Blue Mosque

 The Blue Mosque, also called the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (in Turkish, Sultanahmet Camii). It was built in the early 1600s

 This bronze sculpture was in the courtyard of the Blue Mosque. You can see how the six towers are arranged, an easy spot when looking across a river!

 Here is a man doing the ritual washing. He has to wash his hands, feet and face before allowing himself to pray. This was outside in the courtyard. Some mosques have a column in the middle of the courtyard with 10 or 15 washing stations, this mosque had many along the walls.

 Here we are on the short (5-10) minute walk from Ayasofya to the Blue Mosque.

 Here is a picture of the Blue Mosque from Ayasofya. You can almost see all 6 towers.

 Close up of the towers.

 The floor of the entrance.

 The beautiful dome of the mosque; this picture does not do it justice, the details you can see with the naked eye are remarkable. The entire dome is a mosaic, which just makes it so much more beautiful. The wires hanging from the ceiling are holding the massive chandelier.

 On the original chandeliers, there were ostrich eggs to repel spiders, but most have been taken away now, and use electronic light, not candles.

 Part of the mosaic/tile of the wall, obviously in need of a little repair.

 Here Süleyman is showing me how to pray.

 In the prayer-only area, there is a weird-looking structure like this (in most Mosques), called a Mimbar; you can compare it to a pulpit in a church. Here is where the imam (or Muslim prayer leader) stands and gives a sermon. And just to the left of it is where the imam would lead the prayer, in the mihrab.

 This is one of the widest columns in a mosque in the world. It’s so wide that it takes three blocks of marble on top of each other to create the entire column.

 This mosque was one where people actually prayed normally, there was only a small section of the mosque where pictures were allowed to be taken, the rest was for prayer. We had to take our shoes off, even though we weren’t going to pray, and they even offered scarves to cover women’s hair.

Apparently Pope Benedict XVI visited this mosque in 2006 (making only the second visit to a Muslim place of worship by a pope). While there, he meditated silently to himself, after taking his shoes off, and thanked the Turkish people for being so loving and understanding during his visit, and said that Turkey, “will be a bridge of friendship and collaboration between East and West.”

Maiden’s Tower

Maiden’s Tower (or in Turkish, Kız Kulesi) was one of my favorite attractions in Turkey. The legend behind it was that a sultan heard from a fortune teller that his daughter would die on her 18th birthday from a snake bite. So he built this tower in the middle of the Bosporus River (that seperates Asia from Europe), so she could be far away from any snakes on land. He was the only one to visit her and brought her food every day in baskets. Well on her 18th birthday, he brought her lots of exotic and delicious fruits in a basket to celebrate, and as they took the fruits out they discovered a poisonous snake at the bottom, which of course bit her and she died, just like the forune teller said.

A pretty sad story, but a beautiful attraction! Apparently there’s a fancy, romantic restaurant and cafe in the tower now (where lots of people get engaged), and you can get a boatride/water taxi ride to get there, which would be great!

Right on the edge of the water they even had little shops that delivered tea or sahlep (a milky hot orchid root drink), with comfy pillows.

Definitely a great end to a wonderful trip!

Kapadokya

 Cappadocia (cap-a-doe-shee-ya), or in Turkish Kapadokya, (or modernly as Ürgüp) is an absolutely gorgeous landscape area in the middle of Turkey.

“The first Christians escaped from the persecution of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century B.C. came to the Cappadocia over the Antakya and Kayseri and they have settled here. The first Christians finding the underground cities from Cappadocia have been hidden in these underground cities which gates were made in such way in which they couldn’t be easily observed and they have escaped from the persecution of the Roman soldiers. Due that they had live in the underground cities for long duration without being able to go out they have developed these underground cities by making provisions rooms, ventilation chimneys, wine production places, churches, abbeys, water wells, toilets and meeting rooms. In these cities made in form of rooms connected to each others some of the rooms were connected to each other only with the tunnels tight and permitting passing of just a person. At the access gates of these tunnels there were huge stone rollers used for closing the tunnels for security reasons.” Taken from http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/

Kapadokya is made up of multiple smaller “open air museums,” named Zelve (zel-vay) Archaelogical Site, and Göreme (Goe-ray-may)

 I love how you can see the layers in the rock, it’s so beautiful.

 These (and the first) pictures are from a “photo spot” we saw as we were driving home after a long day walking around. It was about 3 miles (5 km) down the road to a dead end with a parking lot, and it was absolutely gorgeous, and completely worth it! We got there right at sunset, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.

 An awesome “self portrait.”

 These are “fairy chimneys,” near Göreme.  They are natural formations with nothing man-made helping anything (except for some lighting). There is softer (and usually lighter-colored rock) on the bottom, with a small bit of harder (and usually darker-colored) rock on top. Through water and wind erosion (like from water seeping into softer rock, then expanding when freezing, breaking the softer rock), the softer rock gets formed into a column (or chimney), while the harder rock stays and seems to balance on top. These are the “picture perfect” fairy chimneys, but you could see these all over the landscape, it was incredible.

In Göreme, we mostly saw churches that had been destroyed by Muslims. In Islam they don’t allow faces of any prophets or saints, so when they found the churches with paintings of Jesus, Mary, etc., they would scratch out the eyes, faces or entire paintings. Many of the churches here were highly damaged and many (with the exception of one) had almost every face scratched.

 Here’s an example of how the eyes would be scratched out. This is a portrait of Jesus.

 This is one of my favorite pictures, it was so beautiful as the sun was setting there. Süleyman was standing in front of the “Dark Church” which we got to see. There was an extra charge for it (8 Lira, or around $4.50).

 There were also no pictures allowed, so the only picture we got was me going up the stairs.

 This was a picture I stole from jeffpflueger.com of the ceiling of the Dark Church. They call it the Dark Church because when they had discovered the church (around the 11th century) there was a large rock over the only entrance, and only one small window allowing light into when they found it. Because it was so hidden, (almost) no faces were destroyed, so it was in the best condition and well worth the extra 8 Lira to visit!

 This is how dark most places were, so simple and natural and slightly creepy. I wonder what it would have been like to discover these places.

 We also found what looked like was an eat-in kitchen, complete with table and “chairs.”

 Another example of a kitchen, note the black walls and ceiling.

 This was another very small church with simple architecture and almost no lighting. Most of the churches in Göreme had similar walkway-type entryways, for safety.

 This was a portrait of someone (I’m not sure) that covered a symbol of the cross the Christians used to hide. It’s made up of many symbols (some may be letters representing parts of Christianity), that equal a cross-like figure.

 Many of the churches we visited also had graves inside the walls. I’ve never seen this before, so it was quite alarming. This church had many graves.

 This was an example of how a painting was supposed to be….

 And this was the original, actual painting. This was a painting of Mary and baby Jesus that was destroyed by light and

 On the drive to Zelve Archaeological Site in the morning, there were beautiful rock structures everywhere!

 The first one we went into, not sure if it was a church or a home. This picture was taken with flash because in Zelve nothing was lit using artificial light making it feel real, and not commercialized, like too many places.

 And the same view without flash.

 Here is the texture of the wall. This wall was a little harder than some others we saw, but still very soft, it was easy to see how people could carve these out.

 This was a really nice mosque we found too. You can tell this is newer for many reasons; the lines on the arches are much tighter and smoother, and also, they are not simply half-circles like other arches, these had a small point at the top, to show the style had changed as well as the technology.

 We guessed this was an alter in the side of the mountain, note the simple half-circle curve of the arch. Here’s a picture of the ceiling of it.

 It was really pretty, with the hearts and overlapping cross design.

 The symbol of Christianity, carved into the inside wall of a church.

 And the alter in the same church.

 We also met a mother dog and her four ADORABLE puppies! They were too afraid of us to play, but they were so adorable, we assumed they lived there, which is pretty cool. The only other wildlife we saw there was a fox, who wanted to dual with the mother dog; it was pretty intense. I was surprised how little wildlife actually lived there though, because it was an “open air museum.”

 We also found a kitchen with “real” pottery from the time (most likely it was put there for tourists like me to pick up!). We weren’t sure, but we believe this large pan-shaped hole in the ground was where all the cooking magic happened, but we were definitely sure it was a kitchen because of the black walls and ceilings from the fires.

 Here’s the HUGE mountain we were climbing, it’s really hard to see, but I’m in that picture, near the left side, almost as high as the windows. I’m 5’3″ (1.6 meters) tall, and it looks like you could fit 6 of me down the rock face, so that would be about 31.5 feet (9.6 meters) high. That’s three stories. Omg. It wasn’t scary until I got down, when I realized how high I was!

He climbed much higher than me (on the same structure), I couldn’t stomach it, but somehow he could!

And because I love jumping pictures, we decided to do them in the most dangerous place we could: On top of a huge soft rock with a 15 foot (around 3 meter) drop. Mine was a lot wimpier than his, but we both look awesome.

That crazy man actually jumped over that 15 foot drop, I just jumped near it!

 And here is the huge rock we were climbing. I am really tiny to the right of the big dark rock in the foreground, and we had climbed to the area with all the windows in the rock in the upper left. We didn’t know how high we climbed until after we saw!

 Right as we were leaving we saw another big rock with a chain around it, saying it was too dangerous to climb. Well Sulu decided to climb anyway, and we got a bunch of really cool pictures from it. It was so awesome looking!

And now, some of my favorite pictures from Kapidokya:

 

My favorite part of this museum was how silent, empty and humbling the experience was. People actually lived here, raised families and lived lives. It was eerie and beautiful at the same time. We visited in January (and while winters in Turkey aren’t nearly as bad as they are in Iowa, it was still cold) and these people lived with no doors even to protect from the elements, animals, other people. It was an amazing experience, and I’d love to go back again in a warmer month.

As I was standing there, at the edge of the rock like that, all I could think of was how the safety would not be enough for America’s standards. The safety in America is so much, it ruins the feeling of the place and makes it more like an attraction than an actual place. Here, there were no guardrails, no rails up the stairs either, you just had to balance and hope you don’t slip. But it made me feel so sad for the people who actually did live here, because they would climb on these stairs every day, and it was hard for me to go up them once!

My first snowboarding experience

We went to Erciyes Daği (Ericyes Mountain) just outside of Süleyman’s  hometown, Kayseri so he could teach me how to snowboard about halfway through the trip.

 I had a lot of trouble with my first experience, but my teacher (Sulu) was great! It was pretty foggy that day, but we did get to see some pretty mountain

 Here’s me and my awesome teacher!

 I borrowed Süleyman’s helmet, jacket, gloves and goggles, and his brother’s board, boots, and I rented the pants. Here we are on a covered elevator-type ride up the bunny hill (which I never left!).

 At the mountain I also got to try sucuk (pronounced so-juke). A slightly spicy sausage, famous in the area.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a short video of me attempting to snowboard.  This was one of my last runs and I was working on turning (I wasn’t successful). The camera man was Süleyman who used his phone to film and  was coaching me as I went (he was following me on his snowboard this whole video, so he was obviously much better than me!). Enjoy!

Turkey Recap

Turkey was amazing. The sights, sounds and smells were incredible, the people were so interesting (and well dressed!) and the culture was fascinating. I got to see city life, small-town life and even family life, which was very interesting (and very different from American!).

I picked up on a lot of the customs and gestures common to Turkey, and learned a lot about traditions and culture.

I had an amazing time, so amazing that I barely was able to update my blog (more like never updated my blog!), so hopefully over the next week or two I will be completely updating it from Turkey, including many pictures, a little Turkish language lesson here and there and lots about culture differences and similarities.

If you’re new to my blog and didn’t read my first post about Turkey, the main reason I went there was to see my boyfriend, Süleyman, who I might also call Sulu on my blog. So there will be pictures of his handsome face as well as mine from time to time!

By the end of today I will be picking off two or three more updates on specific things (snowboarding, mosques and Cappidocia), so be ready to see some updates soon!

Again, sorry for such a late update (I’ve been back in America for a week exactly, so I’ve been pretty lazy and jet-laggy!).

Ayasofya

Ayasofya (or as us westerners know it, Hagia Sophia) was, again, one of my favorite places in Turkey. With beautiful architecture and history, it was hard not to fall in love with this beautiful church-turned-mosque.

My guide, (the awesome Süleyman) loved Ayasofya too and did a lot of research of his own because he was so intrigued by the history of it. He would tell the history and stories of the places we visited and many people would turn their heads to hear his stories. We even had a woman stand next to us for five minutes as he told the story about the angels with covered faces. I got a lot of information that a normal guide could give me.

 Walking into the outer entrance.

 At the inside entrance doors, it was already breathtakingly beautiful and huge.

The inner entrance step. I love seeing old marble steps that have warped with so many feet.

 The first thing you notice is the huge dome, with the beautiful windows circling the bottom. This huge dome (151 feet, 1 inch or 46 meters tall) the Statue of Liberty (without pedestal) could fit under the dome with 33 feet, or 10 meters to spare!

 This angel was the only one without a covering on its face. In Islam (like I covered in Kapadokya) don’t allow faces to be seen of holy people because we can begin to idolize them. They covered up all of the faces of the angels on the four corners, but uncovered one to show what it did look like.

 Three of the angels had large stars over their faces like this.

 The next thing you see are these large beautiful signs written in Arabic (like prayers). Süleyman said they were too big to fit through the inner or outer doors of the mosque, so they had to be built and painted inside. If you look really close you can see a person standing on the balcony near the sign. It was massive.

 On the main floor was an area that was closed off. this area was where Byzantine Emperors have been coronated, called the “Omphalion.” And because of the natural light and columns, it was hard to get a decent picture of the area.

 This is the mihrab where the imam (prayer leader) would lead the service in prayer (complete with the bowing and kneeling). This marks the direction of Mecca, where Muslims pray toward. Mecca, located in Saudi Arabia. “Five times a day, Muslims face Mecca (holiest city of Islam, birthplace of Muhammad (their prophet), and site of the Kaaba, of House of God) to pray-at daybreak, noontime, midafternoon, sunset, and evening. These five obligatory prayers have to be performed in Arabic, regardless of the native tongue of the worshipper.” (Taken from “What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam: Second Edition” by John L. Esposito.” A few of the members of Sulu’s family prayed while I was there, but went into a different room. I did, however, witness a man praying at the airport before I came back to America. He had a small carpet that he laid on the ground and was very particular about the angle of the carpet, in respect to Mecca. When he was done praying, two other men came up and asked to borrow his carpet, and they shared the small carpet as they prayed separately.

 This is the mimbar, or minbar in some translations. It is the same as the mimbar in the Blue Mosque. Here is where the imam (or Muslim prayer leader) stands and gives a sermon (similar to a pulpit in a church). And just to the left of it is where the imam would lead the prayer, in the mihrab, above.

This is where the sultan, or high ruler, would pray, high above everyone else.

 This was one of at least two large vases brought to the mosque from Pergamon in the late 1500s. It was carved from a single block of marble!

An all-marble wall, made with at least five different types of marble.

 Light is very important in Mosques. Sulu was telling me about how there were dark mosaics all over the walls and ceilings, but they had to be changed to a lighter yellow color because it was extremely important for it to be light inside. That’s why so many mosques have windows all over the place. Ayasofya’s main floor was covered in chandeliers, powered with electricity, but before held candles. We thought the chandeliers (or at least most of them) were the original chandeliers.

Here are some of the dark mosaics in the arches and beautiful carvings on the columns.

 Here is the famous wishing column. “The legend has it that, Emperor Justinian wandering in the building with a severe headache leaned his head to this column and after a while he realized that the headache was gone. This story had been heard among the public and the rumor regarding the healing effect of the column got around. Hence, people believed that they would get better if they put their fingers into that hole on the column and then rub them to the place where disease is felt, or that their wish would come true. […] [P]eople make their wishes by rotating their thumb a complete clockwise tour inside the hole (a much harder act than it looks!).” (Taken from http://www.ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/) As you walk around the first floor, this is your last stop before going upstairs.

The horses’ walk up to the second floor… very steep, and a bumpy walk, so that anything could go to the second floor. I loved the lighting, it made me feel like I was there when it was used as a walkway.

 On the second floor is an area where the King would pray when Ayasofya was a church, above everyone else, facing the alter (which is directly behind me). This was marked by the different marble on the ground, as well as the best view of the mosque/church!

 The grave of Commandant Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice who commanded the 4th crusade and died in Istanbul in 1205 when he was 70 years old, is on the second floor of Ayasofya.

 This is the biggest, and most likely the most famous, of the mosaics discovered in Ayasofya, “Deisis Composition.” It is the most damaged mosaic on display, and probably dates back to the 12th century. Many of the mosaics of Jesus and other holy people remained so intact was because the Muslim people who found them (they don’t allow faces in Islam) would try to destroy the faces. Many of these were quite tall, so instead they simply put something like a painting over them. What the original probably looked like is pictured below.

With Jesus in the middle, John the Baptist on his left, and the Virgin Mary on his right. This mosaic is located on the second floor.

 Zoe Mosaic, dating back to the 11th century, located on the second floor. Jesus is located in the middle, with Emperor IX. Konstantinos Monomakhos on his right, and Empress Zoe on his left.

 Komnenos Mosaic. Dating back to the 12th century, Virgin Mary is in the center with baby Jesus in her arms, Emperor II. Ioannes Komnenos, sits to Mary’s right and his wife Eirene and their son II. Aleksios sit to Mary’s left. Aleksios is hard to see, just to the left of Eirene, the mosaic curves from a wall, and he is on the next panel (on the far right of the picture). He is portrayed as pale and skinny because he died of an illness when he was young. Komnenos Mosaic is located on the far wall on the second floor, next to the Zoe Mosaic and the leaning column (below).

 On the second floor, near the last two mosaics (below), was this leaning column. There are no explanations about it, nothing shouting that it was there. Sulu noticed it (because he’s a designer, and he always notices small things like that), and decided to do some research on it. He found out that is the column that the newest tower rests on. They first started building the tower with the same stone (so it would look symmetrical), but soon learned it was too heavy because it was breaking the architecture of the mosque, so they had to quickly change to a much lighter rock (brick). They leaning column still stayed that way though.

 Here is a bottom view out a window near the leaning column.

 Here is a better view of the newest tower. Compare the darker brick to the lighter brick of the picture below.

This was one of the original towers, with the lighter, and heavier rock.

 The hallway on the second floor. You can see the “Deisis Composition” in the middle of the picture, on the left side of the hall. Also, if you notice the small black and white checkers on the left and right of the picture above, Sulu asked a security guard about them (they were EVERYWHERE!) We thought they might have put them there to do a 3D model, but really they were marking for restoration. We came at a good time because soon they were going to shut down Ayasofya to do an entire restoration! Good timing!

 Sulu checking out the view from the second floor.

The view just outside one of the windows, of the Blue Mosque.

As you exited the building, right above the famous, huge brass doors (below) there was a mirror showing another mosaic, so you wouldn’t miss it!

 Sunu Mosaic (picture from http://www.ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/). It was discovered during the repair process in 1849. In the center is the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. On her left is Emperor Konstantinos I. holding a model representative of Constantinople, what is now Istanbul. To the right of Mary is Emperor Justinianos presenting them with a model of Hagia Sophia. This mosaic is dated back to the 10th century.

 The famous doors of Ayasofya. 7 meters tall (almost 23 feet), and made of oak with a bronze frame, these are the largest doors in Ayasofya. According to (http://www.ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/), “East-Roman references says the door could be made of the woods of Noah’s ark or the wood of the chest of which the Jewish holy plates kept in.”

 This was one of the only “hamams” I saw, also called Turkish bath. I was a little too afraid to try this (but maybe on my next trip!). Apparently, they are separated into men’s and women’s, and it starts with a sauna-type room, called the “warm room,” then onto a hotter sauna, called the “hot room,” then after a full-body wash and massage, finish with a “cooling room.” We saw this near the cafe after exiting Ayasofya, we thought it had turned into a restaurant because there were many tables right outside the entrance.

 This beautiful mosaic of Ayasofya was at a cafe near it.

 Walking to the Blue Mosque (a 5-10 minute walk), turn around and see this heavenly looking Ayasofya. From this view you can see the different colored towers (the closer tower on the right side is the newest with the lighter rock, it is also somewhat thinner in diameter).

Much of my information was from (http://www.ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/).

Merhaba Türkiye!

In about 5 days I will be making another trip across the world, this time to Turkey.

This is no normal tourist-y trip this time. I’m actually visiting my boyfriend, Süleyman who is from Turkey. Süleyman will give me a real, non-tourist, view of Turkey, from a real Turk!

 Does he look familiar? These are our “couple shirts” from Korea! He was in a few of my posts from Korea, because that’s where I met him… Talk about meant to meet or what?!

Well anyway, I will be touring around some of Istanbul and his hometown, Kayseri. I’ll be updating a lot and have lots to tell about the crazy new culture I’m jumping into again! Luckily my plane leaves in the late evening so I’ll hopefully get some sleep before jumping into Turkey! I’ll be showing the cool places, interesting people and delicious (or not so delicious) food I’ll eat, and even give you a little Turkish lesson here and there!

Güle Güle! (Turkish for smile and smile, a sweet way to say goodbye!)