Istanbul

(This entry written by Aaron)

A couple of weeks ago, I got to travel to Istanbul, Turkey, for a conference for work. What follows are a few photos and thoughts from that trip.

I barely made my connecting flight from Chicago to Paris. This photo is of a tired me in the terminal at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris. I was there early enough to see the sunrise and have a chocolate chip croissant for breakfast. I can never eat a Costco croissant again. Paris has the most bakeries of any city in the world, I am told, and apparently they deliver to the airport.

This is a shot of the Alps, which are amazing. I want to go to the Alps now.

While in Istanbul, I stayed in an area of the city called Sisli (pronounced Sheeshlee). Pretty much every evening I explored the neighborhood to see the sights. Sisli doesn't get much tourism, and it was just nice to kind of put my head down and be among the people. This shot looks into an enormous chicken roaster at a local restaurant. There are about 120 chickens in this thing.

All of the businesses have big picture windows so you can look in at what is on display. The sight of great food and gorgeous desserts is not uncommon. I thought these cakes looked so good, but was too full of kebab to even think about sampling them.

Most of my travel within Istanbul was on public transportation, mostly trains of various sorts. This photo is of a funicular train, which is only used to travel up or down steep grades. This train only went between two stops, where the grade was too steep for a metro or a tram.

This is me on the funicular. I met a family from Italy on the train. I thought they were speaking Spanish so I struck up a conversation. It was actually Italian, but the mom of the family was happy to snap a photo for me.

This monument stands at the center of Taksim Square, which is the heart of modern Istanbul. The monument commemorates Kemel Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic and revered by the people of Turkey. He is something of a George Washington figure to them.

Taksim is very crowded, but there is a lot to see. The street in this photo is about a mile long. The street-level floors of the buildings on either side are full of shops and restaurants. Most of the visitors here were Turks or people from other areas of Europe. I saw very few Americans in Istanbul. The ones I did see were either in the old part of the city, where most of the historical buildings are, or were part of the conference I was attending.

On Tuesday, I took a trip to Sulthanamet, which is the old part of the city where most of the historic buildings are. I don't know what this building is. It is a little more modern than a lot of what's there. I liked the look of it though.

Because I was traveling alone, I had to take my own photos using a small tripod.

The two photos above are of the courtyard of the Blue Mosque, probably the most famous mosque in Istanbul. And for good reason. See below.

The above two photos are of the interior of the Blue Mosque. It is hard to capture the scale of the interior, but it is immense. Considering the age of the building, the architecture is incredible. This building felt very reverent, even with so many visitors.

The Grand Bazaar is one of the most popular attractions of Sulthanamet. It is one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world. Founded in the mid-15th century, the Bazaar has over 4,000 shops in a maze of over 50 covered streets and 22 entrance gates. The two photos above are of the bazaar. It can have up to a half-million visitors per day. For someone traveling alone it was kind of hard to enjoy. Most of what is for sale in the Grand Bazaar is junk, and most of the shops sell the same items, though there are areas known for certain things: leather, carpets, ceramics, jewelry. Having little prior knowledge, I didn't know how to find the nice stuff, and I quickly got tired of the repeated dialog: "You from America? I love America! You come look in my shop." That said, no visit to Istanbul would be complete without a stop at the Grand Bazaar.This guy was playing some version of a zither at the metro station Osmanbey, which was the stop right in front of my hotel. The other guys from Dugway remembered this stop by thinking that they just needed to get off the train where the Osmonds were.

Annika wanted me to include this photo of my table at the conference. My booth didn't make it through customs, so I had that sign printed.

The lady in this photo is making what looked to me like big tortillas. I think they call them peda (pita).

You can buy any part of the sheep at Turkish markets. This photo emphasizes the "brain" inventory. What you don't see are the lungs hanging by the trachea.

Enjoying what I called a doner burrito. Doner (dough-nair) is a kind of kebab that can be made from a mix of lamb and beef or chicken. You can have it served plain or in a sandwich or wrap with french fries, cucumber and tomato. Stuff is delicious. The street food in Turkey is amazing and pretty much what I lived on while there. The oddest thing I ate was something that I have heard called a "wet hamburger". It is essentially a cheap hamburger with a bun soaked in some kind of tomato sauce. Some of them don't have meat at all. It tasted to me like a McDonald's hamburger soaked in Spaghetti-Ohs.

I won the lottery in Istanbul. At least that is the way it felt. While I was there, Elvis Costello happened to be performing in Maslak, one of the city's financial centers. If you know me, you know why this is a big deal. So naturally, I bought a front row ticket. The show took place at the TIM Show Center (above). They didn't let me take my camera into the theater, but I think I made out OK. I walked a way with an autographed ticket and a guitar pick. I was like a six-year old girl seeing a Disney princess live. Great concert and an unforgettable experience.

A metro train. I thought it had a cool design.

A super fancy mall in Taksim.

The above photos are from the Askeri Muze, or Turkish Military Museum, where my conference was held. There were a lot of cool things to see. I saw the helmet of the son of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. Lot's of cool stuff. Look it up.

My hotel and hotel room.

The view from my room.

The intersection in front of my hotel. the metro station is just down those escalators on the left side of the photo.

Inside the metro station at Taksim

On Friday morning, before I flew out, I spent the morning hanging around this mosque and visiting the Spice Bazaar (below).

The Spice Bazaar (above) was really cool, though I had to drag my luggage through it. Almost all the shops carry spices, nuts, and various kinds of candy, including lokum (Turkish Delight), which is delicious. It is also easy to navigate, consisting of two streets that come together to form an L. Like the Grand Bazaar, this is also an ancient covered market. Again, some foreknowledge would probably have helped me negotiate some better pricing, but I think I did OK. While in Istanbul, I discovered a love of hazelnuts.

The two photos above were taken from the tram on my way across the Golden Horn into the old part of city, where I visited the Spice Bazaar.


This photo captures what I will remember of Istanbul. A modern European city punctuated with exquisite mosques unlike any others in the world. I had a great time exploring the city and being among its people. Maybe Annika and I will go back someday, but I don't know when.