day seven

5-17-2010

11:09pm Istanbul, Turkey

We just got in from dinner in the hotel garden. What a day this has been! So the was our first official full day. We both woke up to the 5am call to prayer, even though I had earplugs…. oh well. I don’t actually mind it, and find it to be kind of beautiful sounding. We’ve both been having a hard time sleeping in very late, so we’re kind of up with the sunrise almost, which was about 7:30 or so.

We went down to the garden for the Turkish continental breakfast, which was the best either of us have ever had. Hard boiled eggs, fresh cucumber and tomato, feta cheese and another kind of cheese that tasted kind of like Swiss, salami, lots of bread, coffee and tea, lots of different kinds of jam including some kind of Turkish nutella, good yogurt, and two different kinds of cereal. Oh man it was good! Which was perfect because I usually have a hard time eating breakfast, but knew I really needed to.

We had planned a little loosely what we would be doing today, so we had to come back up to our room to do a little research, and decided on visiting the Grand Spice Bazaar today. It’s kind of on the other side of Old town from us, so we decided to take the train there, and walk back. Also the Galata bridge is there, and part of the whole reason for coming to Istanbul was to walk across the Galata bridge, and see the modern European part of Istanbul on one side, and the still very Muslim (kind of modern too, there are just a ton of mosques) Old town on the other. It was pretty amazing! I got two pics of Eli, each one with the back ground of old or new town behind him.

You can walk along the underside of the bridge and there are a ton of cafes and small bars, where you can sit and eat, or just have a Turkish coffee or tea (which are both incredible!) and enjoy the sea. We did just that. Also, there are people up on top fishing for little fish and you can see all their catch if you are at the café’s. What a beautiful start to the day! We decided right away, we needed to get a grilled Mackerel sandwich and eat it before we attempted the spice bazaar. Good thinking! Man that was tasty!

Then we were ready to cross under the major road, and head to the Spice market. But first we walked through the courtyard of the New Mosque (that’s what it’s called), which was beautiful. The Spice Market is directly behind the New Mosque. I carried our daypack on my front, so if we bought anything, Eli could haggle them down with out worrying about pick pockets and such.

The Spice market was great, a bit over whelming, but great! We walked all the way through before trying to buy anything, just so we could get our bearings. I didn’t realize there were so many kinds of Turkish delight…. I sampled at least 6 different kinds and there were SO many more. It was all pretty fresh too. All the spices, and Tea! A sort of whirlwind of sights and smells. We made it through unscathed, and came back around to buy some goodies. We definitely won that round! We decided the Spice market was our warm up for the Grand Bazaar, which I think we’re doing on Thursday…maybe Wednesday, we’ll see.

We came back to the hotel and had a much needed rest before venturing out again. The spice market was kind of the only major thing we had planned for the day, so we didn’t really know what else to do. In the evening, we decided to splurge a little and go to a Hammam. What a great idea! We got a recommendation from our hotel clerk, and one of the staff walked us down the street to it.

A Hammam, is a Turkish bath. It dates back to the 1400’s. It’s like a sauna/spa for the Turks, and just sort of a social gathering/bathing event I guess you could say. I was a little unsure of how I would feel about it. We went to a segregated one, because I refused to get a rub down in my skivvies, by an Old Turkish man.

When we came in, they directed me, with some hand waiving and leading (because I don’t have any Turkish language skills, and neither does Eli) through a few hallways, and down into the women side of the Hammam. Then the lady gestured for me to pick a changing room and get undressed, with the towel around me. I opted to leave my underwear on, and purposely wore bathing suit bottom for the occasion. Then she led me down into an area that was covered in grey marble stone, with several water basins, that each had two spouts. In the center of the room, there was a large rectangle slab that was about knee height.

You go to a basin, and sit down next to it, then are given a little bowl to dowse yourself with hot water from head to toe. All of the Marble is warm and the slab in the middle is very warm. Once you’ve sufficiently dowsed your, you get onto the slab and lay on your belly. The attendant comes in with a very course mitt that she scrubs your whole back and back of your legs and arms, then you turn over and she scrubs the whole front. It gets all the dead skin off of you. Then you go back to your basin and rinse really well.

You come back and get on the slab again, and the attendant comes back and had a softer cloth bag, that she puts this special soap in and rubs together so it suds up. Then she soaps you all up, and gives a deep massage.

I hadn’t let my hair down yet at this point. After the soap up, you go back to your basin once again and rinse off. I just thought I would stand up, rinse off and be done. But the attendant, who also spoke no English, wanted me to sit down and dowse myself again, while she was soaping up the next lady. “Ok” I said, and sat down and waited for my next instructions.

When she was finished that lady, she went in the other room and came back with a bottle of shampoo and gestured to me with it. “Ok” I said again and took my bun down. When my hair was all the way let down, she goes “ooooohhh” very quietly. Just to clarify, I often shock people with how much hair I have because I usually wear it in a bun. But it’s down to my waist, and pretty thick.

Then she proceeded to dowse my head with water, and wash my hair. It was awesome! I was thinking during the whole process, “I haven’t had someone wash my hair like this since I was a little child!” She gave me a head massage too, which was really nice. She let me rinse my hair out to my liking, and then I was free to go.

Eli had all the money with him, so I had to go back over to the men side and wait for him after I got changed. He came out looking like I was feeling, a puddle of goo! Then they put us both in his changing room and gave us a cup of Turkish tea.

All in all, the entire experience was incredible. I’m so glad we did it. We walked back up the hill to the hotel and talked to the hotel clerk for a little bit. He sent us up to our room, after we told him yesterday was our anniversary, and a few minutes later, sent up a tray of two waters, and two red wines.

I’m not much of a wine drinker at all, but I had a few sips. Eli ended up drinking my glass too, since I decided I didn’t want to. Then we went down to the garden of the hotel and decided to have some dinner. We didn’t feel like going out anywhere. The owner of the hotel had been there all afternoon, and playing backgammon with some friends of his. It was interesting to watch them.

The owner also had what we call in the states a Hookah pipe. In Turkey it’s called a Nargile. It’s like a bong basically. But you put a special blend into it. No tobacco or anything else illegal. It’s a mix of dried fruit actually, and produces a very pleasant smell, and smooth smoke. You don’t inhale it.

We had already decided we wanted to try one, so we sat with the owner after we ate dinner, and they brought us our own to share. It was really interesting. You don’t experience any kind of buzz or mind alteration. It’s just the smoke. As an ex-smoker, who is in the land of Turkish tobacco, it’s been a little difficult to not buy a pack of smokes for vacation sake. But the Nargile was really cool. It helped curb that desire, with out negative effects. We sat down in the garden, and watched the Turkish version of 24 with the owner of the hotel, and smoked a Nargile. Eli asked me if I ever thought I’d be doing this?

I laughed, thinking about when I first moved to OR two and half years ago, that I never would have imagined I’d be sitting in a hotel garden in Istanbul, smoking a Nargile with my husband, the day after our anniversary!

Ok, that’s all I have to say for now. Good night.