Day 37...Old City...in the RAIN!

Day 37, July 21st:

Istanbul Day 2!

Do you remember the phrase, “When it rains, it pours”?  Well let’s just say that it poured like crazy today!  Literally!!! 

We began our day by going to the Hagia Sophia.  A little history:  Dating from the sixth century, it was originally a basilica constructed for the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.  A masterwork of Roman engineering, the huge 30m-diameter dome covers what was for over 1000 years the largest enclosed space in the world.  The church was looted by the fourth Crusaders in 1204, and became a mosque in the 15th century when The Ottomans conquered the city.  It was converted into a museum in 1935.

The Hagia Sophia was very interesting because when the church was converted to a mosque several of the mosaics and paintings were removed or pained over.  Since becoming a museum, they have begun removing the new coverings to reveal the original artwork of the church.  It is amazing to see what they have been able to preserve.  The building is absolutely massive!  A person looks like an ant from the second level.  You will definitely not want to miss pictures of this!!!

While we were touring the inside of the Hagia Sophia, it began raining on and off.  Well as soon as we walked out of the gates and began walking towards the Blue Mosque, it began pouring down rain!  We all got completely soaked!!!  That was the first time we encountered rain since we began our voyage!  Totally awesome, but it still sucked that we had to stumble upon it in the middle of the city while we were walking all over.  We finally made it to the Blue Mosque and we jumped under this covered walkway at the base of the outside wall.  In literally five minutes, we had to stand on top of these pillars to keep our feet out of the puddles because it was about 4-6 inches deep of water.  My entire body and all of my belongings were completely soaked.  It was like I jumped in a swimming pool with my clothes on! 

It finally stopped raining enough for us to get inside the mosque.  One of the traditions of the Muslim faith is that you remove your shoes before entering a house or place of religion, so we had to remove our shoes in order to enter.  Once inside, I was completely stunned.  It was nothing like I had imagined.  It was one very large room with a very low (about 8 foot high) spider web of lights illuminating the very tall and enormous structure.  The mosque was very beautiful and again it is something you just can’t describe.  Pictures are worth a thousand words here.   This mosque is still a working mosque so many of the local Muslims enter its doors five times a day for prayer.  Every mosque also has loud speakers on the tall minarets to broadcast the chant-like prayer for everyone to hear.  Another unique fact is that all mosques are oriented so that the back of the mosque is facing East!  They face Mecca when they pray. 

We then ate lunch near the Hippodrome, a small park with the Serpent Column across from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.  I had a chicken döner, which is a sandwich with the döner that is carved from a spinning block consisting of meat and spices.  It was okay but not my favorite food by any means.  Overall, the food in Turkey is not that great!  It is really not exciting so we have been eating most of our meals on the ship! 

After lunch, we walked around toward the Topkapı Palace and strolled through Gülhane Park.  This park was royal hunting grounds in the past, but today it’s a public park.  The high wall on one side of the park separates it from Topkapı Palace. There also is a great view of the Bosphorus.  On the way out of the gardens, we passed a pretty large (20x20x20 foot) cube-like structure with a pyramid roof.  It is 1 of the 8 places in Istanbul that you could go get water back in the days of no running water.  They can still be used, but most of them have the water shut off because it is not safe to drink without boiling it first. 

After exploring everything we wanted to see in the Old City, we took the metro back to the ship to change into some dry clothes and take a shower.  After we were squeaky clean, Danielle and I headed out to Starbucks to get some free Wi-Fi.  I wanted everyone to see my pictures from Greece and the few I had taken already in Istanbul.  I hope you enjoyed them!  We then ate dinner on the ship before attending a Sufi Dervish Ceremony that evening.  This was my second SAS trip so far!  For those of you that don’t know (I didn’t), the Sufi Dervish Ceremony is comprised of prayer, music and people whirling in white robes.  It is a Muslim religious ceremony.  The dervishes spin with their hands reaching out above their shoulders.  Their left hand is cupped facing the ground the their right is facing the heavens.  The spinning and the placement of their hands symbolize how God placed them on Earth to have an everlasting life.   It was a very unique experience, but I really don’t know too much about the Muslim religion to fully understand.  After the ceremony, one of the whirling dervishes came out and spoke to all of the SASers about what each part of the ceremony stood for.  There is just way too much info to write it all in here! 

It was also very unique because it was a religious ceremony, not a performance, but they charged you to go see it and it was held in a performance hall.  I don’t quite understand how you can perform a meaningful religious ceremony every night in front of paying tourists in a random building and not call it a performance.  It was really unique to say the least!!!  We then retired for the night and caught up on some sleep.