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
Are you a RIYP?
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