Recap of my time in the greatest city in the world!
Nothing I can relate to you will explain just how cool this place is, but I'll do my best. Istanbul conjures up all these emotions. First, it was really weird to not know the language, because I've never had to deal with that since I came to Cairo with a good background in Arabic. When we ordered foo, we didn't know exactly how to say what we wanted, nor what it was we were ordering, but since all the food here is amazing, it didn't really matter.(Doner Kabab, simit, Turkish coffee, chocolate baklava, Iskander kabab, etc!!)
Aalaa's friend from Georgetown who's studying abroad here really helped us out. She took us around to all the hot spots and all the best shopping sites. The shopping was fantastic!! Anything your heart could ever desire, we found in Turkey at the grand bazaar, the spice bazaar and Istiklal Street (the main thoroughfare where we were staying full of supertrendy, European style boutiques)plus great shops on the Asian side as well.
ISSO (International student services office at AUC) took us to all the major tourist sites: Dolmabahce Palace, a grand building where Ataturk died, right on the water of the Bosphorus. We took a cruise on the Bosphorus as well; it runs between Asia and Europe so we got to see great coastal scenery in gorgeous weather on the day of Eid.
Speaking of Eid, earlier that morning, the few Muslims on the trip (we all happen to be girls) decided to try to go to Eid prayer. So at 7:30 that morning, while most of the city was still asleep, we rode to the Blue Mosque, which is also known as the Sultanahmet Mosque. Apparently, Eid prayer isn't as big of a deal for women here (and I've heard it was the same in Egypt) as it is in America, because minus the three of us, there were about 7 other women there total! The place was completely packed with men, however, so Eid itself is not discounted. The khutbah was in Turkish, but other than that it felt just like it does at home. Afterwards, they had this carts where they sold simit (warm bread with sesame on top) and this warm milky stuff with cinnamon (I forget its name). It didn't even feel weird that there were practically no women there, so we just hung around and took pictures.
The architecture was one of the best parts. All of the mosques here have such a distinctive "Ottoman" look with their pencil-thin minarets and bulbous domes, but it's cool because evn the small neighborhood mosques are beautiful and sooo clean-including the women's area!!
We saw the Aya Sophia (once a church, then a mosque, now a museum) with its huge colorful mosaics and hanging disks with the names of the khulafa and the prophet and the prophet's grandsons (incidentally, whenever we saw calligraphy in a mosque it would also include his grandsons. We were told it was so that there was no distinction between Sunni and Shia' in the mosque.)We also saw Topkapi Palace, which was by far my favorite. It's this wondorous palace with the most amazing, genuine artifacts: the turban of prophet Yusuf (joseph), the staff of Moses, the Quran Uthman bin Affan was reading when he was assassinated, the keys to the kaba, and then best of all- the prophet Muhammad's sandals (pretty average sized) a tooth of his, and strands of his hair. We were all in such awe. Just seeing such amazing things that belonged to these people that you only really know from stories or hadith was beyond words.
I think I liked Istanbul so much because it felt like America: clean, modern, fast-paced, technologically advanced (though not as cell-phone obsessed as Cairo), easy to use public transportation system, etc. It's totally secular, like America, yet there are hints of religion, like I mentioned in the last post.
That's why when it was time to go, I really dreaded coming back to Egypt with its smoggy polluted air, crazy driving, slightly odd dressing styles, and mosques qith inadequate women's areas. If I had to get on on a plane and leave, I wanted it to be to America. On the day we left, the weather in Istanbul turned awful, so it was windy and freezing, and raining, but it reminded me of Chicago. Now that I'm here in Cairo again, I realize that I do like Egypt (at least it's warm and I can practice Arabic) and I think I can appreciate the good that both places have to offer. But if I were to ever be an expat, I think I'd choose Istanbul.
I updated my pics with captions. look for the turkey album! photos.yahoo.com/lalib16
Aalaa's friend from Georgetown who's studying abroad here really helped us out. She took us around to all the hot spots and all the best shopping sites. The shopping was fantastic!! Anything your heart could ever desire, we found in Turkey at the grand bazaar, the spice bazaar and Istiklal Street (the main thoroughfare where we were staying full of supertrendy, European style boutiques)plus great shops on the Asian side as well.
ISSO (International student services office at AUC) took us to all the major tourist sites: Dolmabahce Palace, a grand building where Ataturk died, right on the water of the Bosphorus. We took a cruise on the Bosphorus as well; it runs between Asia and Europe so we got to see great coastal scenery in gorgeous weather on the day of Eid.
Speaking of Eid, earlier that morning, the few Muslims on the trip (we all happen to be girls) decided to try to go to Eid prayer. So at 7:30 that morning, while most of the city was still asleep, we rode to the Blue Mosque, which is also known as the Sultanahmet Mosque. Apparently, Eid prayer isn't as big of a deal for women here (and I've heard it was the same in Egypt) as it is in America, because minus the three of us, there were about 7 other women there total! The place was completely packed with men, however, so Eid itself is not discounted. The khutbah was in Turkish, but other than that it felt just like it does at home. Afterwards, they had this carts where they sold simit (warm bread with sesame on top) and this warm milky stuff with cinnamon (I forget its name). It didn't even feel weird that there were practically no women there, so we just hung around and took pictures.
The architecture was one of the best parts. All of the mosques here have such a distinctive "Ottoman" look with their pencil-thin minarets and bulbous domes, but it's cool because evn the small neighborhood mosques are beautiful and sooo clean-including the women's area!!
We saw the Aya Sophia (once a church, then a mosque, now a museum) with its huge colorful mosaics and hanging disks with the names of the khulafa and the prophet and the prophet's grandsons (incidentally, whenever we saw calligraphy in a mosque it would also include his grandsons. We were told it was so that there was no distinction between Sunni and Shia' in the mosque.)We also saw Topkapi Palace, which was by far my favorite. It's this wondorous palace with the most amazing, genuine artifacts: the turban of prophet Yusuf (joseph), the staff of Moses, the Quran Uthman bin Affan was reading when he was assassinated, the keys to the kaba, and then best of all- the prophet Muhammad's sandals (pretty average sized) a tooth of his, and strands of his hair. We were all in such awe. Just seeing such amazing things that belonged to these people that you only really know from stories or hadith was beyond words.
I think I liked Istanbul so much because it felt like America: clean, modern, fast-paced, technologically advanced (though not as cell-phone obsessed as Cairo), easy to use public transportation system, etc. It's totally secular, like America, yet there are hints of religion, like I mentioned in the last post.
That's why when it was time to go, I really dreaded coming back to Egypt with its smoggy polluted air, crazy driving, slightly odd dressing styles, and mosques qith inadequate women's areas. If I had to get on on a plane and leave, I wanted it to be to America. On the day we left, the weather in Istanbul turned awful, so it was windy and freezing, and raining, but it reminded me of Chicago. Now that I'm here in Cairo again, I realize that I do like Egypt (at least it's warm and I can practice Arabic) and I think I can appreciate the good that both places have to offer. But if I were to ever be an expat, I think I'd choose Istanbul.
I updated my pics with captions. look for the turkey album! photos.yahoo.com/lalib16