You can't spell Funicular without F-U-N.

I was sitting here at what I thought was 5:30am waiting for them to put coffee and hot water in the faculty staff lounge, checking email. When it was a few minutes after 6:00 I went upstairs but there was nothing there, I sat down to wait until I realized we fell back last night and it was really just a few minutes after 5:00am. Major bummer. I took a long nap yesterday afternoon and so I woke up early with a sore throat. Tonight I'm taking Nyquil.

So since I'm up and this is always the best time to do stuff on the internet I thought I'd work on my blog.

I loved Istanbul, it's probably my favorite port. First of all the ship was in a fabulous location right on the Golden Horn in the Beyoglu area of Istanbul which is just over the Galata Bridge from old Istanbul. There's a tram that runs directly in front of where the ship is over the bridge and then to the other far side of
Istanbul. You can buy tokens for the tram (there's also a metro and funicular, but more on that later) at little booths at each station for 1.30 YTL (new Turkish Lira).

The first day I went on the city orientation tour. That's one SAS trip that I think is almost always worth it. The first stop was the Suleymaniye Camii (Suleyman Mosque). It was designed by Sinan in the 16th century. Sinan is the Leonardo DaVinci of the mosque, and the Suleymaniye is magnificent. The mosque is part of an entire complex that includes a library, school and cemetery where Suleyman and his wife Roxelana are buried. While we were walking from the buses to the mosque wepassed by many kebap shops and the smell was too much to take, especially knowing that lunch was going to be box lunch from the ship (cold fried chicken, bologna sandwich, apple, hard boiled egg, marble cake, and ritz cracker if you're lucky). I said "I want some of that," and the guy in the shop carved me off a piece and handed out the window.

Next stop was the Basilica Cistern built during the time of Justinian. It's an underground water tank, but you'd think they were planning to host balls in it, it's so elegant. It use to be that you could just walk down a few steps and peek in it, but now they've done a lot of restoration and built platforms all through it, and even put a cafe down there. Right near the cistern is Hagia Sofia. It was built as a Christian Church, also by Justinian, and then used as a mosque, and now it's a museum. It is enormous and grand. It is under major restoration, but no one alive today can remember a time when it wasn't under major restoration. They're meticulously restoring all of the mosaics that were destroyed over the years by moisture and age. The mosaics are all depictions of Christian tradition, Mary and Jesus, and apostles, etc. These were all left in tact while it was being used as a mosque because Jesus and Mary are also revered in Islam. Giant plaques were hung over some of the mosaics and around the interior with the name of Allah and Mohammed. Right across from the Hagia Sofia is the Blue Mosque or the Sultanahmet Camii. This is another gorgeous mosque from the 17th century. The interior is covered in Turkish (Iznik) tiles and stained glass. All of these mosques and basilicas make for the most impressive and unbelievable skyline. I have never
seen anything like the sunsets over Istanbul. Breathtaking. After the mosque was a quick walk around the hippodrome which is where they had chariot races and is really just a courtyard, not a stadium like you might think.

Day two in Istanbul we left Mary on the ship with a hacking cough and Kelly and I set out for the Kariye Museum or the Church of the Chora. It's in my 1,000 places to see before you die book and the Lonely Planet said that many people are surprised that the highlight of their trip to Istanbul is so off the beaten path. And it is indeed off the beaten path. We rode the tram to a place where we changed to the metro and rode the metro a couple of stops then walked about a mile straight uphill. We walked along the old city wall and through a pretty sketchy neighborhood where Kelly saw a flock of sheep in someone's living room. We were greatly rewarded when we got there because the building is beautiful, but unfortunately the museum was closed on Wednesday. It took us about two hours to get there. The cab drivers must lurk around there for stupid tourists who did just what we did, because there was one sitting waiting for us in front of the museum. He charged us an arm and a leg, but zipped us right back into old town in about 15 minutes, to the Topkapi palace. All the sultans and their families lived here until the 19th century. It's a series of courts that are park like, overlooking the Golden Horn, and splendid and opulent rooms like the circumcision room and the turban room. Kelly and I ate lunch at the expensive but worth it restaurant at the palace. Then we stopped at an internet cafe and squeezed onto the tram for the quick trip back to the ship, where we got Mary and went and saw a whirling dervish ceremony at the train station of all places.

Day three Mary joined us for our Kariye museum attempt two. This time we got off the metro one stop early and walked a half a mile or so further than the day before but through a much nicer more charming part of town. The mosaics in the Kariye were
definitely the best I saw in Istanbul, which makes them the best I've seen ever in my life, except for Sarah's. There's was a guy there who had brought binoculars which seems goofy, but was actually an excellent idea. We had lunch at the cafe right across the courtyard. More kebaps. That's really all I had to eat while I was here. Delicious grilled meats. Then I went crazy buying tiles that I then had to carry the mile and a half back to the packed tramway. I barely complained at all, though I was pretty tired. After a rest the three of us walked a ten minute walk from the ship to the funiculer. I didn't know what this was before hand, it's an underground tram that takes you up a hill, basically. This funiculer takes you up a hill to Taksim square which is the modern bustling Times Squarish part of Istanbul. There was tons of shopping, restaurants, pubs, we found a place that looked sort of cozy and it had really nice employees but we were the only ones in there. More kebaps and a good dessert that was like parmesan cheese covered in honey soaked shredded wheat and then fried. Yum.

For day four one of my student workers, April, and I had made plans to see some churches and do a Turkish bath with her friend Stephanie. I had had all the churches I needed for awhile, so instead we did a walking tour recommended in the Lonely Planet where we rode the funicular back to Taksim and then walked the Istiklal Cadessi which took us through lots of shopping, near many consular offices, the Pera Palas Hotel, and a few churches too which surprisingly were still churches. By the time we made it to the end we weren't really feeling up for a bath so we went back to the ship and I just relaxed and wrote some postcards.

Last day was do or die for the Turkish bath. But first I had signed up for the Bosporus motorboat excursion which took us up the Bosporus to the Black Sea and then let us out near a museum that had some cool Archeological findings and clothing and housewares from the 19th and early 20th century. We were back at the ship around 1:00pm. April, Marc and I and another student Brooke met at 3:00 to go to the bath. There had been a SAS trip the previous evening and their reports were very negative. That it was unhygenic and creepy. We were going to try and go to a different bath than the one they went to, but the one that really seemed the best option was the same one, the Cagaloglu Hamami. We were nervous but determined. Here is a detailed account of the bath experience.
When we walked in it was into a large receiving area where women were relaxing and drinking tea and playing games, the receptionist showed us our options for the level of service we wanted and we each made selections and payed then were given keys to changing rooms and little sheets and told to take off our clothes and come down in the sheets. The changing rooms had little beds in them and a mirror and a hook for our clothes. We each had our own room. The sheet was tinier than I would have liked. It was wide enough to wrap all around me, but short enough that I felt like my ass was hanging out. April and Brooke are of course teeny tiny little things. (We left Marc at the door, BTW, he had to go to the men's side of the bath). Then we went downstairs and this really big, nice, smiling Turkish woman took me by the hand and led me through a room with a big marble slab and piles of towels and into the huge hot room. It had a domed ceiling with little cutouts that let in light. The floor was marble and all around the edges of the walls was a marble step. There were probably 20 marble basins attached to the wall with hot and cold water running into them. My lady took me over and sat me down and used a little metal bowl to splash water on me from the basin and then handed me the bowl and indicated I should continue to splash myself. So I did. I wet myself down really good and got a good look at the place. Right next to me was a giant naked Turkish woman with a tiny tourist girl sitting between her legs getting her hair washed. There were a lot of tourists all sort of anxiously eyeing each other. The room was steamy, but not super hot like a steam room. Oh yeah and once you get in there they take your sheet away from you. So you're naked. Some people had their underpants on, most were naked. The women who worked there, the attendants, some were wearing just underpants, some had on one piece bathing suits, a couple had on night gown looking things. After maybe 15 minutes or so my lady came back and led me to the center of the room, under the dome where there's a big marble slab and had me lay down. I was prepared for this, because I'd been watching other women getting the treatment. She asked me my name and if it was my first time and where I was from, and I asked her name, Anaful. I was laying on my back on the slab and she was sitting next to me. The slab is giant and round and several women are on it laying feet to head around the edge. Anaful had a scrubbing mitten on and started scrubbing my chest and stomach and legs, scrubbing all the dead skin away. Then I turned over and she scrubbed down my back, then I sat up and she did my arms and my face. She had me look at my arms where sheets of dead skin came off. She said, "dirty," and I said "I see that." After the scrubbing I was led back to my basin for more rinsing. Then back to the slab where she oiled me up and rubbed me down. It was a vigorous rub down, not like a massage. She did my front first then said turn over, but with the oiled up stomach and the marble slab I was just sliding all over the place. But she held onto me and rubbed my back down. Then she went and got a big bucket that was full of bars of soap and water and a cloth that looks like a dust mop made of loofah. She took that soapy mop and soaped me up front, back, top, bottom over and over and over. It felt amazing. I loved that soapy mop. She was laughing at me because I was smiling so much. Then back to the basin for rinsing and rinsing. Then she had me sit between her legs and she washed my hair and combed it out and then turned me around and washed my face. Then she put her forehead on mine and said, "Beautiful American face, beautiful, you are clean, it is finished." I just sat there for awhile kind of amazed at the experience. Then I went into the room with the towels and went upstairs and dried my hair and took a little snooze on the bed. April, Brooke and I compared stories and all of us loved it and had a great experience. I didn't find it unhygenic or creepy at all. In fact that's probably the cleanest I've ever been in my life. We met Marc at a nearby internet cafe. His experience had been totally different. He just got the self-service version and the men all kept their sheets on through the whole rinsing thing. There were a couple of tourists who were getting rubbed down and that involved a lot of grunting. But there was no talking or laughing or luxuriating like on the women's side. Like in all things it's better to be a woman. Back at the ship after dinner I was starting to feel kind of run down and thinking I should go to bed early, but instead I went out and walked around in the cold and sat outside at a cafe for an hour. Stupid. Now I'm sick again.