Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Cappadocia - Day 1

Hello all!

Sorry for the absence, we were internet-less this weekend during the trip to Cappadocia - a region central Turkey.  In addition to being my first adventure outside of Istanbul, it was a fabulous and beautiful trip. We left at 9:30pm on Thursday for an overnight bus to the hotel. It was about an 11 hour ride, and we had been warned that it was unlikely that we'd sleep. We ended up only making one stop about 2 hours into the ride, which made for many international students doing a pee dance when we arrived the next morning around 9. The ride was nice in that we were able to see other parts of Turkey. It was SO flat, you could see for miles, I am sure. I tried to take a few photos, but it was difficult as we were moving. Here is the best one I could find. It's right after sunrise.


When we arrived at the hotel, we had most of the day to recoup and relax. There was a spa, which some people enjoyed, but a few of us postponed our visit for the next evening and set out exploring. We walked down the road a bit, but the hotel was virtually in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn't much to see. We decided to (literally) follow in the (snowy) footsteps of some of our comrades and climb a tall hill (which we referred to as a mountain to feel better about ourselves...) next to the hotel. It was definitely worth the hike. We were afforded panoramic views of the area, which consisted mainly of rolling snowy hills. It was beautiful! Here are some snapshots of the journey:

Some of the girls climbing up the stairs at the foot of the hill (probably 7 flights worth, then we were pathless the rest of the way)


A view from about 1/4 the way up, showing the small town around the hotel. If you look closely, you can see the minaret from the mosque in town. Someone gave the call to prayer periodically starting around 5:30am. It was somewhat annoying early in the morning, but also really cool to live within earshot of a mosque.


The reddish/brown building is our hotel - The Dadak Thermal Hotel


One of the wonderful girls on the trip clued me into the panorama app on my iPhone. She had to help me figure out how to use it, but once I figured it out, I was hooked! I'm slowly becoming obsessed with it! Here is a panorama from the top of the hill. I think that if you click on it, you will probably be able to zoom in a bit... (don't quote me)


Another photo from the top, we're about to head back down.


Some of the girls on the trip and I at the summit. It was enough of a climb that we all stripped off out jackets about 3/4 of the way up.


The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We ate a delicious dinner in the hotel and then played Phase 10 with a few CIEE folks. We went to the hotel disco for a little while, but despite a three-hour nap, we were exhausted and turned in early to prepare for the next day's sightseeing.

Awesome revelation of the day: even though most TV was dubbed in Turkish, we searched and finally found a channel that carried American late night shows that were only subtitled, so we shamelessly enjoyed some Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno in English before falling asleep. It was lovely :) After four weeks of immersion, I think we all appreciated some cultural downtime.

I'm hoping to post some of the sights tomorrow! It was really one of the coolest places I've ever been. The area is full of intricate rock formations and cities carved out of stone. Here is a teaser photo:


Monday, February 20, 2012

A Turkish Girls' Day!

Last Saturday, 3 CIEE girls and I set out for the ultimate Turkish girls' day. We all slept in and then "dressed classily" and headed to lunch in Sarıyer. We finished and took the dolmuş and metro to Sultanahmet to go to a hamam - a traditional Turkish bath. We went to the Çemberlitaş Hamamı (http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/), by the Vezirhan monument. As it is a bath, I felt weird taking photos inside - so I grabbed some online (credits are below the photos). The Çemberlitaş Hamamı was built for Sultan Selim II's wife, Nurbanu by a famous Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan. There are two baths, one for men and one for women. Apparently some hamams have mixed baths, but this one was separated. Here is the entrance.


http://lamchingfu.blogspot.com/2009/08/turkish-bath-istanbul-turkey.html

You walk in (no appointments) and pay for whatever treatment you'd like to receive. It is really well priced, as it's 69tl (about $40) for the traditional bath, when an attendant helps you. You can also have a self-service bath, but we decided to go for the whole experience and do a traditional bath and a clay mask (15tl). 

You are brought to the lounge part of the hamam where you change and are given a wrap to wear to the bathing room. You can wear just underwear, but we decided that we weren't quite confident enough with the whole situation yet, so decided to bring bathing suits. When you enter, the entire room is done in marble with a beautiful dome above. There is a large, heated marble slab in the middle, with people lying all around. It is incredibly hot and you immediately begin to sweat. Luckily, that is the whole point of the hamam! The heat and steam opens your pores and gets it ready for a scrub. An attendant then comes over and (without warning) strips off your bathing suit and begins to scrub your arms, legs and body. It feels really good and you can see all of the impurities leaving your skin. 

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/gallery 

Here is a photo from the hamam website of some women sitting on the slab in the middle of the hamam. First they scrub your skin with soap, then with this bubble bath that is sitting around in large vats. As they scrub you, brown and black stuff just starts to come off your skin - all the dead skin, lotion, etc... that has lodged itself in your pores. It's gross, but makes you feel really great about how clean your skin is getting! 

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/gallery

When you're done being scrubbed, they bring you to one of the smaller side rooms and wash your hair then rinse you off. After, you go to this room with a few hot tubs and can relax until you're ready to leave. We stayed for a while, then continued to the spa part to get our clay masks. You just sit and this woman comes over and paints clay on your face and neck. It didn't smell that great, but it felt amazing. After we rinsed off in the shower and went back to the lounge to change back into our clothes. Here's the lounge:

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/gallery

After you're done with everything you can get a drink and relax in the lounge area. We all decided to get some fresh-squeezed orange juice (only 3tl!) and sit for a while. It was the best orange juice I've ever had, and very replenishing after you've sweat for 2 hours. If you're ever in Turkey, I would definitely recommend the hamam - even if it seems intimidating at first. I can't get over how clean your skin feels afterward -it's absolutely worth it!

After we had finished at the hamam, we took the metro back to Taksim, a district of Istanbul, to do some shopping and get dinner. First we had tea and waffles at a little cafe. As always, they were amazing! Here's one:


We walked around Taksim for a bit before going to a wine bar, called Rouge, for dinner and drinks. It was a great find (thanks, Hallie!), because it was really nice and well priced. The waitstaff was really helpful, too! We wanted to try a few Turkish wines, and they recommended two really good and well-priced bottles.


Akshata and I



We spent about 3 hours there and tried a bunch of different appetizers. The waiter kept trying to take the menu away, and we kept saying we'd keep it. They probably thought we were really odd... In any case, they were delicious. Here are some samples:

This was a selection of local cheeses, and bread with local olive oil


These were ricotta-stuffed eggplant rolls, and cheese croquettes


Spiced chicken with yoghurt and salad, and cheese tortellini with pesto


There was also live jazz for part of the evening. It was lovely!

After Rouge, we went to a film that was part of the !f Istanbul 2012 Film Festival. The film was called "Circumstance" and was an Iranian piece about two women who were in love in modern Tehran, but not allowed to be together publicly. It was great, but a bit hard to follow. As we were waiting for the movie to start, we became really nervous that there would only be Turkish subtitles (as the film is in Farsi). However, we were in luck! There were both English subtitles on screen, and Turkish subtitles projected below. 


All in all it was a great girls' day - relaxing and full of new experiences! 

Museums, Museums

I had the chance to visit a few museums this week, and saw some really beautiful pieces! The first was the Salvador Dalí exhibit at the Tophane-i Amire Cultural Center. It was a traveling collection primarily comprised of sketches and early work, with a few larger and more complex pieces. Below are some of my favorite pieces. I know almost nothing about art, so mostly I liked the colors or images. 


This is called "Gluttony"




This is called "Opposition"




This is "Departure for the Great Journey," It was by far my favorite piece in the whole collection. 




The building was probably the most amazing part of the exhibit. I didn't take too many photos, but give you an idea of the hall. 






It was beautiful! 


We also went to the Istanbul Modern, a modern art museum (duh!). Although modern art isn't entirely my thing, I really enjoyed it. There were no photos allowed at the Istanbul Modern, so I have nothing to show you, but the art was really interesting. I especially enjoyed the photos. There was an exhibit that was meant to be a collection of candids of people all over Turkey. The photos were really moving and beautiful. We were really lucky, as we ended up there as a fluke, on the only day that they were open late, AND on the only day that the museum is free to residents of Turkey (which we are, as of a week ago when we picked up our residency permits)!


And today we went to SALT, a gallery that hosts traveling collections. The gallery is in an old bank, and some of the exhibits are down in the old vaults. It was really neat to be able to explore the old facility. The exhibit was on Ottoman Archaeology, and was quite limited and less than exciting. However, just the building was enough to make the trip worth while. I didn't take any photos because I forgot my camera... I promise I'll do better next time! Istanbul has quite the art and museum scene, and I can't wait to visit more galleries and exhibits!  

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Rumeli Hisarı



This Sunday, a couple of exchange students and I decided to grab ourselves some delicious Turkish brunch and check out a fortress on the shore of the Bosphorus - Rumeli Hisarı. We took a taxi to brunch (although in heavy traffic we decided to get out and walk the rest of the way) at a cafe right next to the fortress. It was delicious, per usual. 




After we stuffed ourselves with cheese, olives, and balkaymak, we headed to the fortress. It was used during the Ottoman Empire to guard the entrance to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. The structure is exactly what you think of when you think fortress. Stone walls, with turrets interspersed, and a beautiful inner grounds with an amphitheater. 



You could pretty much climb anywhere you wanted. There were small staircases (without rails) that wound around the sides of the structures. You can see one in the photo below. There were guards around, but they didn't really care what you did. When you climbed up, there were beautiful views! In many of the photos, you can see one of the few bridges across the Bosphorus. Anything across the strait is Asia. 





In this photo, you can see the amphitheater. It was beautiful and really well preserved. 




There is a fortress cat that plays with the guards and hides in all the nooks and crannies of the buildings. She was so sweet! Here she is playing with us:






After walking around the fortress, we decided that we should head back to campus. There are no dolmuş in the area where the fortress is, so we just started walking back in the direction of campus. We walked about 4.5km until we found a minibus and took it back to Sarıyer. It was a sunny, breezy day, so the walk was beautiful. Most of the shore of the Bosphorus is a concrete sidewalk which, although maybe not totally environmentally sound, makes for amazing walks. 





I can't wait to explore some of the other neighborhoods between Sarıyer and the Center. There's so much history and beauty just hiding on the shores, you just need to find it!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Eating in İstanbul




There are two things that you can expect with almost any meal or snack in Turkey: bread and çay (Turkish tea). The bread is delicious, a cross between crusty and soft, and sometimes having sesame seeds on top or black olive pieces baked in. Otherwise, Turkish cuisine (to my knowledge and experience thus far) is very diverse. There are lots of vegetables and they're always deliciously cooked and spiced. The meat is also amazing. We've been warned against street food, such as döner (the chicken or beef on a vertical spit that is carved for sandwiches and wraps), but we've been adventurous a few times - it's too delicious looking to pass up! Here is a look at a street restaurant that a few of us visited on our second day in the Old City (Sultanahmet).  This is a woman making the wraps - that black dome on the floor is where she was frying the wraps. She would wrap them around a rolling pin and beat them against the table, then fry them. They were so good!



And here is the döner,  this one was chicken. The man would turn it slowly until it was sufficiently cooked, and then shave it off to get it ready for sandwiches. 


Here is the wrap! The chicken is wrapped with tomatoes and lettuce, then grilled. The cups had fresh pomegranate juice - squeezed right in front of us. It was so fresh and so good. In total the meal was 7,50 Turkish Lira, about $4. Crazy good and crazy cheap? I'm in.


Often times with lunch is served Ayran, a drink of yogurt, whipped with salt and water. Although it sounds really gross, it's really hearty and protein-filled. I think it would probably make a really good breakfast. The initial sip is very surprising, but it gets better. Here's what it looked like. 


One of my favorite parts of the first week was a brunch in the town of Garipçe, relatively close to Sarıyer, but on the end of the Bosphorus. We had çay, of course, and ate a normal Turkish breakfast/brunch of vegetables, bread, cheeses, spreads and a scrambled egg dish (menamen). It was delicious. We all agreed that the clotted cream and honey on bread (balkaymak) was by far the most delicious thing we'd eaten since arriving. Since that day, we've made a bunch of brunch trips (say that 10 times fast). It's quickly becoming the favorite meal of all the exchange students. Here is a photo from a different brunch that we went to the next weekend, in Rumelifeneri, a town near Sarıyer. 




So delicious! 


Another one of our food adventures included trying a few restaurants recommended by the Lonely Planet İstanbul app on my iPod. The restaurant we tried in Taksim, Haci Abdullah, was amazing and fairly reasonable. It's where we went for my birthday, and we had lamb roasted with eggplant, cucumbers in yoghurt, gozleme (a fillo-dough like bread that's wrapped around feta and baked), and rice-stuffed grape leaves. All of it was amazing and beautiful, but I forgot to take a photo! So I will supplement with this photo of our lunch in Asia at another Lonely Planet-recommended restaurant, called Kanaat Lokantası. I had beef and eggplant kebap (at the bottom of the photo), and there's also meatballs (köfte) and roasted chicken in the picture. It was all delicious. The portions are always huge, and you often can't even finish half of the dish. 




Aside from tea and bread, dessert is the next most popular food in Turkey. At least, that is my guess. There are pastries and baklava everywhere - and it is all displayed artistically. I don't have a ton of photos of the displays, but Turkish delight (lokum) is meticulously stacked in high mounds, and each baklava piece is carefully decorated and cut, then displayed in huge pans. Here is a photo of Paşafırını - my new favorite çay and pastry place in Sarıyer. It's not a great photo, but you get the idea. 




Here is a photo of some treats we tasted on our second day in Sultanahmet. We stopped for çay and the waiter just brought us a bunch of plates to try. 




The top left is chocolate baklava (so good) and then birds nests filled with cashews, pistachios, and hazelnuts. Below that are 10 kinds of lokum - my favorite was hands down the hazelnut. Finally, on the right, there is a honey-soaked cake. Everything was amazing (I know, that's the 734th time I've said that in this post, but it really is!) 


One of the weirdest food items that I've found is this traditional dessert. It's a thick, creamy pudding made with (drum roll please...) chicken! One of the girls in our group ordered it and we all took a bite. It was alright, but too gluey for my taste, and I couldn't really get over the fact that it had chicken in it - even if there's not much of a chicken taste.


In Turkey, waffles are really only eaten for dessert. This one was stuffed with fruit - bananas, strawberries and kiwi - chocolate chips, bavarian cream and drizzled with melted chocolate. This is how every waffle should be eaten.




Just a few more food related points! This is mantı - Turkish ravioli. It's stuffed with ground beef or lamb and then boiled and covered in yoghurt and spices. It was alright, but not my favorite thing. I forgot to snap a photo of it before I started eating, but it is so beautiful. The spices are so colorful against the white yoghurt. 



The day after the Super Bowl, we decided to honor the occasion by finding wings (even though the Pats lost - I think my dad's still in recovery...). Our mentors brought us to the one restaurant that serves wings in the area and we dug in. Rather than blue cheese or ranch dressing, they're served with cucumber and yoghurt - sort of like Greek tzatziki. Here they are: 




İstanbul is full of open-air markets for everything. Beautiful fruit, nuts, tea, and fish (maybe not beautiful, but they're there) displays are everywhere. Here is a photo of nuts and dried fruit at one of the food bazaars. 




Finally, we had a cooking lesson last Friday. We made Kısır, a barley dish with tomato and herbs, as well as Gozleme, a feta and herb-stuffed pastry. We used the campus kitchen to cook, so we had to wear hair nets and booties on our feet - it was all very attractive! Here is (left to right) Trae, Emily, Amy and Junior filling and folding the gozleme. 



And this is the gozleme frying on the griddle. It is SO hard to flip without breaking, but we only broke one of the 15 pieces!



If you read Turkish, here is the kısır recipe!


That's the kısır - you cook the barley and then add oil, tomato paste and chili pepper. Finally, you add fresh mint, parsley and other herbs right before you serve. You eat kısır warm, using a piece of iceberg lettuce like a scoop. It's warm, fresh, crisp and delicious. I can't wait to try making it on my own!



Here we are serving it up - you eat the gozleme by tearing off pieces with your hands. 



I know this was long, but there's been so much good food! Rest assured, between the prices and quantity, if you visit İstanbul, you will never, ever, go hungry.