From Palaces to Slums

Man have I fallen behind on blog posts!  Goals for this post are to talk about my last week in Istanbul and my first day in Mumbai (I’m here safe and sound).  Whether I will achieve this, who knows. But a warning.  I have not slept for more than 15 minutes in the last 40 hours.

Friday night we went to a concert at a bar near Taxim Square with Berkay.  Berkay said he had met the performer (Mabel Matis) during the protest, and that he was really popular in the counter culture scene.  He had originally trained as a laywer, and spent years protecting the rights of protesters before going into music.  He is also gay, which is not exactly respected in the current government.  How much more can any one man do to upset the government?

On Saturday we went to the Turkish bath.  This involved sauna, massages, swimming pool, and more saunaing, dumping buckets of water on yourself between steps.  It was a lot of fun and very relaxing.  It also successfully eliminated most modesty between the girls of our group, as we were given tiny towels to cover ourselves with.

Sunday we all basically took the day off from doing cool stuff and studied for our final.  Monday too.  Monday a couple of us found a cute little mosque near the spice market.

Somewhere in here I went to the archeological museum, but I can’t remember what day that was.  It was very cool, but I think I have seen enough ruins of Greek and Roman stuff to last me for a few months.

Tuesday we had our final, which was three in class essays.  It has been a while since my hand hurt that much.  Afterwards Heather and I went on a second trip to find Miniaturk, a park filled with minatures (the first trip failed due to google maps misleading us).  We took a tram out, expecting to transfer to the tan line to take us there.  But when we got to the transfer stop, we could not find the tan line.  We must have looked lost, because an old man came up to us and tried to help us.  But he didn’t speak English. So he flagged down another man.  He did not speak English either.  So he flagged down a couple. No English. Finally we flagged down three young women, one of whom spoke minimal English.  We learned that the tan line was actually a bus, and you needed to buy a separate pass (it would have been 20TL). There were some ruins near by the stop, so we decided to check that out instead.  It turned out to be the old city wall.  We walked along it for a while, looking for a place to climb up (we saw other people on top).  We found a place, and went up.  On the wall we saw what looked like a impromptu shack.  We were also suspicious that the men on one of the tower were watching us. We were about to go down, when we ran into a young British man and woman.  They were your typical RIYP (random international young people) backpacking through Europe.  We took pictures for each other, then headed down together (it was slightly comforting to walk with someone else – especially a guy).  We then headed back to our hotel, and they continued their trek down the wall.

Wednesday we went to the Sultan’s Palace (the one built in the 1800s, sorry I am too lazy to look up the name at the moment).  It is 40TL entrance fee, but with a student id it is 5TL (good deal, right? Except that if you speak Turkish it is only 20TL.  But still a good deal).  Its claim to fame is the 4.5 ton crystal chandelier in the ceremonial hall.  But the entire palace is amazing.  The ceiling is covered with gold leaf and carvings, and crystal chandeliers everywhere. It was absolutely beautiful.

Wednesday night we left on a 6-hour plane flight. We got off at 5am in Mumbai.

Honestly, I am about ready to fall asleep.  I write about Mumbai tomorrow. Sufice it to say, seeing a sultan’s palace and walking through the biggest slum in Mumbai in the same 24 hours is rather sobering.  Especially when you drive past a 27 story single family home.

But there is a lot more to be said about Mumbai. But not tonight.

Good night

Andrea

C'est la vie

Reading some of my other friends’ abroad blogs has given me a sense of blog inferiority.  They all seem to have much more profound thoughts about community and religion, and seem to all oddly involve visiting orphanages in third world countries.  Which make my posts feel a little superficial.  But at the same time, I am writing these posts semi stream of consciousness, or else they won’t get done.  So, enjoy:

On Sunday we went to a local soccer game.  Despite the fact that it was a pretty unimportant game (still professional, but intracountry), there were huge groups of fans from both teams constantly shouting cheers.  There was a line of riot police separating the two sections.  The rest of the stadium was filled with normal, but engaged fans.  No one got up during play, but waited for half time to get food.  There was very little selection for food, but sandwiches were not too pricy.  There was plenty of empty space in the stadium, and we got front row tickets for 30 Lira ($15).  The only odd thing was that there were next to no women.  Women were allowed, but we saw a grand total of two and a couple of little girls.  It was really odd.

Almost every weekday we have had somewhere around 4 hours of class with 2 hours of break time scattered throughout.  2 ½ are history class, and the rest is music class of some sort.  It makes for very long days.  On Tuesday we had a field trip to a music conservatory.  They taught mostly western style music.  We had a lecture on composition of western pieces inspired by Turkish classical music (Turkish classical is different than Western classical and Turkish folk).  After that we wandered around Taxim square (the main city center on the Asian side).

Wednesday we had a speaker from a Turkish classical music conservatory to teach us about ney (Turkish flute, which I could not make a sound on).

Today our TA Berkay told us about the protests that have be going on in Turkey.  The protests started when a bunch of people occupied a major park at Taxim Square to prevent it being destroyed by government forces.  Anger at the authoritarian style of governing that has become part of the current prime minister’s legacy and the Islamic agenda meant that many people were upset at the government already.  The park was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Berkay was one of these protesters.  This erupted when police set fire to tents and shot tear gas directly into the crowd. Tear gas is supposed to be shot up, so that the capsules break open in the air.  Instead, the police used the capsules as rubber bullets, shooting them directly at people and injuring them.  They also used combinations of tear gas with multiple different treatments.  For example, one mixture contained a gas neutralized by water; another gas was aggravated by water.  Some of the gasses weren’t even approved to be used on humans.  This went on for days, and resulted to even residential streets and even hospitals being gassed.  Eight people died, and the prime minister fully supported the actions of the police.  But people kept streaming back into Taxim.  Berkay wasn’t sure what finally ended the violence, but tensions are still high.  The police force has grown into a small army, and the people are still unhappy.  Another spark might set the country on fire again.

Hearing about the political activism in Turkey lends an odd view of American politics at the moment.  Riding back on the tram from Taxim, we overheard a couple of Australians commenting condescendingly about how uniformed Americans are, and how odd our views on politics were.  Though they were being blatantly disrespectful in their tone, it brings up a good point.  There were many in my generation who did not realize the government had shut down.  Most Americans could not point out Syria on a map.  A very disturbing street poll shows that many Americans don’t know that Obamacare is the same thing as the Affordable Care Act.  It is no wonder that the Australians are laughing at us!  It is one thing to hold debatable positions.  But to be so blatantly uninformed is embarrassing.

Looking back at my last blog post, I am really not sure how much I agree with what I said about the vendors here.  It really seems to vary.  It is like I am playing a game without knowing all the rules.  But oh well.  C'est la vie!

I have been talking with some friends studying abroad in India about meeting up.  It is making me feel very cosmopolitan.

Good night

Andrea