Posted by This morning is my 10th day in Istanbul and I’m still having a blast! I’ve been to most of the major sites including the Aya Sophia museum yesterday. It’s a huge structure that was originally a church, then became a mosque under the Ottomans for almost 300 years. Then the founder of modern Turkey, a man named Ataturk, secularized it and turned it into a museum. Imagine being that powerful – this guy turned the one of the biggest mosques in the world into a musuem. And the people love him! No one speaks a bad word against Ataturk at all. Yesterday being Christmas, the British couple that I’ve become friends with decided they wanted to fulfill one of their Christmas Day traditions – going to see a really bad film. So we went to see National Treasure, which was played in English with Turkish subtitles. It was quite possibly one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life!
The past few days have been absolutely gorgeous (though still around 7-8 degrees celsius) and sunny after 3-4 days of clouds and rain. I don’t think I’ve ever walked around this much in my life! But this is what I wanted – a solo vacation where I’m beholden only to my own wishes. For a few days while it was rainy, I pretty much only went to the grand bazaar, a huge indoor complex of shops restaurants. Bargaining is the modus operandi there and if you don’t do it effectively, you’re sure to get fleeced. At first I was pretty intimidated but finally I realised, you’re practically expected to act insulted and affronted when you’re quoted a high price. For one particular item, I bargained a vendor down from 250mil lira ($177) to 110mil lira ($78) and still felt as though he was trying to fleece me. So the next day I sent a friend in for me and the first quote she got started at 110mil lira ($78)!! She got him down to 85mil lira ($60).
I think more than anything what I love about this city is “choice”. People seem to be free to do whatever they want. People can do out, go clubbing, dancing, etc etc … or not. Even though it’s a Muslim city, the people seem pretty free to do what they want in terms of partaking of “vice”, which, I think, is how it should be. Going clubbing is an interesting endeavor. The other night, I went out as part of a group that included 2 Americans, 1 Orthodox Jew, 2 Belgians, a Moroccan, a Swede and a Canadian. I’m sure they have hip hop clubs in Istanbul but we went to a live rock bar and among the songs they played was the Twist! Are you frickin’ kidding me? I think of all the songs they played, Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” was the best one. Yes that’s right, Bon Jovi.
