not constantinople.

[actually, according to mod greek prof eleni, greeks still call it constantinople... typical of a lot of greek things we've encountered, it's difficult to say for sure whether this is traditional or just archaeic]
ooh this is bout to be a biggie.
i'm totally gay for istanbul, to put it nicely. i was not a fan of turkey during the 2006 trip, but we only visited ephesus, and while i would not trade the experience of having the turkish tony danza as a tour guide for the world, istanbul 2009 kicked that trip's ass.
we (katie, blonde karen and i) left the apartment friday at 4:20 am, booking it to syntagma to catch the X95 bus to the airport. we arrived in istanbul around 9am, and got into a number of wrong lines while trying to pay the 15 euro visa fee. karen's almost-stepmom arranged for a van to pick us up and take us to the hotel empress zoe (i know. this was not at all the dirty grungy hostel stay of yesterday's study abroader, but this hotel was super fly. i wasn't mad.) we dropped our stuff off and set out to have our adventure, but not before a brief mid-morning snack in the ultra quaint dining area. our hotel ended up being incredibly close to both hagia sophia and the blue mosque, and walking between these two massive entities, watching european tourists milling around, trying and failing to ignore the persistent shouting vendors, while the call to prayer blasted all over the city was like stepping on a cultural landmine. unbelievable. we also made the observation that both the blue mosque and hagia sofia look like palaces straight out of the newer (suckier) star wars movies... we're on to you, lucas.
hagia sofia was definitely my favorite of the two. in it, i had my first of many awkward interactions with turkish men, generally characterized by nervous laughter, high fives and probably sexual tension? it's hard to say. in any case, i swear to god this guard was telling me to put my foot in a certain spot on this pillar inside, but apparently not... i still don't understand that exchange, and i probably never will. so be it.
hagia sofia is truly breathtaking, and the history of it all blows my mind, that they just took a church and decided it would be a mosque. what? how does that happen? inside there was a wishing... hole? i don't really know what to call it. but you stick your thumb in it and turn your outstretched hand all the way around to make your wish come true. as far as i can tell, normal human joints can't do this. thank god for my freakish swimmer/rower shoulders.
after sofia we stopped for our first of many tea breaks. i wish i could adequately put into words how perfect and delicious apple tea is. we ended up having a lot of time to kill during our trip, as the grand bazaar/spice market were physically and mentally (and fiscally...) exhausting after a while and it was a whopping 35 degrees outside... for the most part, though, it was hard to get too upset about losing the feeling in our toes while stomping around istanbul.
we were exhausted by friday evening, opting for an early dinner and smoking shisha afterward (it's legal beej, keep your shirt on)... we actually finished out most of our evenings this way, but sunday night was particularly good. we met a charming man from south africa named darren, whose profession we never quite figured out. we spent a lot of time talking about "the big lebowski" and road trips, two of my favorite things in the whole world. i can't express how much i love meeting people while traveling, especially if they are also foreigners. ooh, next time you are at a hookah bar, ask for apple and mint combined, which the bar owner reccomended to us. it is the tastiest.
i forced katie and karen to go to a sufi whirling dervish ceremony on saturday night, which was clearly a tourist affair, but still really rad to see. that mevlana, he knows what's up. and how can you resist something that utilizes the tag line "800 years of LOVE"? i mean... come on.
another major highlight of saturday was finally finding HUMMUS. it is also apparently not a turkish food. what is wrong with me? how do i keep picking these places that don't understand the beauty and goodness of hummus? in any case, it wasn't that tight, but mama got her fix.
sunday we went to topkapi palace, which featured hilarious sultan attire and completely ridiculous jewels, and later crossed the bridge to asia, no big deal i walked to asia don't worry about it.
monday i was determined to go to the turkish baths, which ended up being a little more expensive than we thought, so that quickly turned into a solo excursion, which was for the best, considering i was the only one who was actually excited about it... little did i know. steamy, sweaty, old-ass turkish ladies, completely naked. i'll let you simmer in that mental image for a while. it was a lot louder (and NAKEDER) than i had anticipated, but i'd say it was worth it. consider it reccomended.
we tooled around for the rest of the afternoon, eating our bodyweights in turkish delight samples at the markets and walking along the shoreline in the rain, before getting picked up for the airport.
our trip back went smoothly, excluding the scuffle at security when karen's souvenir dagger got me into mad trouble (the upswing? the fact that the official asked "is there a dagger in your bag?" not knife. dagger, specifically. i love turkey.) once it became clear that this was just a souvenir and was inside of a bag that would be checked, they let us go, but not before taking down my passport information... ruh roh.
so now i'm back in athens, where the weather has come back around the bend to 65 and sunny. this computer thing is becoming more of a hassle as midterms draw near and the internship search continues. the academic center internet is embarrassingly slow, and our stolen greek internet in the apartment is unreliable at best... but i can't complain.
i have a god forsaken field trip to brauron and sounion (i haven't the slightest idea what or where these are... oh actually poseidon's temple is in sounion... seen't.) on friday, said midterms the following week, and then i'm planning a kg-only trip for the following weekend... destination tbd. we'll see.

love,
kg