scrub-a-dub tourist day!

17.08.07:

today was our one official day of tourism. anything else we saw on other days was just superfluous. G and i had the awesomeness of wanting to see the same things and wanting to spend the same amount of time seeing them. this worked out to brilliant advantage for both of us. i'd be eying the exit, G would be too. yay. no feeling like you're rushing someone through a UNESCO heritage site or wondering just how long some can stare at a mosaic tile before losing the will to live. so it all worked out wonderfully.

we started off the day meeting at my hotel, which was about 5 minutes from both the blue mosque and hagia sofia. so i told you about the blue mosque already. so, haiga sofia. warning: more education. put on yer thinking caps kids.

Hi-YAAAA SOPHIA:

the most striking thing about hagia sophia is its massive dome, epitomizing byzantine architecture. for nearly 1000 years, hagia sophia was the largest cathedral in the whole world! pretty, cool.

hagia sophia was originally constructed as a church between (get this) 532 and 537 on the orders of byzantine emperor justinian. it was the third church of the holy wisdom to occupy the site. the prior two churches had both been destroyed by riots. two architects, isadore (of miletus) and anthemius (of tralles), designed the church. the church contained a bunch of holy relics. among other things, it had a 50-foot silver (i had to look this word up) ICONOSTASIS (a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church). hagia sophia was the patriarchal church of the patriarch of constantinople (lots of patriarchy there!) and it was the religious focal point of the orthodox byzantine empire for nearly 1000 years.

way back in 1453, constantinople was conquered by the ottoman turks and sultan mehmed II ordered the hagia sophia building to be converted into a mosque. the bells, altars, iconostatis and sacrificial vessels were removed. many of the mosaics were eventually plastered over. the islamic features -- such as the four minarets outside, the mihrab (a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, i.e. the direction of Kaaba that Muslims should face when praying. the mihrab gives the impression of a door or a passage to Mecca. mihrabs first appeared in the prophet Muhammad's house in Mecca) and minbar (not to be confused with minibar!) (a pulpit) -- were added over the course of its history under the ottomans.

hagia sofia remained a mosque all the way up until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by the secular republic of turkey.

hagia sofia had a profound influence on architecture. for almost 500 years, as the principal mosque of istanbul, hagia sofia served as a model for many other ottoman mosques, including (its across the street neighbour) the blue mosque.

although it is sometimes referred to as Saint Sophia, the Greek name in full is church of the holy wisdom of God and it was dedicated to the holy wisdom of god rather than a specific saint named sophia.

trivia time: hagia sofia is featured in the 1963 bond film from russia with love where bond's lover tatiana romanova slips bond small blueprints of istanbul's russian consulate where bond needs to steal the lektor communication device. the hagia sophia is also seen in background shots in the 1999 bond film the world is not enough.

the hagia sofia is a striking building. calling it a museum (as it is today) really doesn't do it justice.

i am glad we did check out the blue mosque and the hagia sofia. but my favourite site visited on official tourism day was the basilica cistern, and not only because it was cool inside and therefore i wasn't sweating my own body weight.

THE BASILICA CISTERN:

the basilica cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns (receptacles for holding liquids, usually water) that still lie under istanbul. the basilica cistern is located near the hagia sofia (are you noticing a trend in our tourism, yet?) and was built during the reign of emperor justinian I in the 6th C, byzantine empire.

the cistern is the size of a cathedral. it's an underground chamber of 143x65 metres, capable of holding 80,000 cubic metres of water! the space is broken up by 336 marble columns each 9 metres high. the columns are arranged in 12 rows each consisting of 28 columns. apparently, emperor constantine had already built a basilica and cistern on the same spot, but as the demand for water grew, justinian enlarged the cistern and incorporated the basilica.

the bases of two of the columns re-use earlier blocks carved with the head of a medusa. no one knows the origin of the two heads. another mystery (call nancy drew!) is why one of the heads is upside down, and the other one tilted on its side. "scientists" commonly accept that that was done purposefully. i suspect the work of extraterrestrial forces, myself.

and, because the entire budget of from russia with love was blown in istanbul, the cistern was also used a location in that movie.

after all of our touring, G and I knew we needed a rub-down, smack-down sort of cleansing. with 7 layers of sweat having been dried & reactivated all day long, i was ready for someone to give me the bath of a lifetime. so we went to a hamam. G had wisely purchased scrubby mitts for us to take with us. trust me, there's nothing caring about sharing a dead-skin scrubber with other people.

G signed up for the lo-fi bath. i signed up for the hi-fi, scrub me, rub me, make me yours service. i can't speak to G's experience - all i can say is that the world is a small place because G ran into the guy of the american law firm tote carrying couple i was cold-shouldered by in the boarding lounge of the flight to istanbul.

my time at a hamam (or how i lost my inhibition to walk around naked around strangers):

i go in, pay the fee for the full-meal deal and am lead to a very nice change room. i change into the robe they give me, put on some flip flops and go to the bath. the bath is in an absolutely gorgeous marble steam room with a giant dome, shaped like a hexagon. it's quite large. placed along the wall are basin and taps. you fill the basin with water and use a scooper-outer to languidly pour the water over your body. this is how my mom used to give me baths. we never did the whole fill up the tub and sit in it thing. well, not until i heard about it from the outside world (i.e., school). and then i finally graduated up to showers. but i really liked the being scrubbed and shampooed by my mom kneeling by the side of the tub. and pouring water over my head. yay! so after a while of pouring water over me, a large turkish woman named maryam comes over to me. maryam is a lovely, though mostly silent woman who has the misfortune of wearing a bathing suit 4 sizes too small. now, everyone in the bath is naked, except for the employees (who are wearing bathing suits). there was one polly prude in the place (a foreign woman wearing a thong -- okay, i'm sorry, but if you are wearing a thong, you might as well wear nothing. i can see it all anyway). but the rest of us were naked. i have realized that my coping strategy for situations that at some point in the past would have been awkward (such as sitting in a room of naked strangers) is that since i can't see well without glasses and/or my contacts work less well than glasses, i don't care if people are staring at me and wondering how a freak of nature isn't working at a carny (because i can't see them.) and frankly if i can't see you, you don't exist. it's a glorious realization to have.

so maryam comes over to me, tells me to go to the center (there is a hexagonal raised platform there, so everyone can see whatever happens to you) and lie down on my back. she comes over and gives me a scrubbing! talk about big time scrub-a-thon. she removed dead skin cells from the entities i was in past lives! it was a very brisk and refreshing feeling actually. or i am deeply tolerant of having my body sandpapered. she gives me an amazing scrub. all over. ALL over. i then go back to my basin and wash myself off. she comes back to me after i've bathed again and brings me back to "our" spot on the hexagon platform. i am then massaged blissfully thoroughly and lathered up and shampooed. it felt wonderful! yay! thank you maryam!!

post-hamam experience, we took off to beyoglu for some tea, tavla & narghile. after much tavla fun was had, we wandered around beyoglu. i wanted to go check out topshop (hey, we don't have it in ny) and i wanted to check out a turkish music store to get some of the amazing pop we'd been hearing. G bought the cd with my favourite t-pop song on it (romeo by hande yener)! i bought a couple of cds too. then i went to starbucks (yes, i know -- how gauche) but i really just wanted a latte (as G would say - i succumbed to the trappings blah blah blah). we took some tourist loser pictures in starbucks. for proof of my lameness, i guess. we did some interwebs. and then went to the cheap beer bar G found. G had grabbed some food prior to us going to the beer place. i had not. the place was PACKED. there was nowhere to sit outside. we had to haul as* up to the top floor of the place and squeeze ourselves into a table. there we sat listening to amazing 80s and 90s music, wetting our whistles, scoping the crowd (there was a strange punk element there -- definitely some bizarre style choices like this guy with a super crazy-freak-on afro) and we had a heart-to-heart. which was absolutely wonderful de-tox for me. so thanks, G. you are a sweetheart. i needed to get home. back to sultanahmet from beyoglu, so back to the funicular + tram combo. G drops me at the funicular.

i take the funicular to where i transfer to the tram. or so i think. turns out the tram has stopped running for the night. it's not yet midnight. i walk to the transit guy standing at the entrance telling us that we can't go in. he tells me the tram is no longer running, that i can either go back on the funicular or take a taxi. i ask him what time the tram stops running. he says (get this) 11:50 pm!!! 11:50!! weird. so i ask him what time the funicular stops running. he says (i'm about to burst with anticipation) midnight. so, i ask him, the funicular runs until midnight, the tram until 11:50 even though the funicular connects up to the tram. he looks at me funnily and says yes. i start laughing. that's hilarious. he looks at me like i am mentally challenged. anyway. later G tells me that he heard that they both ran til at least midnight, or maybe until 12:30 or 1:00 AM. who knows!

so i take a taxi back to my hotel. we had to go all these weird back roads (maybe just to jack up the fare). by the time we got home, i was so happy i could have cut off my right arm as the fare.

dropped into bed! yay!!

the story about the funicular/tram reminds me of something hilarious again concerning the transit system. so G and S had these awesome little sticks that they could just put money on and then zap themselves in through the stalls. like a metrocard but not a card. it's much cheaper to have one of those because then you can just transfer from one form of transit (e.g., funicular) to another (e.g., tram). if you don't have one of those, then you end up paying 2 tokens for the ride (they didn't give you a transfer to get on another form of transit). so i spent so much time trying to track one of these down. you can recharge them pretty much anywhere, but they appeared to be IMPOSSIBLE to find! absolutely impossible. as you all know, patience is not my strongest quality. so by this time (after having asked about 6 different places over many days) i was about ready to bust through a metro kiosk. someone finally told me (instead of just directing me to another f*(king kiosk) that they don't have them anymore. apparently these very practical, very useful, very handy, very NECESSARY metro sticks ran as a limited supply, limited time only thing. RIDICULOUS. at that point, i was so drained that i wanted to just cry at the sheer absurdity of it all! G told me later that he met some people from istanbul who thought he actually lived in the city because he had one of those -- he could probably sell it on ebay for $100. jeez louise. it has to be said again. loud and proud, people: JEEZ LOUISE!!!!