Catching Up Turkey

March 11, 2007

Istanbul, Turkey

I am still catching up from before, so let me tell you first what happened two days ago when we first arrived in Istanbul, and then what has happened subsequently. I am still really far behind so this may come in a number of small installments.

Two days ago we drove from Pergamon to Istanbul, and it was the longest bus ride of our lives. We spent about 6 hours in the bus, straight, in addition to the earlier morning ride from Pergamon to Troy and then another not so short ride to Gallipoli. By the end of it, we were ready to tear out our hair, or throw each other off the bus, or just run around in circles like maniacs--- anything to get off of the bus! But the sites were very nice and we were VERY happy to be staying in one place, Istanbul, for a few nights. And what we saw of the city that night would only be confirmed by the next few days exploring: Istanbul is amazing.

The first site we visited that day was Troy, the ancient city featured so much in Homer’s epic Iliad, the magical mythical city that so few of the early archaeologists even believed in and that Schliemman was so determined to find. And find it he did, set much farther inland than it was during Homer’s time and underneath mounds and mounds of later settlement and occupation. Troy itself was excavated by at least two other archaeologists, one of which, Carl Blegen, ended up concluding that there were as many as nine different major periods of occupation on the area. And of course, every major occupation period can be divided into innumerable other ones, resulting in as many as 90 different phases of Troy. We arrived there already tired from the very early morning wake up and were immediately greeted with a blast of very cold wind. Troy was not going to be a pleasant jaunt through the ruins.

And it turned out not to be so impressive. One important thing to remember is that the Troy of the Iliad took place in the 1200s BC, which places it contemporary with the other Mycenean sites such as Pylos and Mycenae itself, and Sparta’s old megaron area “the Menelaion,” which are a far cry from the times in which Homer himself was writing in the 8th century BC, during the Dark Ages, and even farther away from the classical periods of Plato et al. There is about a one thousand year gap between Achilles and Aristotle, so what may have seemed big to Achilles may not have been so impressive to the later philosopher, and 2500 years since then seems downright small to us. However, Gulen our tour guide was also quick to point out that the fortification walls we saw surrounding Troy were not necessarily representative of the entire complex either—the parts that we saw were only the fortified citadel, (like saying that Manhattan is all of NYC, when that is clearly NOT the case, or something of the like. Form your own analogy.) and a good deal of the city existed in mudbrick homes outside of the city walls.

However, since Troy has been built upon so many times, walking around it was like stepping into a time machine on speed. One minute we were looking at ruins that were dated to 3000s BC, and the next moment we were on the foundations of the Temple of Athena, a Hellenistic structure that was 2700 years newer. Quite a time jump, especially for so small a site. I was happy to see the walls of the Troy of Hector and Achilles, which were constructed of finely cut masonry that sloped inward to protect from earthquake damage, and was saved from a monolithic appearance by a series of small juts that projected from the wall. I am not sure what their purpose was, they were much to small to be bastions, but they did make the wall quite aesthetically pleasing. We even got to see the mudbrick remains of the very first Trojan settlement, which was right around the corner from a Roman bouleterion. Figures.

However, the day was really cold and super windy so we quickly toured the site and hopped on the bus to warm our frigid hands and faces before we reached Gallipoli.

Gallipoli is the site of one of WWI’s biggest battles on the eastern front. Apparently Winston Churchhill thought it would be a great idea to try to get the Allied forces to connect up with the Russian by pushing through the channel that separates the Mediterreanean from the Black Sea. The naval attack failed, so they resorted to a horrible type of land war that resulted in the deaths of thousands and thousands of the Australian and New Zealand (called ANZAK) forces who were left to fend for themselves against the Ottomans. The battle lasted for several months and resulted in 44000 Allied and 97,000 Turkish deaths and the rise of the career of one Mustafa Kemal, who would later found the Republic of Turkey.

We visited the museum here, which was filled with war relics such as bullets, canteens, uniforms, and most poignantly, letters from the soldiers who were stationed in the trenches for the endless months. One of them concluded “Mother please do not send underwear I have money god bless you.” At that point I thought about how similar these young men in the trenches must have been to ourselves, in a strange place on the other side of the world, not knowing where their next clean pair of underwear would come from. I know one of the top things on my list for my parents to bring me over spring break are socks, and I was struck by the similarity in tone between my emails and some of the letters I saw. Of course, when my letters would casually mention one of us getting sick from the food or seeing a mosque or something, they would casually mention that one of their fellow soldiers lost their legs in a landmine explosion….not exactly an identical situation, but nevertheless I felt a great deal of sympathy for these men who risked their lives in such a far away place. For the first time, I knew how it felt to be so very far away from home.

The second place we visited in Gallipoli was the graveyard of some of the fallen soldiers, a sea of white gravestones placed in rows in the grass facing a beautiful stretch of rocky beach that faced brown mountains and a glittering sea. The silence and the beauty of the place arrested me, and we each moved in our own bubbles of silence, walking around and reading the headstones and taking pictures. Again, I was struck at how young these men were. I saw one grave that had a seventeen year old in it. And two nineteen year olds. For once, these people were not far removed or elder men or epic battles of antiquity. These boys were younger than me, and they had died here. I could not even imagine the horror and the tragedy of it. Considerably more quiet than when I had exited, I loaded the bus for the long ride to Istanbul.

Unloading from the bus was probably one of the best feelings of relief that I have experienced on the trip so far. We were here! We drove in past an ancient Roman aqueduct and saw the spires of multiple mosques rise up before us, the shops were open and people were selling glittering scarves and intricate ceramics, and we could finally stay put for a few days. We unloaded from the bus and were pleased to find in our hotel an excellent internet connection and a close distance from Hagia Sophia, as well as the Grand Bazaar. That was all we needed!

Ambrice and Chris Vincoli and I wandered around for a while, I walked into a book store and was amazed at the variety of beautiful books about Istanbul and cooking and history and art and spotted an interesting find—a book of Le Corbusier’s sketches of Istanbul. Most of the other books I had looked at, including one very interesting looking history of Istanbul book, were priced outrageously high, at about 75 turkish lira, which is about 50 dollars. But this book was much cheaper and contained pages upon pages of drawings and plans of the mosques and commentary by Corbusier himself, translated into Turkish, French, and English. I had to have it. Very pleased with my purchase, and hungry, we made our way to a small convenience store to purchase some food before picnicking it up at the hotel.

Our self made meal included some canned grave leaves, tuna, gnutella—surprise surprise, grapefruit, bread and assorted other snacks. A very hodgepodge assortment, but one that filled our bellies without depleting our wallets. We all decided to finish watching Gladiator that night, which was amazing! And then, sleep. We were going to see the rest of Istanbul in the morning.

We woke up later the next day—a whole hour to sleep in! And went upstairs to the breakfast bar which was located on the top floor of the hotel, affording us an amazing view of the bosphorus and Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, which rose up along the shoreline in a cascade of colored domes and sharp minarets. It was pretty amazing, and the food was good too. Enough to pack a lunch with, even, which is something that us poor college kids always appreciate.

The first place we walked to was the old hippodrome, established in 315 when Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east because Rome itself was already in a big state of decline, and would continue to decline as the empire gradually split into two and the eastern part of the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire. The Hippodrome looked pretty much like a massive Greek stadium, except for the fact that it has a large dividing wall between the two sides of the racetrack. Called a spina, this area was decorated with all kinds of monuments, whether they are indigenous or imported. One of the pillars from the Temple of Karnak, originally dedicated to Thutmose III was stolen by a Roman empire and set up here on top of a marble platform decorated with all kinds of relief sculpture, of the emperor and his wife as well as the story of the erection of the obelisk, which involved an inordinate amount of time and money. Another one of the imported monuments included a serpentine pillar that was originally located at Delphi, commissioned in order to celebrate the victories of the Greeks over the Persians in the battle of Platea in 479 BC, after which the Greeks were completely free of their foreign oppressors. Although the snakes heads that stood at the top of this pillar are now missing, the bronze pillar is impressive for its size. The last monument we saw is a colossal obelisk of grey stone blocks.

Other than that, not much remains of the Hippodrome, which at one point had a capacity of 60,000. The outline of the footprint of the facility is still there, all of the shops and such stand outside of the shape, with the Hippodrome itself remaining a negative space amid all of the buildings in Istanbul. We walked to the far side and saw the arched vaulting thats supported the sphendome of the horse racing facility, still in existence after all of these years and rising high above our heads from where we stood outside of it. The day was grey and cold but I was so excited to be in Istanbul that it did not matter. Everywhere we went we were greeted by bright colors and vendors hawking their wares and the smells of good food. And of course, the mosques. Although we saw Hagia Sophia the next day, walking from the Hippodrome to the cistern gave us a good preview. Istanbul is FULL of mosques, and they are all beautiful. More on that later.

The next stop was at the cistern, a building that pirated pillars and capitals from the Roman periods, although the cistern itself dates to the time period of Constantine. We descended a set of steps and entered into a gloomily lit forest of pillars and arches, among which threaded a walkway of drippy slick concrete. Our voices hushed in the spooky atmosphere, and the only noises beyond our hushed murmurs were the drips of the water as they trickled down the old columns and the spooky “mood music” that they put on the speakers stationed at regular intervals along the concrete walkway. We snaked around through the forest of pillars, coming to a place where one of the columns was inscribed with a series of tears, stained green with algae and glistening wet in the dim light. As we looked down, we could see all kinds and sizes of fish in the water, and coins where people had thrown money in for wishes. I took out 2 euro left over from Greece and contributed my lot. Moving deeper and deeper into the cistern, we came upon the bases of two columns with the heads of medusa on them. The medusas were rough hewn on all other sides, and lay sideways and upside down in the gloomy water. Pirated from another building and carelessly placed in an odd direction, they stared at us from the water. Creepy….

We walked around for a bit inside of the cistern, but eventually it was time to go so we reemerged into the grey day, and walked toward the Archaeological Museum. As seems to be the case with Dr. Krentz, we were given a short preview of the museum before we were freed to see the pieces themselves, which included, as always, a good deal of sculpture dating from the Roman periods, tons of portraiture, and a sacrcophagus decorated with scenes of Alexander the Great’s battles against the Persians. Many people find similarities between this battle scene and the famous one inscribed on the mosaic floors in Pompeii, that shows Alexander, hair flying, rearing up on his horse to attack Darius, who flees on his chariot from the scene. Although there is no Darius here, Alexander rears magnificently from the left side of the carving, jumping out of the relief background and dominating the action. There were also a good deal of early Christian/Byzantine works, clearly showing the progression of the art of the Roman empire from being dominated by a classicizing style to one that is more rigid and formalized, as Christianity takes over and concern with realistic depiction fades as concerns with heaven and other things beyond the physical world. We spent a good deal of time here, wandering around through the many floors and hallways. I even saw the remains of the bronze serpent head that stood atop the monument in the Hippodrome.

After getting my fill, we went to a pudding shop for lunch, which had tons of buffet style Turkish food. I had made some lunch from breakfast that morning, but I figured that as long as we were in a pudding shop I should try the pudding, so I examined the selection and finally picked a fruit and nut pudding, which tasted kind of like the inside of an apple pie, except with walnuts and craisins imbedded in it. It was quite tasty.

The last stop of the day was at a really old church located on the outskirts of the city walls of Istanbul, which no longer contain the city entirely, having been built at the time of Justinian. The bus ride from the Museum to the church was long, and I was impressed at the size of the city. Although most of the things I did and would continue to do in Istanbul remained within walking distance, I get the feeling that there is tons more to see that require a car ride. The church was of the basilican type, with a dome on the apsidal end and a later addition for baptisms on one side that were covered in frescoes. Other than that the entire church was moaicked, filled with small tesserae of shiny gold and blue. Gulen took us on a tour, explaining all of the biblical stories illustrated on the walls, and pointed out to us that this church is very unusual in that it depicted the story of Mary as well as of Jesus—her annunciation, birth, marriage to Joseph, and finally the birth of Jesus himself. The mosaics were quite impressive to see, but by that late in the day everyone was desperate to get home. I was so tired that I ended up falling asleep on the bus, awaking only when we had reached the hotel.

But, there was a whole city to see! And I had just received news that one of my teammates, Katie, was in Istanbul on Davidon’s spring break and was actually staying in the same hotel that we were! What a crazy coincidence! It turned out that one of her friends is actually from Turkey, and may have made the reservation with the intention of meeting up with us Classics Trip kids, but I certainly had no idea she was coming and was pleasantly surprised when I ran into her in the hallway. We decided to go with Stewart, who knew her as well, and a couple of other Classics kids and go to see the French Quarter of Istanbul, which supposedly was similar to Syntagma Square in Athens, the hub of the city and a busy district where we were guaranteed to get a good meal and see a different part of the city. And it would be a good chance to stretch our legs and do some walking.

Turns out we did a lot more walking than we had bargained for; the French Quarter was probably about 5 miles away, and we crossed the bosphoros on a bridge and up a long steep hill and kept going and going and going before we finally reached a crowded square with tons of people all dressed in black and rushing hurrredly along. Walking into one of the streets that fed the square we were assaulted with light, sound and smell at the clothing and food stores. This was the modern, not the tourist part of Itstanbul, and because it was a Saturday night it seemed like the whole city was there to shop and eat. We were crammed together so tightly it felt like a ride on the Athens subway. It had taken us about an hour an a half to get there, because we had gotten turned around a few times, and we were starving, so we quickly stopped in at a relatively expensive restaurant that turned out to have amazing food. Ambrice and Katie ordered a veggie pizza, and I ordered an amazing chicken dish that had the perfect eastern flavoring, and some others ordered crepes and salads. For a few minutes there was virtually no talking because everyone was so busy inhaling food, but after we were moderately satisfied we immediately kept prying Katie for gossip from Davidson. It felt so good to see another familiar face, and to hear things outside of the same recycled jokes and stories that 20 people stuck in a fishbowl can come up with.

Katie told me all about the team, and my roommates, and about her classes, and life at Davidson in general. Everyone was really excited because we had recently discovered via email and the internet that our own basketball team had made it to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row, thanks in part to the performance of the so-called freshman phenom Stephen Curry. We wanted to know all about it, and what Katie thought our chances were of going further, and talked about the things we missed from home. We all had different things to say, but I think that constant access to the internet, peanut butter, and weekends were some of the top things on my list. But I would not trade this trip in for anything. I will gladly sacrifice weekends for the chance to see Istanbul.

By the time we were done with dinner, it was close to nine, and all of us had to go back and do homework and prepare for a test that we had coming up, so Katie and I and Ambrice and Stewart started to head back to the hotel. We had not gotten more than 10 feet before we reached a dessert shop, and HAD to stop. So we walked in and Katie ordered some chocolate ice cream and Steward had some of my highly recommended fruit and nut pudding, ordered by pointing to the pictures on the menu. No one in the restaurant spoke any English. Then, stuffed to the brim, we hailed a taxi, told them to take us to Hagia Sophia, the nearest landmark to the hotel, and walked the rest of the way home.

Katie and I hung out for a long time that night, and although I missed some of the people she spoke of at Davidson, I was so excited to be in Istanbul and on the trip that I think I ended up making her jealous of the trip I was having. So in spite of long days, lots of bus and airport time, and some uncomfortable bathroom experiences, I was happy to send her back to the US and stay where I was.

Today was the last guided day in Istanbul, and throughout the day I have realized more and more how much I really love this city. It is absolutely wonderful, and the people are very friendly, once you get past their aggressive soliciting tendencies. And the food and the fabrics and colors here are posititvely delightful. Everything feels like an excerpt from Arabian nights—nothing exists without some kind of pattern or shine. Even the most austere looking mosques contain calligraphy that is so exquisite that it becomes an art form to himself.

And the shops are fun—we have stopped in at many places where the vendors will offer us some apple or lemon tea, ask us where we are from and how we like Istanbul, and have us sit down as they showcase their wares. I am still getting used to the idea of haggling for a price, so some of the places we stopped in just to look at the goods and ask for the prices to get an idea of what things were worth, but I am astonished at the variety of color and pattern that can be found in the city. Between the pashminas, the ceramics, the jewelry, the rugs, and other trinkets one could outfit an entire house.

Anyway, we woke up early this morning and were afforded another stunning view of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque from our terrace atop the hotel before bundling up to venture into the surprisingly cold Istanbul morning. The first stop we went to was the Blue Mosque, built in the early 1600s by a student of the famous architect Sinan, whose stuff seems to be very important in Istanbul. There have been numerous books that I have seen dealing with him, and Gulen our tour guide has mentioned him a number of times. Something to research in the future. The blue mosque is relatively austere on the outside. We walked through a doorway to an inner courtayard, ringed with a collonade capped with a series of blue colored domes, to confront the entrance to the mosque. The mosque entrance looks like a series of cascading domes, starting from the large one in the middle to smaller half domes terracing down the center, and expanding out to the sides. Framing the courtyard and the central domes are set of six minarets, which is a mark of the prominence of the building.

We walked up to the front entrance and put our shoes into a plastic bag provided for us before stepping inside of the buiding. Like the Orthodox churches, the outside of the building completely conceals the opulence within—the interior of the mosque is covered with elaborate blue tiles in delicate floral tracery. The windows all along the wall opposite the entrance are covered with blue and greens and reds, all floral shapes snaking up the windows and bursting into bloom. A ring of lights hangs low over the empty space, and above it a massive dome rises, ringed with the magnificent Arabic calligraphy and flanked on four sides by pendentives (the triangles on the side of the dome where it merges with the square supporting base below) in disks of tracery and calligraphy. All of the edges between the rounded and the flat shapes of the inside are dileneated in elaborate tracery in a variety of colors. There was nowhere to look that was left undecorated—it was like looking at a cathedral window that had overgrown its stone frame and grew onto the walls and kept going.

We turned in slow circles, admiring the many niches and walls and parapets around the interior of the building. No one spoke, we were all too busy trying to make sense of the profusion of color and shape. Keeping the hushed character that overtook us as soon as we entered, we took some pictures and retreated out into the cold of Istanbul. The next stop was Hagia Sophia, and everyone was excited to see it.

Hagia Sophia was commissioned by the emperor Justianian in 543 AD and is considered to be the forerunner of most Byzantine and certainly much of the mosque architecture in Istanbul. The outside of the building is not much to speak of—a reddish colored plaster covered the outside walls which were supported by big sloping pilasters and topped by one large and two semidomes, surrounded by four minarets. But once we stepped inside, we could see what everyone had talked about with Hagia Sophia. The inside was huge, dimly lit by the windows that ringed the dome and pierced the far walls, and was covered with scrollwork of the Ottoman design. In most places Hagia Sophia looked like a mosque—the four corners where the dome met its supporting pillars were covered with huge black discs decorated with calligraphy in shiny gold. The inside of the dome was covered with a series of spokes in florals leading to a central medallion. However, underneath the ornate florals, the plaster has been peeled back in areas to reveal the early Christian mosaics, including the apse at the church, where the half dome at the far end reveals a glittering gold mosaic of the Virgin and Child. We walked over to the apse to gaze up at the massive mosaic, and to walk around the two outer aisles of the church, which alternated between the plaster and painted areas of the mosque and the mosaics of the original construction.

Unfortunately, the center of the church is dominated by a dark series of scaffolding, which obstructed the view of the center dome. Our tour guide explained to us that the huge amount of tourist traffic in the old building has caused a build up of humidity, threatening the structural integrity of the dome, requiring the scaffolding to be moved to a different position in the dome area. I think some of the grandeur of the vaulted space has been diminished due to this, but the structure is still amazing.

Moving back toward the entrance, we moved up a series of spiraling ramps to reach the second story of the church, which opened up to the main dome in a series of arched colonnades. We emerged from the ramps to walk down the hallways and look from above into the open space. From here, the intricacies of the stained glass on the far end of the church was more readily visible, and along the walls the plastered paint of the mosque had been removed to reveal a series of brilliant mosaics: portraits of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and farther, other images of saints and the sponsors of the church, all outlined in tiny glittering pieces of glass. We walked all of the way to the apse of the church, where looking up through the arches we could glimpse the mosaic of Mary at a closer distance, where it glowed by the assistance of a spotlight. Then we turned and walked back underneath the arches to exit the church, in all its majesty, and confront the cold once again.

The day was getting colder and greyer and I had run out of my last pair of clean socks, so I was suffering with my Sperrys and my bare feet. If we walked fast enough I could keep warm, but we kept stopping and talking, and I could feel my feet getting number and number. But we pressed on, to the other great building in this part of Istanbul—Topkapi palace.

This place was commissioned by Sultan Mehmet during the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. The palace complex is subdivided into a series of courtyards, flanked by a wide collonade of arched columns and marked by a series of tall gate complexes. Tons and tons of school children in uniform passed us on the way, stopping to wave and gawke at Ambrice, who waved back. Apparently black people are a rarity in Istanbul, because we were later stopped by a pair of hankerchiefed muslim women who asked her to pose for a picture with them.

Gulen took us to the royal harem, the apartments where all of the wives and children of the Sultan lived, together with a number of eunichs and other servants. This area was almost entirely self contained. The area contained a number of living spaces, and the hallways between the apartments were entirely covered in the magnificent blue floral tiles, covering the walls with pattern from floor to ceiling. We stepped into the sultan’s chamers, and our eyes were confronted with a scene straight from Arabian Nights—rich carpets, and low couches, together with a huge bed covered in a scalloped canopy. The ceiling of the building rose up in a dome covered with gilded floral and paisley decoration. Not a single flat surface in the room was left unpainted—and the sheer number of different colors were enough to amaze. Some of the lower walls had the bright blue and white and green florals, highlighted with red accents, but the upper reaches had cream and gold leaf motifs, and the ceiling was a variety of reds, golds, and greens. And it was all so intricate. To our modern sensibilities, the pattern was almost too much to be truly attractive, but demonstrated a sense of baroque opulence matched by the magnificent drapery on the walls and floor. We were stunned.

Almost all of the palace was like this—a profusion of color and pattern to the point of over-saturation. Room after room unfolded in a series of floral patterns. Then we were released to explore the rest of the palace ourselves. The tour of Istanbul was over! And spring break was approaching. Gratefully we moved to the treasury area where we saw one of the biggest diamonds in the world, set in a tear shaped setting of gold and gemstones, and the light hit it and it glowed in a shattering array of hard white light. We saw thrones and bedsteads and daggers and all kinds of boxes all set in gold and rubies and emeralds. But we had had enough of being cold and our eyes were quite overwhelmed with the profusion of color and light, and we were hungry and cold. Time to head home.

On the way, we stopped in at a local shop and ordered doner kebabs, which are the closest things to pita gyros, which we had been missing immensely ever since leaving Athens. Pita gyros are the best tasting fast food I have had ever, and while they might not be the healthiest things around, you can get them for less than 2 euro and they fill you up. We scarfed down the doners and sat warming our limbs in the small shop before heading back to the hotel, to a warm bed and a short rest.

It was not long before some of my friends decided that we should try a Turkish Bath, a perfect way to warm up and relax on our first day of freedom. So, a group of six of us girls got the information for a reputable place recommended by the Turkish guy from Davidson, and we walked back toward Hagia Sophia, and then up toward the area of the spice market, stopping in at a relatively innocuous entrance marked with a blue sign with the word “hamam”. We had no idea what to expect, so we descended into the main lobby of the place to talk to the clerk.

It turns out that a Turkish Bath contains a number of different types of bathing options, ranging from a simple self service bath to a full exfoliating, wash and massage treatment. Ambrice and Anne opted for a professional bath, I for the next step of the wash and exfoliating treatment, and Stewart, Erika and Anna Marie for the full exfoliation, wash and massage. They took our money and led us down a hallway into another atrium lined with changing rooms, which really resembled small hotel rooms, complete with a mirror, hairdryer and a set of beds. Towels hung on the walls and the woman in the room gestured for us to enter the rooms two at a time, and to change and leave our things, where they would be locked for safekeeping. We all nervously left our clothes in the room and reemerged wrapped in the checkered towels, and stepped into the lobby to put on these awkward wooden sandals, before the woman gestured once again, and we were ushered down another long hallway to a bathroom area, and finally into the main bathing room.

The main bathing room reminded me of a mosque, an octagonal room capped by a domed ceiling, with the shapes of stars and moons incised in it to let in light. Around the sides of a room were a series of marble sinks, and in the center was a large raised platform of marble. The woman brought us to one of the corners of the room, told us to hang our towels on the hooks, and gave each of us a small metal bowl. She told us to sit, and we all exchanged glances—sitting would mean dropping towel and then we were all going to get to know each other WAY better. But we were already there and the Turkish woman was waiting, so we hung the towels up and sat quickly down on the marble benches, bowl in hand, as she turned on the spigot in the sink and made washing motions with her hands. So we were to bathe using the bowl and sitting down. We giggled at each other for a while, but the water was warm and we relaxed soon enough and were laughing and talking and it felt slightly less awkward.

Then a group of squat fat Turkish women entered in towels. We all exchanged glances, and then it dawned on us that these were probably our washing women. Sure enough they all changed into a one piece bathing suit and approached each of us, taking our hands and leading us to the stone platform in the center of the bathing room, pointing for us to lay down, and collecting their supplies.

Being bathed by someone else is an odd experience, especially when we were lying head to foot around in a circle on a big stone platform in the middle of a foreign country. The women would lather us up, then have us flip over, and finally sit up as they scrubbed our arms. They even brought us over to the spigot on the sides of the bath and sat us down in front of them to wash our hair and faces. That was probably the most uncomfortable part—trying to breathe while the washerwoman’s strong hands were rubbing soap up and down over my mouth and nose. And then remembering to keep my eyes shut as she passed over them. But I felt VERY clean and exfoliated and soon we were out of there and back in the dressing rooms, where we were given a little gift bag of a comb and a moist towlette and a little booklet advertising that this particular hamam was listed in the book of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. It was only then that I realized that one was supposed to give a generous tip at these types of places and I had spent all of my cash in procuring the bath.

I asked around the other girls with me, and it turns out that between us we only had 3 lira, not enough for one tip, let alone six of them. Sheepishly we exited and informed the women, who had been waiting patiently for us, that we had nothing to give them and told them that we could go to an ATM asap and return with their payment. They did NOT look happy.

So we remerged from the hamam with a mission—we felt terribly for not tipping and wanted to find an ATM as quickly as possible. Luckily we found one within a block, and I withdrew the requisite cash, which came, as always, in a singe 50 lira bill. So we had to find somewhere to split the cash so we each could pay our bathing lady. We had seen a grocery store on the way and from our previous experience they were the best places to break large bills, so we stopped in and I bought a 2 lira pack of cookies. When I came up to the register I asked to be paid in small bills, and the cashier took one look at me and said “no.” She asked if I had 2 lira, and I said no, so there was a huge stalemate until a nice gentleman came and traded his 2 5 lira notes for a 10 and she could finally break it for us. We went back to the bath after that, finally having gotten our tip, and paid the women, who looked much happier with bills in their hands.

It was back to the hotel to share our stories with some of the disbelieving people on the trip who were fascinated at the idea of a public bath, some breakfast food for dinner and lots of studying. We had a test on Turkey the following day and I wanted to be prepared.