Sultana for a Day

A long weekend in Istanbul? What were we thinking?! There's a lot to see, taste, buy, and experience in this historical city! Our mission? To get it all done!

The day started off at Yerebatan Sarnici (The Basilica Cistern) which is the underground cistern built between 529-565AD by the Byzantine Emperor. It was only re-discovered in the recent past when stories of pails being lowered into the ground would result in water and occasionally a fish. Of course when it was rediscovered it looked more like a garbage dump (complete with a few bodies). But that's not the case today!

Under the city, we explored the 336 columns creating a space large enough for 100,000 tons of water. The water only looked a few feet deep which was plenty to keep the carp swimming lazily between the columns in the dimly lit cavern. The claim to fame at this site are the the 2 Medusa head columns. No one is quite sure why or how they are there, but they add some character to the site...especially the one upside down!

Our favorite part of this place? The costumed pictures! I mean, we did come all the way to Istanbul- I better get to be Sultana for a day! We probably had way to much fun with our photo shoot but we were one of the few people down there, so it's okay to be a tourist- right? And we even got to practice our bargaining skills when getting the entire disc of pictures for less than the price of 3 printed ones.

Next stop on our tour- The Blue Mosque which we had already been rather impressed with the night before. As we made our way to the entrance someone lead us in, assuring us he did not work for a tour group and started walking us to the courtyard and assisting with where visitors entered. He asked if we were sisters, so we went with it.

Nothing in the world would have prepared me for the next words out of his mouth- (looking at Marlene) you look Mexican, but your sister (me) doesn't. If he only knew. Fighting back laughter I tried to pretend I didn't hear that exchange...

I was going to say we had different fathers but he then started talking about taking us to see his carpet store afterwards and when we declined, he let us be to get prepared to enter the mosque. Being prepared, we removed our shoes and covered our heads. The lady in front of us had some serious issues understanding the requirements so the man waved us through letting us know we were "beautiful and perfect."

Aside from the faint(ish) smell of feet, the mosque was beautiful inside. The carpeted floor was a stark contrast to any cathedral I've visited in the past 2 years; as were the low hanging lights from the really (really) tall ceiling.

The majority of our day was spent in the Grand Bazzar but once we were shopped out, we enjoyed a dinner of kebab before heading to a Whirling Dervish show. Before deciding to spend our evening at this event we had read several reviews about the various venues. After reading some rather critical reviews, we looked at each other and seriously questioned if we could actually watching men spinning in a circle for an hour...but when in Istanbul.

 Little did we know we were going to be educated on the history of this practice. Turns out (like most of their culture) is Muslim based. A certain order performs these Sema ceremonies to reach religious ecstasy.  Chances are your current facial expression is similar to mine when I learned the context, along with 90% of the mostly western culture audience. Once I got the idea that I really would be watching 5 men bow and spin for nearly an hour, I found it more entertaining to watch the facial expressions of the audience seated around the circular performing area. The spinning was rather impressive, but watching in on a religious ceremony seemed really odd to me. Like we agreed- it was a check in the box because we were there but really have no need to ever go again. Even Juan the Gnome found it a tad odd, although he did enjoy his picture opportunity!