Istanbul was Constantinople...

Oh my goodness I'm exhausted, but it's exhausted that arrives after lots of laughter and learning, so I suppose it's a good kind of exhausted. We've been moving about a million miles a day, and there's no way I can describe everything we've done and everything I've thought about because we'd be here for days. But I will give you the highlights.

On Saturday, we visited the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, which is absolutely huge and gorgeous. The inside of the dome and all the inner walls are covered in blue tiles, a specialty of the Ottoman Empire. Recently, one tile sold for $50,000, and this place is full of them. We then visited Little Aya Sophia, a Byzantine church converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest. After a terrace lunch, a small group of us went shopping in two bazaars, looking at amazing carpets and ceramics. That night, we visited a carpet shop to learn about all the different patterns and styles of Oriental carpets.

Yesterday was a packed day. We visited the New Mosque (it's 400 years old, which is considered new around here) and then loaded onto a boat for a tour of the Bosporus. The weather was beautiful and we could see all the mosques and monuments from the sea. It was a beautiful two hour ride. After passing the entrance to the Black Sea, we had lunch in a tiny coastal village; I had bolak, a kind of layered bread with different things in the middle of it. We then drove to a museum of Islamic calligraphy (beautiful stuff) and then arrived at Rumeli Fortress, from which the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453. It has huge citadels overlooking the Bosporus and an amphitheater in the middle. They used canons to blast the walls of Constantinople; each canon could lob a 200 pound piece of artillery for a mile.

Today, we visited two mosques. The Suleymaniye Mosque was built by the Ottoman architect Sinan for Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. The other mosque was beautiful, as well, and then a group of us had a very cheap but very delicious lunch; the owner of the restaurant kept telling the one Turkish-speaking girl with us how much he's obsessed with Obama. He was pretty cool.

Yesterday, I was on people overload and had to take some time to myself in order to prevent self-combustion. Everyone was really understanding about it and left me alone. Today, though, I've been really relaxed and have had a lot of fun. I've got all these thoughts rolling around in my head about Islam and Turkey and politics, but they haven't congealed into questions or opinions quite yet. Usually my process for learning something massively new (like a religion) is to absorb as much information as possible before processing it. That way, I can make better judgements than I could off of little information. Then the cycle repeats.

I'm developing a good balance of wit/sarcasm with quiet time, even within group activities. I have to remind myself to be calm and not to seek approval from other people, and that tends to calm my nerves. I do miss people though, especially at night when I someone become aware of how LONG five weeks is and how much I depend on certain people for comfort. The people here are lovely, though, and I'm developing some nice friendships. I'm not sure if the professor likes me, but whatever.

Tomorrow, we visit sites for all three monotheistic religions. I'll update soon!

The Sultan Ahmet Mosque at night













Taken from atop a citadel in Rumeli Fortress













Rich, Kelsey, and I on the Bosporus boat tour; the Suleymaniye Mosque is in the background.












The dome of the Sultan Ahmet Mosque