there’s always the hammam…
The hammam or Turkish bath is a sauna/spa-type place and is an integral part of Turkish culture, and therefore an experience my roommate and I were determined to have during our trip. Although we were both excited to cross off this very Turkish thing to do, we were also a bit nervous as we weren’t entirely sure what the hammam would entail, other than a lot of nudity. On our first day in Istanbul, after taking a shuttle, metro, train, subway, bus, plane, bus, and taxi to finally arrive, we found ourselves in a very chilly café trying to acclimate to the cold weather, and find a way to fight jetlag and stay awake until a somewhat appropriate bedtime (that would be eight o’ clock, right?). We decided that the hammam would be a warm and relaxing way to pass a few hours and bring us closer to bedtime. After a quick pep-talk where we referred to our favorite mantra of “what would Nick Kristoff do?” For those of you in the dark, Nick Kristoff is an awesome New York Times reporter from Oregon who wrote the book Half the Sky and who is our source of inspiration for all things travel related.
We headed to a nearby hammam (I believe it was the oldest in Istanbul), paid for what we wanted (a good scrubbing and a mud facial!), and then received a bar of soap, a token indicating the spa services we wanted, a towel, and a random gold pouch that we didn’t bother to look in at the time. From all that we’d heard, we’d come to understand that you go into a hammam completely naked. That being said, once in the changing rooms, the task became a little more daunting. After taking a little more time to truly come to terms with this fact (we’ve both got Catholic grandmas – conservatism runs in our blood), we stripped and quickly covered back up with the towels that had been given to us, generously sized to match the exact proportions of your average dish towel. We headed back downstairs and slowly made our way to the door of the actual hammam room. Summoning our last ounces of Nick-Kristoff inspired courage, we pushed open the sauna door….
Only to find that every other person in the room was wearing underwear, and not just any underwear, matching black bikini bottoms, clearly from the same source. As the large naked (except for the underwear) Turkish scrubber ladies worked to coax our soon to be completely naked bodies into the room, Olivia had a genius brainwave, realizing that those funny little gold bags that we’d so rudely ignored had not actually been full of essential oils or bath salts as we’d imagined, but instead had contained the precious black underwear. Gripping our towels around us, we managed to fight our way past the Turkish scrubby ladies and back into the changing rooms where we happily donned the little black underwear. And although the funny little underwear were no bigger than anything you’d find at Victoria’s Secret, compared to our almost naked fate, their coverage felt as relieving as a pair of bloomers.
We re-entered the hammam room, and the Turkish ladies pounced on us, clearly not wanting to lose us again. They directed us (forcibly relocated us) to the big raised stone dais in the center of the room, quickly stole our towels from us and had us lie down. I think it was at this point when all of the uneasiness at the foreignness of the situation dissolved and the realization struck that this was the absolute best decision we could have made after our long flight. The room we were in was large and circular, all stone, with a high domed ceiling that had little six point stars cut out of it. The stars let in little streams of light that cut through the swirling steam that filled the room. Lying on the hot stone surrounded by steamy warmth, sweating out all our plane toxins and looking up at the stars felt incredibly relaxing.
After a nice long while warming, the Turkish ladies came back and went to work scrubbing and massaging with fantastic smelling soap. Clearly having half your skin scrubbed off by a naked Turkish woman creates some awkwardness, but the massage and hair washing were well worth it. Also, the fact that the Turkish women clearly had no patience for those not understanding Turkish and instead communicated by essentially slapping you into the position they wanted you was pretty amusing. After the scrub down, we ambled around the steam room and soaked in the pools for a while before heading out.
Upon leaving the hammam, Olivia and I felt both calm and refreshed and rather amazed. What we originally envisioned to be nothing more than a rather nuder-than-usual spa trip turned into an insight into culture and society (truthfully, Olivia and I manage to glean very deep insights from even the most mundane of things, we blame our hippy worldly education). Honestly, we loved the “nuder-than-usual” part of the hammam, or rather the fact that what felt like such a big deal to us wasn’t actually a big deal. Women of all shapes and sizes, of all ages, and of all ethnicities paraded around the hammam in a very normal manner. They weren’t showing off their bodies, but they weren’t ashamed of them either. Being from a country that’s the world winner of body image issues (on both ends of the spectrum), Olivia and I both thought that growing up in a culture where going to the hammam was normal, and being able to see that there are many different definitions of normal and beautiful, would really inspire some self-appreciation.
So, this is where I left off writing back in September (ha!) And upon rereading, I see I have droned on quite a bit (typical). So in order to actually get this post up sometime before the next decade, I’m moving to the list method. Let me just bust out a few more things I love/find interesting about Istanbul before calling it quits.
- Spice market and grand bazaar– such wonderful markets with heaping piles of vibrantly colored spices, teas, nuts, and Turkish delight, as well as fabrics, rugs, and lamps. If you don’t like to be heckled though I suggest you wear earplugs… An amusing anecdote on that note: Turkish men feel it’s their duty to guess where you’re from, Olivia got a lot of Spanish and Turkish, and I was constantly asked if I was French. You can bet I answered with a “oui oui!”
- Tea – Çay in Turkish, and a huge part of the culture, you can spend hours in a café drinking tea. The traditional flavor is similar to oversteeped English breakfast, but I preferred the sweeter apple tea.
- Street food – this is included on the list not because it’s particularly good, but because it played a central role during my time in Istanbul. Firstly, while Olivia and I were there, we came down with a nasty stomach bug and were literally surviving off these funny bread rolls that are everywhere. And secondly, when we were searching for our second hostel we decided to do “chestnut check-ins” and consulted with every roasted chestnut vendor we came in contact with to see if they knew if we were headed in the right direction. We never actually ate any of the chestnuts…
- Prince’s Islands – we took the ferry to the Prince’s islands on our last day in Istanbul, and though by that point I was so sick that my presence was akin to hanging out with a loaf of bread, I really loved the islands. The day we went was crisp and sunny and the islands were practically deserted, they’re a summer vacation destination, and compared to the bustle of Istanbul, they’re a beautiful escape to simple living.
In summary, Turkey is magical. It seems big, bustling, and cosmopolitan, until you turn down a side street or step into a mosque, and it becomes slow, quiet, and traditional. It’s new and old, east meets west, an absolute mezcla of cultures and ways of life, studded with cups upon cups of bitter tea, thick coffee, spicy smells, and pops of bright color from a stained glass window, a tower of pomegranates, or a pyramid of saffron. Everyone has different places that are special to them, countries they prefer for whatever reason (I like Denmark, Olivia likes Egypt). I think Istanbul is one of those cities that everyone would find wonderful, because it just is!
Soleil et Café 