Thursday, June 23, 2016

Whirlwind

As much as I would love to detail all 7 months of my visit in Bulgaria I'm afraid there are more adventures between now and then that deserve their proper due. Also, in the ensuing 4 years my memory goes hazy with details and I'm tired of trolling Facebook for pictures.


Last we left off my group was on an over night train to Istanbul.  


Words cannot describe the meld of cultures that reside there.  Yes, you see minarets. The call to prayer is heard daily and women are rare sight unless they're tourists.  All point to a dominant Muslim culture.  Granted it is. Just the same way the USA has predominant Christian overtones. (no mail delivered Sunday, beach nudity frowned on, ect.) OOPS yeah I just mentioned religion and a tiny bit of politics on a travel/adventure blog. Deal with it.  (or stop reading, no worries here! Free speech baby!)

My point is that there are strong Christian and Jewish sentiments in Istanbul as well.  From the history of the Hagia Sophia to the multicultural protestant church we visited on the Eastern side of the Bosporus we experience a mixture. Granted, I also experienced (a possible) near abduction as well.

At the church it was Father's Day and they celebrated by handing roses to the Father's and also giving roses out to "future fathers".  Interesting....possibly more a fact that there was a surplus or encouraging them to "be fruitful".  The church had a cat that lived there....I may have spent the better part of the service trying to get its attention and play!  The service itself was beautiful combination of liturgies taken from Synagogues, Mosques, and Lutherans placed in a very Presbyterian format. There was chanting, sacraments, spoken prayer, ect. The lyrical chanting was a baring of the soul to the Almighty.  The pastor met with us afterwards and had lunch with us, answering questions about the church, its members, and life in Istanbul as a Protestant Christian.

Before we took the ferry back across to the Western side of the Bosporus we also visited with the imam of a local mosque, friend of the pastor.  He answered our questions and shared how he became the local imam and explained the differences between Shi'a and Sunni (yes, there are several other denominations sadly 2 hours doesn't lend itself that type of discussion).  I can honestly say that visit was rather vanilla.  Interesting and informative but very basic.

The earlier trip to the Bazaar was more....exciting?


Lets rewind to the night train, transferring to the bus past the Turkish border.  It was my first experience on a public bus with it own TOILET. Like a jet without wings taxing its way down to the capital.  My friends called it "the Turkish torture bus".  When one part of your body is blasted with hot air and the other is turned into arctic wasteland one tends not to sleep.   Since some of us (ahem..ME) slept a total of 30 min in their fold out train bunk, this was not the best combination when we arrived at the bus station roughly around 6am.




We got to our hostel by an above ground metro and watched the sunlight paint the sleeping city awake.  The Paris Hotel Hostel wasn't 4 stars, but it was amazing.


The girls had almost the entire 3rd floor to ourselves with a balcony overlooking the harbor. After checking in an unloading we mostly decided to get coffee, shower and nap. Honestly, I can't remember in what order.



Some decided to sight see and later everyone crashed. Except for a friend and I. She had been before and we decided she would show me around the bazaar.  (for those with taste you can visualize it by watching the opening scene from "Skyfall" featuring Daniel Craig)

The bazaar is overwhelming in so many ways. The colors, people, smells, yelling, bartering, shopkeepers.....oh the shopkeepers.  There was everything.  Imagine a crowded mall in an ancient maze of a building that had grown up around itself. Then fill it with shops like at a flea market as well as those mall kiosks.  At some point every person has walked through an American mall and been approached by a kiosk person, maybe even mildly harassed. Or chased three stores down by a hair kiosk guy calling, "COME BACK RAPUNZEL!!"  OK MAYBE NOT EVERYONE.
But imagine a small village of that type of salesperson inside a maze like cavern of shops.  That is the Bazaar.

The fun part is haggling.  The not so fun part is standing out as a blonde American tourist and becoming an easy target.