Day 5
Slow day today, but more ahead, by all accounts. I am currently listening to the last call to prayer of the day -- it's really a quite beautiful sound, something I could get used to listenig to five times a day -- and relying on Turkish coffee to keep me awake until bedtime.
Woke up on time to accompany people to the manicure place. The roads here are insane, even more so considering it snowed beautifully today. Case in point? Tanya's mother showed up about ten minutes late after dropping us off. "Sorry I'm late, I had trouble parking." "Where did you park?" "On the sidewalk."
Regardless, after that, we decided to visit one museum quickly in the morning and then make our way home to plan out the rest of our trip, so we went to the Turkish Military Museum. It was very cool, if slightly creepy. They had a history of Ottoman warfare, way back to the days of the Crusaders and Janissaries through modern anti-terrorist operations. The Ottoman Empire being what it is, it was basically an evolution of military technology, from good old swords n' horses through a series of comical to deadly looking guns. We're talking flintlocks, blunderbusses, trench rifles, revolvers, machine guns, and both sword- and knife-guns. Also, cannons. They were big on cannons. They even had an exhibit solely on the Siege of Constantinople, replete with cool sound effects, mannequins, cannons, and a huge mural of a view of the city as it was taken by the Ottomans. Did you know that the Byzantines had a huge chain draped across the entire length of the Bosphorus strait to keep out the Ottoman Navy? Cause I didn't, but they had the chain there in the museum. Guess it didn't really work...
Granted, it being a military museum, there was also a lot of propaganda. The "internal operations exhibit" was a lot of photographs of all the horrible atrocities done by separatist terrorists and the brave actions done by martyrs to stop them. The exhibit on Turkish-Armenian relations throughout history was also, well, interesting. It described their long and peaceful coexistence and difficulties following European intervention with varying degrees of accuracy. There was a whole section just filled, again, with photographs of horrible crimes committed by Armenian gangs against Turkish Muslims, and then descriptions of the actions of the government taken against the armed troublemakers, including the "compulsory immigration law." There was even copies of the documents that issued the orders.
The only reference they made to the g-word, though, was an accusation made about the Armenians living abroad trying to "isolate Turkey internationally" by pressuring American and European governments to condemn them. Overall, creepy, but regardless, it was interesting to see the official Turkish description and take on the situation.
After that, nothing to do but navigate the metro by ourselves home, and Istanbul's metro is now my favorite, better than even D.C.'s. They have TVs on the trains! Also, vending machines. Win-win situation. It was also nice to stroll through the streets of Istanbul in the blinding snow, when I wasn't directly blinded, that is. Back home tonight, we're making plans for the weekend, which will hopefully involve another whirlwind tour of Sultanahmet and then off to Ephesus for Saturday!
Woke up on time to accompany people to the manicure place. The roads here are insane, even more so considering it snowed beautifully today. Case in point? Tanya's mother showed up about ten minutes late after dropping us off. "Sorry I'm late, I had trouble parking." "Where did you park?" "On the sidewalk."
Regardless, after that, we decided to visit one museum quickly in the morning and then make our way home to plan out the rest of our trip, so we went to the Turkish Military Museum. It was very cool, if slightly creepy. They had a history of Ottoman warfare, way back to the days of the Crusaders and Janissaries through modern anti-terrorist operations. The Ottoman Empire being what it is, it was basically an evolution of military technology, from good old swords n' horses through a series of comical to deadly looking guns. We're talking flintlocks, blunderbusses, trench rifles, revolvers, machine guns, and both sword- and knife-guns. Also, cannons. They were big on cannons. They even had an exhibit solely on the Siege of Constantinople, replete with cool sound effects, mannequins, cannons, and a huge mural of a view of the city as it was taken by the Ottomans. Did you know that the Byzantines had a huge chain draped across the entire length of the Bosphorus strait to keep out the Ottoman Navy? Cause I didn't, but they had the chain there in the museum. Guess it didn't really work...
Granted, it being a military museum, there was also a lot of propaganda. The "internal operations exhibit" was a lot of photographs of all the horrible atrocities done by separatist terrorists and the brave actions done by martyrs to stop them. The exhibit on Turkish-Armenian relations throughout history was also, well, interesting. It described their long and peaceful coexistence and difficulties following European intervention with varying degrees of accuracy. There was a whole section just filled, again, with photographs of horrible crimes committed by Armenian gangs against Turkish Muslims, and then descriptions of the actions of the government taken against the armed troublemakers, including the "compulsory immigration law." There was even copies of the documents that issued the orders.
The only reference they made to the g-word, though, was an accusation made about the Armenians living abroad trying to "isolate Turkey internationally" by pressuring American and European governments to condemn them. Overall, creepy, but regardless, it was interesting to see the official Turkish description and take on the situation.
After that, nothing to do but navigate the metro by ourselves home, and Istanbul's metro is now my favorite, better than even D.C.'s. They have TVs on the trains! Also, vending machines. Win-win situation. It was also nice to stroll through the streets of Istanbul in the blinding snow, when I wasn't directly blinded, that is. Back home tonight, we're making plans for the weekend, which will hopefully involve another whirlwind tour of Sultanahmet and then off to Ephesus for Saturday!