Day 15: Homeward bound

All good things must come to an end.

We packed our bags and headed for the airport.

We took the reverse tram+metro route we used upon arrival in Istanbul. Here's me at the Zeytinburnu station where we transferred to the metro.

TRAVELERS TIP: The metro direction you want is Airport. So, you'll have to go up and over the metro tracks when you transfer from the tram. The escalators are not broken; they're just sleeping. To get the escalator going, just push the button. Also, it takes an hour or more to make the journey to the airport. Plan accordingly.

Security was pretty tight at the Atatürk Airport. When you get off the metro and enter the airport, you immediately hit the first round of baggage screening. They questioned me about the butter knife in my soon-to-be checked baggage. Then you go upstairs to the check-in line and they ask you more questions about your baggage (Did you pack it yourself? Any weapons? etc.) before you can check it. Then you go to passport control. Then you get to the gate area and get screened again. This was the first airport outside the U.S. that had the same restrictions for liquids on board the aircraft. We had to throw away our water bottles. I was a little sad. I'd had that same bottle since we left the States.

Don't wash your feet in the sink at the airport.

Here was our plane. We were really going to miss Istanbul. It's a wonderful city.

Our seats for the 11-hour flight to New York were pretty sweet. We had the first row behind first class. We didn't have quite as much leg room as we did on the Chicago-to-Atlanta flight, but it was adequate. Plus, we had the LCD screen with movies right in front of us.

Our experience at JFK's Delta Terminal (terminal 3) was unpleasant. What a pig sty!! When you arrive, you're herded like cattle into a tight windowless room with lots of people and told to stand in a long line. Signage is terrible. There's filth everywhere. The carpet looked to be about 100 years old. They funnel the U.S. citizens into one line and non-U.S. citizens to another, but in reality, once you get to the front of the line, the staff directs you to whatever booth they feel like. The staff only speaks English and gets rude when you don't understand. If I were a foreign visitor, especially one who didn't speak English, I'd hate America before I crossed her border. It was not a warm welcome.

TRAVELERS TIP: There are no bathrooms until after you go through passport control. And once you do get to use the bathroom, they're disgusting. Plus, you could be waiting a long time in the line to enter the country. It is highly advisable to use the bathroom toward the end of the flight.

So, we were back on American soil, but our troubles had only just begun. We boarded the plane back to Chicago on-time, but then our luck ran out. The pilot informed us that there was a delay due to weather, and we would have to wait an unknown amount of time to taxi out to the runway. In order to keep our place in line, passengers had to stay in their seats with seat belts fastened. No bathroom breaks. No food. The "unknown amount of time" turned into THREE HOURS!!! The flight attendants did come by with water, but without being able to use the bathroom, that did more harm than good. There was a family in front of us with three little kids. Of course the kids were cranky and fidgety the entire time.

We were never so thankful to see the bright lights of Chicago.

Triumphant.

Technically, this is now Day 16. We arrived home around 12:30am, exhausted. Ma went to bed right away, but I was still pretty wired. It took me a long time to fall asleep.

A single casualty: my potted palm succumbed. I think I over-watered it before I left.

Bye, Ma!! Thanks for the memories!

Turkish Bath

We were pretty sick of walking, so we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit.

We ate dinner at a place just down the street from our hotel called Hafız Ahmet. It was cafeteria-style. You point at what you want. Ma had meatballs (köfte) and chilled potatoes. I had broccoli-covered-chicken and rice. It was more expensive than the other meals we had, but it was good and filling.

And then came the part we'd both been thinking about all day: the hamamı (pronounced "hah-mah-muh"). To be honest, I was a little nervous. I'd never so much as had a neck massage before, let alone a full body scrub. And being naked in public in a foreign country wasn't exactly helping matters.

We took the tram to Çemberlitaş. The bath is right there. They made the whole process so smooth. First, they hand you a new kese (pronounced "keh-seh") and a peştemal (pronounced "pesh-teh-mahl"). The kese is a raw silk mitten without a thumb, but with a tie to keep it on your hand. When it is wet, it feels rough like a loofah. The peştemal is a thin plaid towel. An attendant directs you upstairs to a locker room, assigns you a locker, and you put the key's band around your wrist. Everything is made of wood like a sauna. You get undressed and wrap yourself in the peştemal. Then you go downstairs, through the cool room, and into the hot room. Inside the hot room is a giant round stone with a flat top. Everything in the room is made out of marble. You could cut the humidity with a knife. The domed ceiling is decorated with stars. It was really neat. At this point, I'm getting nervous again, and to make matters worse, they separate Ma and me. Ma has no glasses on, so she's blind. And I have no clue what the attendant is saying to me. So, we're waiting our turn to be scrubbed down from head to foot. Then my time comes. The attendant tells me to put my peştemal on the stone and then lay on top of it on my tummy. She then hands me a pair of black underwear. They still have a tag on them, so I figure they're safe to wear. I relax a little bit and she begins to cover me with soap suds. And then she starts scrubbing, first my back, then my front, and then has me sit up to do my arms. It was quite enjoyable. Then she moves me off the stone over to one of the basins to rinse off and wash my hair. Afterward, I waited for Ma to get done with her scrub. Then we exited the hot room and got a towel in the cool room. We didn't sign up for the separate oil massage, so we just hung out until we were fit enough to dry off and get our clothes back on.

TRAVELERS' TIP: If you have a serious health condition, you might want to check with your doctor before entering the hot room.

My skin never felt better. If I lived in Istanbul, I'd go once a month...maybe once a week!

It wasn't exactly appropriate to take pictures in the hamamı, but I did manage to snap this one of the fantastic bathroom. I loved the tile!

A Lo-o-o-ng Walk

For lunch, we wandered down Divan Yolu Street where all the tourists go. We passed the Lale Pudding Shop. Fans of the movie "Midnight Express" will appreciate that we did NOT eat there (the guidebooks say that drugs are no longer available for take-out).

Instead, we ate at the same franchise that we ate at the first day in the New District (called Semazen). It was cheap and delicious. We ate in the little park across the street. Little did we know we were also storing up some energy for a really long walk ahead of us.

Thus, we began the Rick Steves' "Old Town Back Streets Walk".

This smokestack looking thing is called Çemberlitaş, or Burned Column. (Hard to see behind the scaffolding.) Emperor Constantine erected it to put a statue of himself on top. His statue was later replaced with a cross. Now it has nothing.

While we were here, we stopped by the bathhouse that we would be returning to tonight, Çemberlitaş Hamamı. No reservations needed, and they were open 'til midnight.

The walk took us to the Grand Bazaar. A bit like the Khan in Cairo, it was overwhelming and a little scary. There were swarms of touts everywhere. We didn't feel like doing any shopping with all that commotion around.

The directions in the Walk were pretty confusing at the Grand Bazaar and again on the way to the Süleyman Mosque. That was new for us. Usually the directions are excellent. We had to ask a local to point us in the right direction. The mosque was undergoing renovations. So, there weren't many tourists around, and it wasn't so easy to spot. Yeah, yeah, it's a huge building with towering minarets. But when you're right next to Istanbul University's high walls, you get tunnel vision.

So, we finally found the mosque. You could only go inside the foyer a few dozen feet, and the rest was blocked off by construction curtains. I'm sure it would have been an impressive mosque to see.

The mosque has four minarets (to represent the four initial caliphs). Two are tall and two are short. The tall minarets have three balconies each. The short minarets have two balconies each.

In the courtyard was a little cemetery with several mausoleums, including one with Süleyman himself. To go inside, remove your shoes and cover your head.

These are tombs, sort of like sarcophagi.

Süleyman is on the right and his two of his sons are on the left.

Odd side note: Süleyman strangled a couple of his kids, some at his wife's bidding.

Speaking of Süleyman's wife, this is Roxelana's mausoleum. She was first a slave and then a wife. (That was unheard of.) She was quite a schemer. Süleyman was madly in love with her.

After we were done with the mosque, we continued to Walk to the Spice Bazaar. We got pretty lost. There were some tense moments, but we eventually got back on track.

The Spice Bazaar was a lot like the Grand Bazaar except dedicated to foodstuffs like spices, coffee, and tea. Locals call it Mışır Carşışı, which means Egyptian Bazaar. It was once funded by taxes paid by Egypt to the sultans. There was a line about a block long to buy coffee at one place.

Ancient Orient

Sumerians. Akkadians. Babylonians. Assyrians. Hittites.

How well do you remember your Civ classes? The stuff in this building made me remember a lot of what I'd forgotten.

Most of the stuff in the Museum of the Ancient Orient were from ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Turkey's not that far from there, you know...

Sumerians developed a writing system called "cuneiform". The letters were formed by sticking a wedge-shaped stick (like an exacto-knife) into clay at different angles. The museum had writs from King Nebuchadnezzer, genealogy of Assyrian kings, and a set of ancient laws called the Code of Hammurabi (shown above).

Here's the first known peace treaty, called the Kadesh Treaty. It spells out the terms between Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and Hittite king Hattusilis III. There's an Egyptian version (more slanted toward Ramses) carved on the walls of a temple in Luxor, Egypt.

The treaty was about the size of an index card.

On the other end of the size spectrum, this is a Hittite wall mural.

Tile Kiosk

Thankfully the other two buildings were not as big as the first.

This is the Tile Kiosk. It was built by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1472 as a municipal building. (Recall: we're technically on the grounds of Topkapı Palace.)

The building displays all manner of tiles and ceramic objects. It's covered in tiles, too. Some of the tiles date back to the pre-Ottoman rulers known as the Selçuks (circa 13th century).

Day 14: Istanbul Archaeological Museum

Did I mention how clean Istanbul was? Here's the reason why:

This morning we spied several of these little street-cleaning machines. It looked like a miniature zamboni. It scrubbed the sidewalks and parking lots and sucked up any trash.

Our first stop of the day was the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. We got there right when it opened. We practically had the place to ourselves.

The museum is actually three different buildings covered by the same ticket. This was the main building.

The museum contained an interesting array of sarcophagi. The most impressive was the so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus". It may have a couple carvings of Alexander the Great on the outside, but it was actually King Abdalonymos of Sidon who had been laid to rest on the inside.

They did a great job displaying statues. Here's one of Apollo playing a lyre. Just an ordinary statue, right?

Well, the curators were quite clever. They would take a photo of fine details, greatly magnify it, and then hang the picture on the wall. It made visitors pay more attention because you would search out which piece in the room the photo belonged to.

For example, they would show these intricately carved sandals. Then you would look at all the feet on the statues in the room until you discovered they were on Apollo playing a lyre.

Now tell me you didn't scroll up to see the picture of Apollo again. You see? It works!

This is another self-portrait.
The trays behind us contain thousands (perhaps millions) of shards of broken pottery just waiting to be reassembled. Each tray was marked with a code (presumably some sort of catalog system). They served as the ceiling to the children's museum below.

Tucked away in the basement were some very fine mosaics. They had a floor mosaic (not for walking, just for viewing) that was just amazing. Each piece of tile was less than the size of a pea. And this photo represents perhaps one-fiftieth of the whole.

The museum seemed to go on forever. We could have spent days in there reading about each thing.

We eventually said goodbye to the main building. There were two more buildings yet to see!

Topkapı Palace

The last big sightseeing excursion today is at the Topkapı Palace. When Mehmet the Conqueror took Constantinople, he built this place as a grand municipal complex. It was used by civil servants, viziers (the sultan's councilors), the military, ambassadors, etc. But it wasn't used as a royal residence until Süleyman the Magnificent moved in 100 years later when he decided to live where he worked. Each sultan then added his own room or pavilion. So, the palace was built over hundreds of years, which explains its eclectic mix of styles.

Topkapı is a series of courtyards separated by walls and gates or buildings. Each courtyard becomes a bit more private.

This beautiful fountain is just outside the Topkapı Palace. It was built by Ahmet III. We'll get to him and his tulips later.

The first gate is called the Imperial Gate. By "first", I mean two things: outermost and oldest. The signature above the door belongs to Mehmet the Conqueror.

The first courtyard is huge. It used to include the barracks for the janissaries (elite military personnel, a cross between the Secret Service and the Special Forces). Now the vast area has been converted into Gülhane Park and a zoo. It also contains the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

This is the second gate. It is called the Gate of Salutation. It was built in the 1500s.

This is the Divan Tower. Beneath it is the "divan" or council chamber for the sultan's viziers.

This is the door to the divan. Inside was a long red couch (instead of individual chairs). That's why some people refer to couches as "divans".

This is the third gate, or Gate of Felicity. We're getting very close to the residential areas now.

This is the passageway to the fourth courtyard.

Take a look at these fabulous sidewalks. These are pebbles placed in concrete.

Here we are finally in the fourth and most private courtyard. Behind me is the Baghdad Pavilion. It was built by sultan Murat IV to celebrate, you guessed it, the conquering of Baghdad. The little garden below it is known as the Tulip Garden. During the reign of Ahmet III, hedonism took hold, and the tulip trade became big business. Some bulbs were 30 times more valuable than gold. Ahmet III became obsessed. He spent a good deal of his empire's fortune obtaining rare specimens. Me? I wait for them to go on sale at Menards.

There was a shallow swimming pool here (behind me). That's unusual for Muslims since they typically reject standing water in favor of running water. Turkish Baths, unlike Roman Baths, never include a swimming pool.

This was on the outside of the Circumcision Pavilion. (Yep, a whole pavilion just for circumcisions.) The fountain you see here drains into the swimming pool.

Did I mention how hodgepodge the complex is? As styles changed, and as the sultans became more self-conscious of their "oriental" backwardness, they desperately tried to emulate Europe. (Evidence above of one failed attempt: the Mecidiye Pavilion.) They eventually gave up trying at Topkapı and built a brand new palace (Dolmabahçe Palace) in the New District.

The sultans had a nice view of the Bosphorus. Behind the tanker is a tiny little island with a tower on it. It's called the Maiden's Tower. Legend has it that an oracle told the sultan's daughter that she would be bitten by a snake and killed. So, her father put her on this island where there were no snakes. One day she gets a basket of fruit. A snake had stowed away in the basket. It bites the girl and she dies.

They also call it Leander's Tower after the ancient Greek story about Hero and Leander. Hero was a young woman who lived in a tower on an island near the mainland. Her lover, Leander, would swim across the sea each night to be with her. Hero would light a lamp to guide his way. One night, there was a storm, and the lamp blew out. Leander lost his way and drowned. Devastated by her lover's death, she threw herself to her death from atop the tower.

Both heartwarming stories, hey?

We got to Topkapı pretty late, and thus didn't have time to do the "Harem" tour. They shooed us out at closing time. We then spent a leisurely evening at Gülhane Park.

TRAVELERS' TIP: If it's getting late, walk straight through the first courtyard to the ticket booth and save viewing the first courtyard until after Topkapı Palace closes. The first courtyard stays open longer. In fact, you don't even have to pay to see it, so you could come back another day to finish up.

We decided to eat dinner at the restaurant adjacent to the hotel called "Red River". It's funny how the rest of the world has taken such a sentimental view of the American West. Thanks, Hollywood. There were posters from old western movies all over the walls. They had written their own sign and posted it in the bar area. It said "Please Live Your Six Shooters With The Bartender." You see, the "i" with a dot makes an "ee" sound in Turkish. Funny, huh? The Turkish Ravioli they served was excellent. Very un-American. Little meat dumplings covered in a sour cream sauce with paprika and other spices: Yummy!