Istanbul - 1

Yikes, it’s been a week since Istanbul and I still haven’t written about it! Sorry about that. I guess part of the reason for that is that it’s hard to turn a trip into an interesting blog post. Somehow “we went here, and then we went here, and then we went here” isn’t very entertaining to write (or read, I presume). I’ll do what I can.

We arrived in Istanbul early in the morning on a Thursday via overnight train from Ankara. The train station where we disembarked was on the Asian side of the city; we immediately took a ferry to the European side, which is where most of the interesting stuff is. Istanbul is divided into European and Asian sides by the Bosphorus, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. The European side of the city is further split into a northern and southern section by a bay called the Golden Horn.

This reminds me, in Vladivostok there was a bay called the Golden Horn, named after the one in Istanbul. I always sort of wondered about that, and can now say with certainty that besides being hilly and having bodies of water called the Golden Horn in them, Vladivostok and Istanbul are nothing alike. Ok, that’s not true, they also both have funiculars. But Istanbul has two and Vladivostok only has one.

So once we got to the European side, rode the funicular up the hill and dropped our things off at the hotel, we immediately started sightseeing. This was both the best thing about the trip and the thing I regret the most: we were only in Istanbul for three days, and our time was packed with seeing the many historic sites the city has to offer. I’m glad I got to see all those famous places, but I also wish I had gotten to see more of the Istanbul that people actually live in. Istanbul is a rabbit warren that’s home to an estimated 12 to 18 million people. The fact that the estimate is that wide should tell you something about the city - there’s been a lot of migration there from villages and small towns all over Turkey in the last 30 years or so, and the upshot of that is slums, shantytowns, and untold numbers of un-censused citizens.

Orhan Pamuk more eloquently described Istanbul as an “archipelago of neighborhoods,” which captures a lot more of the romance of the city than what I wrote above. Despite not having much time devoted to wandering off the beaten path, I did get at least a taste of that idea. We stayed in Beyoglu, which feels European in every sense, from the variety of shops, restaurants and galleries on Istiklal Caddesi, the main street, to the narrow, winding, cobblestoned side streets housing bars and coffeeshops. My first night in Istanbul I met up with Kevin, who studies at Georgetown with me and is doing the advanced version of the CLS program at Bogazici University (in Istanbul). We met up with a friend of his and had dinner and drinks at a rooftop café, then went to a different café on one of the aforementioned side streets to smoke nargileh (hookah, or “water-pipe” as the Turks charmingly (and literally) translate it). By 9 p.m. any night of the week (but especially the weekend), Istiklal Caddesi is absolutely packed with people, both Turks and tourists, out for a night on the town. Our second night there I was part of an exciting parade/putsch of eight or nine of us in search of a non-crowded bar (we didn’t find one, although we did find a bar we could at least fit into). So yeah. Beyoglu is apparently the place to be (or one of the places to be?) if you’re in Istanbul to party.

In contrast, I also spent a lot of time across the bay in Eminonu and Sultanahmet. There’s not a lot to say about the character of Sultanahmet, since it’s home to both the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, probably Istanbul’s most famous attractions (did you know they’re right NEXT TO each other? I had no idea. It makes me feel a little better about the fact that I often can’t tell them apart.), and is therefore super touristy. Eminonu, though also touristy, appears to contain at least a few actual Turks. As you can all see from my Facebook album (I’m pretty sure everyone who reads this is Facebook friends with me, but you can correct me if I’m wrong), the New Mosque, which is right on the Bosphorus in Eminonu, is much less touristy-crowded than the Blue Mosque. We went there near 5 o’clock prayer, and there were a decent number of people who appeared to be there for just that. Anyway, Eminonu as a whole does not have the same vibe as Beyoglu at all - it feels old, but in a different way, not the Western European kind of old. It helps that the Egyptian Bazaar and the Covered Bazaar (usually called the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar in English) are both there. Bazaars are pretty much as Oriental(ist) as you can get, so the narrow, winding streets, old buildings and wide squares there feel more foreign than Beyoglu.

Wow, this is already super long, so I will continue with a log of what we actually saw and did in my next post!