Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern and some Grand Bazaar

31 July 2014

The Blue Mosque is considered a must see for visitors to the old part of Istanbul. It was comissioned by Sultan Ahmet I, who did not have any great wars won, so decided to use the treasury fund and built a mosque to rival Aya Sophya. They are both buildings to fill visitors with awe, although Aya Sophya broke ground architecturally (with a dome that appears to be unsupported)  while the Blue Mosque did not. What Blue Mosque does have, though are six minarets-- and at the time it was built, the only other mosques with this many were in Mecca.To avoid the accusation of being presumptuous, he donated an additional minaret for Mecca.

What is interesting about visiting is that this is a working mosque, so people attend prayer there several times a day. Visitors are only permitted to stay in one section and have a strict dress code. I did pass muster on the head scarf, but my dress was too short (even though it hit below the knee) so I was handed a cloth to wear to cover my legs. Mark did much better passing muster-- he only had to take off his hat.

The name Blue Mosque comes from the tile, which did not photograph well in the dark and distance. The carpet did though, and apparently the repeating pattern helps observers to orient for pray and equal spacing.

Mark and I usually like to see religious spaces as they are used by the people who worship there, if we can. This visit had so many tourists, and so much hustle to get ready to enter, it didn't really feel contemplative, though.

We walked to see the Basilica Cistern next. This was an excellent choice in the hot afternoon. The Cistern was engineered to hold tons of water underground in the Justinian time and Topkapki Palace also used the water. It is beautiful and eery-- the ceiling is held up by reclaimed Roman columns and they reflect in the water so it looks like they go on forever. Two of the columns have Medusa heads as their bases--and the heads are set upside down and sideways. No one knows where they were recycled from (hard to advertise for a missing Medusa.) They were probably placed upside down and sideways for the superstitious reason that looking at Medusa can turn one to stone.

We are going to watch From Russia with Love again when we get home. Sean Connery chases someone through the cistern in that movie. This was definitely a visit that made us think of the boys back home.

We visited Hagia Irene which was the church built in honor of peace (Sophya was for wisdom.) It's ironic, though, that although the Ottomans left if standing, it because used as an armory and as a storehouse for the spoils of war. We had the place to ourselves and it is cool and damp and far from what must have been splendid in its day. It does have a peaceful use now-- because of its acoustics, it is used as a concert hall.

Late in the day, we finally shopped the Grand Bazaar. There is no seeing it all, and the kiosks get repetitious. We did barter when we made a purchase. I would never separate from a party and arrange to meet-- and I feel sorry for any small child that gets separated from a parent! Anyone who knows how to shop there, though,  must have incredible fun.

The holiday is over and the ratio of local tourists to international tourists has shifts toward the international.There is a different feel to the city today as people went back to work, and more of the many apparel stores near our hotel were open. They have interesting names like "Discover Underwear," and "Ano Domini," and "The Call Chop." Being a trade center of civilization for so long really shows here.

Topkapi Palace

30 July 2014

One palace, our entire day? Yes, and we didn't even see the whole of it.

 Top corner of divan in the sultan's private room in the haram.

The sultan Mehmet II, known as the conquer, built Topkapi between 1459-1465. The sultans who followed added on, all the way up to the ninteenth century. (Topkapi was "abandoned" in 1853 by Sultan Abdul Mecit I who moved to a palace across the Bosphorus.) It's a complex-- not a building. An awful lot of the culture of being a sultan is avoiding people. Viziers did the face-to-face. If heads of state visited, an anteroom was decorated and the sultan sat inside and saw the gifts presented at a window. When important domestic matters were discussed, the vizier sat in another part of the complex while the sultan sat one floor above and listened through a window grill.

 Window grille above the vizier's place.

 The most famous part of the palace is the harem where all the women lived-- perhaps fours wives and then many concubines. Concubines could not be Muslim because it is against the religion to take a believer into slavery. Any of of the male children could rise to be the next sultan-- it depended on which mother was the most in favor, and also, I guess, who survived the palace plotting and assassinations.

Even as old as it is, and in need of even more preservationn and restoration,the interiors of the rooms are very pleasing to the eye. Many rooms have domed ceilings, so they were light and colorful. Walls are all tiled and the hues are still vibrant and complimentary. They are repetitive and have symmetry. When seeing 'old' buildings in North America and Western Europe, many interiors that were colorful have faded over time and seem dark. Tile color has stood the test of time and seems like new. When we walked into an interior we tried to imagine what it would have looked like with carpeted floors-- there would have been patterns absolutely everywhere then-- like being dropped into an exponential kaleidoscope!

The lines were so, so long to see the treasury and the relics, that we diverted, ate lunch in view of the Bosphorus, and spent a longer time in less popular buildings. We outlasted the crowds by looking at portraits of the sultans. There was no one in that gallery, and if you ask me, the last two sultans look worried in their frames.

By 5:00pm we saw hoards leaving and zigged while they zagged.  Therefore, we have seen the treasury-- jewel encrusted everything: water flasks, turban jewels, writing boxes, and thrones. Gifts of medallions from other empires: France, Britian, Iran, Saudi Arabia. One of the fanciest thrones was made just 200 years before the Ottoman Empire fell.

What we missed were the relics. The lines to see the staff of Moses and the beard hairs of the prophet, among others, was not shortening at all, so we departed in search of dinner.

We had dinner on a terrace and it was cooked in a clay pot that was cracked open at the table. We also shared meze-- the original dips (like hummus, eggplant, yogurt with cucumber and salt-- they are terrific, especially when it is hot outside.)

After dinner we walked around the hippodrome with thousands of other people. The marker where the chariots turned the corner still stands. It is not quite as tall since the ground has been built up around it over the centuries, but it is as close as I have come to those ancient races. And almost no one else was looking at it-- even though there were thousands of people strolling through the hippodrome and the plaza in front of the Blue Mosque.  As we returned to the trolley, we also stumbled upon the milion-- the stone marker that indicated distances to parts of the Roman empire!

Aya Sofya and Archaeology

29 July 2014
Our first stop was Aya Sofya, it's Turkish name, but also seen as Hagia Sophia, it's Orthodox name. As a sanctified space, we can't call it a church, cathedral or mosque,but it has been all of those since 537. The land it sits on has been used for a church since the year 360.

Little cat in the corner of one door leading from the former narthex to the sanctuary.

Aya Sofya's long history makes it interesting and compelling to many,many visitors. The space itself feels as familiar as any large cathedral or basilica.  But the orientation of some of the interiors were angled toward Mecca when the building became a mosque. Islam does not show faces in art so the mosaics were covered up, although with plaster and pieces of them have been restored. They must have been incredible since the gold backgrounds on the pieces that exist still have a glow. The dome overhead is the most impressive because it is light inside and the dome is 184 ft high. There are huge Ottoman medallions that look new (they aren't) and so it is possible to see Islam calligraphy and Christian pictures side by side in the space. 

Difficult to photograph from my distance and small camera.

Medallion on right and mosaic on left.

 

A couple from Pakistan (they'd actually been to Woodstock NY!) who we shared a hired guide with thought that this side-by-side of two major faiths was most significant. Our guide spend much time on the tour focusing Mark and I on Islam and how much he wanted peace. He also gave Mark a pocket size English copy of the Koran.

Last amazing view for this part of our day: There are stones from the ruins of the older buildings the predated the current Aya Sophya and they are just collected into areas on the grounds and people walk among them and sit on them This just amazed us! Ancient artifacts are so rare in the States, this seems so cavalier!

We spend the afternoon at the archeological museum-- parts of it at least. We took a look at the Troy exhibit since we are heading there next week.

Back for a dip in the roof top pool with amazing views of minarets and then we went back to the old city for dinner.

The streets are packed in the old part of the city, but many shops (and there are more shops here than anywhere I have ever been) are closed. Eid is still being celebrated. We had a slow meal at a restaurant that cooked food in the style from Ankara. I loved my eggplant and lamb dish, but the waiter told me I would have to come back to his restaurant or else go to Ankara if I ever wanted to have it again.

Our tram ride back was full of humanity-- actually, it was just full of humans. Three trams came and went before we were able to squeeze on one. I was surrounded by men in their 20's, all strap hangers. One had his plastic bag of take-out dinner on his wrist which kept banging into my ear. Mark looked down and said, "That's sort of in in your way..."--well, not more than all the arm pits around me. I could barely keep a straight face.

 

Arriving in Istanbul

 July 28,2014

 We're here! We have the jet lagged feeling of having pulled an all nighter, coupled with, as usual, not much sleep on the plane.

Once in Istanbul, though, this has been one of the easiest countries to enter. Quick, multi-tasking immigration officer, and no one really cared at customs. Our driver found us-- poor guy had been waiting two hours because our flight was so delayed.

Today is Eid, the end of Ramadan. It is a family visiting day and the streets around our hotel are very, very quiet.  After we unpacked (twice because our first room has a heavy smoker next door), we stepped out in our disorientation to find some dinner.

My first hours in another country always make me feel like I am watching a movie instead of living my life. This afternoon was no exception. When everything is unfamiliar, two things happen at once.  The brain finds ridiculous reference points (I keep reading the word Fatih (a municipality in Istanbul)  as "fath," for example.) And, almost nothing gets screened out. We were lucky that today is a holiday and so quiet. There was less to take in since so few people are on the streets.

 We are staying near The Prince's Mosque. We heard the call to prayer when we were at our early dinner. Service continued although they turned off the music and it seemed quieter all around.

Our neighborhood is filled with textile stores-- drapery, clothing and lots of shoe stores. The shoe stores were open even into this evening, for some reason,  but little else.

We probably will not ever get used to the ancient side by side with the new.

Blogger is giving me directions in Turkish-- not very helpful-- and I am hoping this will post in English.

Leaving Australia

Steerage...Third Class was the default choice of many immigrants... The conditions varied by ..line and was likely to be fairly harsh... Early steerage often housed hundreds of immigrants in one large room.

http://www.gjenvick.com/Steerage/

It did occur to me, as we settled into economy class, that someone may read about the airline traveling conditions in the 21st century and wonder how we ever managed to handle it.  I think the tranquilizing effect of the in-seat entertainment screen factors heavily.  Quantas was pretty good, but there is no getting around the fact that to get between Australia and the east coast of the USA, you have to pretty much stay in a seat for about 24 hours... are probably not going to get much sleep, and will emerge with 'cankles,' no matter how often you get up and walk. (OK, maybe only travelers of a 'certain age,' have to worry about those).  Nevertheless, our young travelers kept their good cheer for most of the journey!  The old ones did pretty well too.

Now that we are back, some 'global' thoughts:

Sydney or Melbourne?

Mark says Sydney. That's probably because he walked through the Royal Botanic Garden almost every day.  Alan said Melbourne, because it was like NYC, laid out on a grid, walkable, and very oriented to food and shopping that was out of our price range. JR can't pick (diplomat!).  I think I give Melbourne a slight margin, and here's why:

What I liked about Melbourne was that it is very cosmopolitan.  Not that Sydney isn't, but Melbourne seemed a bit more jazzed to have such a very diverse population.  Melbourne seemed to have an 'emerging Australia,' sense-- the atmosphere was not as tied to old England.  I liked this about Melbourne too.  Sydney seemed more British.  It is an older city and more aware of its historical roots as a colony, whereas Melbourne really boomed as a gold rush town in the 1850's.  Its history is more tied to events that happened locally. 

I Still Don't Understand the Commonwealth

I try very hard to be aware of my 'cultural lens' when I am traveling.  I hope I am pretty good at it.  One of the most difficult things for me to understand in Australia, though, is what it means to the citizens to be part of the Commonwealth.  We saw lots of historical markers of places where Queen Elizabeth visited (like the Three Sisters) or opened (like the Sydney Opera House.)  Her portrait hung in the Vampire (the navy destroyer we toured), and this ship was decommissioned in 1986.  Secretly, I found myself hoping for Australia to grow to feel independent from the queen, in the way that I might hope for an adult to become self-actualized.  I realize this isn't fair since Australia only has the queen because they seem to enjoy her.  With apology, I have to admit that the subtleties involved seem to escape me, and I will have to keep learning.

Why Don't We Do That?

Here are some good ideas from Australia that I wish we would implement in the States .

Milk, in condiment sized containers for tea

Little milk containers were in our refrigerators in all of our hotel rooms and always when tea and coffee were served. When you made tea, you could have a drop of milk in it.  I never saw powdered coffee whitener, anywhere.  Even coffee drinkers prefer milk sometimes, and just think of how many calories and fat grams we could save if little milk vials were available instead of always half-and-half!

Don't leave the lights on

This is not unique to Australia, but I haven't seen in in the USA.  In our newer hotels, we had to insert our key into the holder in the room in order to turn on the lights.  That meant that if no one was in the room, the lights were off.  This must represent a huge savings in electricity since patrons don't leave the lights on when they go out. 

Turn off the power at the outlet

Each outlet has its own on/off switch.  Whether you plug in a toaster or a charger, you have to also turn on the outlet itself.  I would love to have this feature in the USA.  We try hard to unplug appliances with transformers since they draw a little bit of current just from being plugged in.  Some appliances, though, are really hard to unplug all the time.  Australia runs on a higher current so I have been told that the outlet switch is a safety feature more than a saving feature, but still...  The next time you conscientiously unplug your phone charger, think of Australia.

The half flush for lighter loads

This was my favorite environmentally friendly find in Australia.  In the States, low flow toilets have been mandated for new installations since 1994.  The Australian company Caroma was the first to sell (in 1980) a dual flush toilet that gives the user the option of using only .8 gallons of water in a flush.  Installation is mandatory in Australia for new construction, and most of the toilets we used had dual flush.  Our family knew how to use them because the only other place we have seen one is in New Hampshire, at my parents' house.  Yes, the same folks who showed us Banksia pods a year ago, also 'toilet trained' us for our Australian trip!

Probably a Sign Off, for Now, and Some Stats and Thanks

We are unpacking, organizing, and getting over jet lag, in this first 24 hours of being back.  Mark and Alan were happy to be coming home.  John Roy and I thought we would have been just fine to stay away for another week or so.  Everyone has remarked about what a great trip it was.

In its short existence, Leaving with Laura had visitors from over ten countries.  The most read post was "24 hours to go," posted July 16, and the second most read was "Coffee Tour!" posted July 29.  The highest referring URL's have been Facebook, Stumbleupon, and Twitter.

Leaving with Laura may go dark for a while, since I'll be staying home for a while.  If you would like to leave with me on my next trip, you can click to follow this blog, or click on the RSS feed button, or follow me on Twitter.  My twitter name is lauragraceffa.

Mark has been very helpful in proofreading, especially when we had to conserve connection time and when I was writing at night after a long day, and feeling a bit bleary. 

To all reading, I wish you safe travels.

At Last the Sydney Opera House!

We've seen it, and it is an magnificent building.  The Sydney Opera House first attracted my attention in 1999.  The very last moments of 1999, actually.  Sydney was the first major population center to ring in the new century, and I have a vivid memory of the fireworks over the harbour and seeing the opera house, which looked so nautical against the background of the harbour.

Sydney held a competition for the design of the opera house, and from the tour today we saw that most of the submissions were very conventional.  One of the last entries was by the Danish architect Jorn Utzon, and it was a strikingly different design.  Utzon build the main performance spaces side by side, along the narrow pennisula.  From the air, the venue actually has three separate roof structures--one basically covers the largest "symphony" space, and the other the "opera/ballet" theater.  A third roof structure covers a restaurant area.  In spite of the three roof structures, the opera house is still one building, since the spaces are connected below.  Also, the opera house holds smaller performance spaces in addition to the two large ones.

So many aspects of this building are intriguing, like the royal purple carpet in the upper foyer of the symphony theater, or the organ in the symphony space that took ten years to build, two years to tune, and is only played five or six times a year.  Because the footrprint of the buildings is so narrow, the opera sets have to be stored below--and some days the set are changed between evening and matinee performances!

The best stories of the Sydney Opera House, though, have to do with the architect and the roof.  The architect, and the team of engineers that was hired, did not know how to build the roof when the project began.  For four years Utzon worked on this problem while the rest of the building was being constructed below.  Quite a dramatic turn of affairs--to have a city spending a vast amount of money on a visionary building, without the builder or architect knowing how the roof was going to be constructed.  By this point, the project was well over budget and well over schedule.

The crux of the problem was that everyone was trying to think of a way to construct the roof out of more or less horizontal "sheets" of material over some sort of supporting structure.  To pour these horizontal "sheets" out of concrete would have required an impossible heavy and strong scaffold, and also would have been difficult to construct and move onto the site. 

The stroke of genius came to Utzon when he realized that he could build the roof in vertical sections and then cover it all with ceramic tile.  The sections could be poured on site, which was much more feasible.  I think it adds to the nautical feeling as well, because the vertical sections are sort of like the ribs of a ship.  Outside of the opera house is a brass display that shows Utzon's thinking about the design and how he thought of it as using the properties of the sphere for the strength of the roof.

And maybe this photo from the inside also helps to see the supporting structure.

Sadly, Utzon resigned under controversy before the project was completed.  There was a lot of political pressure because of the time and cost overruns.  It's easy to imagine that such a visionary architect had a pretty unyielding attitude at times.  Still, it is very sad that the building was finished and dedicated without him.  In the last decade or so of his life, the Utzon and the city not only reached a compromise but the city hired him back as a consulting architect for renovations to the structure's interiors.   Today, in fact, any changes to the building have to be in keeping with the Utzon vision, and his son oversees new work.  But Utzon himself never came back to Australia.  And those cost overruns?   The city started the Opera House Lottery and it paid off the building a year and a half after completion!

The drama sets me to musing about the fine line between vision and leadership, being foolish and being impractical.  It can be so common for groups that make decisions to conclude that, "We can't do that because..."  The because almost always has some version of what will be interrupted or stopped if a new direction is taken.  It's extraordinary that as an architect, Utzon designed a building that he didn't know could be built.  Equally extraordinary is that the design was chosen in spite of this circumstance. Having politicians, on behalf of the tax payers, lose patience with the visionary, is not extraordinary--it's pretty ordinary, actually!  And then the building was paid for by thousands of people buying losing lottery tickets--embarking on the chance that only works as a scheme because most tickets lose, seems an interesting coda to the piece.

At the start of the tour, they took our photo, as has been usual at just about all of the attractions on our trip.  We were positioned in front of a green screen.  At the end of the tour John Roy looked at the photos and got really excited.  He had been wearing his usual green Ireland jacket and look what happened in the photo:

You can call him the "Phantom of the [Sydney] Opera [House]!  We had to succumb to make the purchase of the photos this time.

After our tour we had a nice harbour view lunch, and it started to pour.  In fact, Alan wanted to name this entry "Sydney in the Rain."  They boys headed back to the apartment, but Mark and I continued in the afternoon by visiting the "First Encounters" area of the Royal Botanic Garden.  This area shows native plants and describes how they were used by aborigines in the area.  The displays also tell the tragic tale of the first encounter.  Starvation of the native people, because of the disturbances of the Europeans using resources in more reckless fashion, followed their arrival.  By far the most decimating effect though, was that the English brought smallpox.  Within a few years there were only three identifiable aborigines from the original population left in the Sydney area.  The culture died as well.

I began thinking about what world history would look like if these infections had run the other way:  What if the native American and Australian peoples had given the Europeans a deadly infection instead of the other way around?  Mark explained to me that smallpox is present in human populations due to the domestication of animals.  Smallpox in particular, originated as cowpox, and "jumped" species to humans. So, indirectly, it was domestication that led to history working out the way it did.

We also visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales to view the Yiribana Gallery, which shows modern aboriginal art.  No photos are permitted, but if I could I would show an installation of wooden flying foxes, each painted uniquely with traditional dots painting, hanging from a clothes drying tree.  That piece had a touch of whimsey, but overall, the art was quite solemn and sad.

We walked back through the city in the rain, stopping for warm, rich chocolate at the chocolate bar.  Then we visited Coles market to get bring Alan one more chicken schnitzel for dinner.  We are packed and ready to leave in the morning.

Blue Mountains with the Botanists

We had a very restful night at our Blue Mountain hide-away, The Waldorf.  After two days of being on the road by 7:30 it was luxurious to leave at 8am after a hot breakfast. 

Our first stop was a little walk through temperate rainforest near Mt. Wlison.  This was a short walk, but there were three interesting plants for me. (I think more for everyone else.).  Because of a recent wind storm, we saw some branches that had blown down from the canopy above, fairly recently.  They are doomed, now, unfortunately, but we could get a good look at how the orchids live on the branches of the host tree way up high where they also receive much more light than on the floor.  The next interesting  plant is called Tasmania , and it has crazy fruit that are very "primitivve" (ancestral is the correct term) where the style ends up outside of the fruit as it develops.  Finally, we saw a little fern called Tmesipteris.  It would be hard to find without someone pointing it out.  When I was in college, this little fern was thought not to be a fern, but something ancestral to all the vascular plants.  This little fern is very simple-- no true roots or leaves.  Since its DNA has been sequenced, it's true relationship to other ferns has been determined.  They are pictured above, and what you see are highly specialized stems serving as the photosynthetic surface AND as the root surface.  Through their evolution, they have lost their roots and leaves.  (Don't let this shake you, just think of snakes that are reptiles that have lost their limbs through evolutionary time).  They are growing on a tree fern stem.  This may not excite you, but look at just part of the crowd it drew.  I haven't drawn a crowd with that many cameras since I was halfway through my single digit birthdays!

Our next stop was further into the mountains.  To get there, we took a road with a name that begs explanation.  The name of the road is "Bells Line Of Road."  It looks like a mistake on the road sign, but it is a very deliberate name.  Bell was a surveyor who laid the road line, although the road was not built right away, for political reasons.  Folks were well aware of his road line, though, probably because it was so superior to the road that was in use, so when the road was eventually built, it was named Bells Line Of Road. 

At this stop we climbed part of the way up Mt Banks.  At least, the map names it as Mt Banks.  At the trailhead, the historic marker says "Mt Banks or Mt King George."  I am sticking with the Mt Banks name, in part because I am pretty sure this George was the one America fought a war against, and also because it was named Banks, after a famous botanist, by the explorer who climbed the mountain.  We had beautiful views from the near top.

And a close look at some tiny plants.

We drove to our lunch and afternoon spot after our descent.  This was the lovely Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens, part of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.  Since Mount Tomah is in the Blue Mountains, it can host the cold climate collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens.  It is a new garden--really only about thirty years old, although you would never know that by walking amongst the beds.  It has a nice geographic arrangement as well, with a creek separating plants of the northern hemisphere from the southern.  We got to see Wollemi Pine, nearer to its wild home, in this gardern.  (There is a specimen growing in the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.)  The Wollemi was thought to be extinct, but then found by some bushwalkers in the Blue Mountains about ten years ago.  Although there is a small cluster in the wild, its location a closely guarded secret.  Public, private and botanical gardens are its refuge.  It is a cool looking tree.  And, it has its own Facebook fan page.

Male cone.  The Wollemi has very soft needles.

The parking lot of the Mt. Tomah Botanic Gardens was our good-bye location, since some members of the trip didn't come directly back to Sydney.  We had a pretty quiet van ride back; I think passengers of all ages were thoughful and a bit tired.  Murray Henwood (University of Sydney) and Barry Ponns (Royal Botanic Garden) did an excellent job planning this trip, and especially exercising patience and high, good humor with the trip participants.  Believe me, telling a group of botanists that they have to ceasing looking at and photographing plants in order to get to the next stop, is quite a challenge.

We have a city day tomorrow.