Sultans, Harems and Belly Dancers--Oh My!
Trip Start
May 17, 2006
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4
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Trip End
Jun 01, 2006
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Istanbul,
Turkey
Sunday, May 21, 2006
We spend the entire morning poking around this enormous complex of buildings. It is a national holiday weekend, and the place is absolutely crazy crowded with people. I enjoy seeing the costumes of the ultra religious people. The women are clad entirely in black, and only their noses poke out of the hole for the face. My favorite displays are the jewels, naturally. The pieces that originated in Iran are the most fabulous!
One relic totally takes me aback-the brain and the gold-encased arm of St. John the Baptist! A part of the gold covering is opened so you can actually see the ancient bones of the wrist. There is another entire building devoted to the relics of Islam, with hair from the beard of the Prophet, and some things from Medina, etc. The line for that building is horrendous, so we opt out of seeing these items.
We bump into a couple of very fun Aussie sisters who are traveling through Europe for 10 weeks. They are standing in line with us to get into the Harem, but they have an entrance time 20 minutes after ours, so we invite them to join us in the Harem, assuring them they have never been safer! We share a lot of laughs with them as we discuss the exploits of the Sultans in the Harem, and the gelding of all male staff members who worked there.
We sit for lunch at an outdoor restaurant that caters to tourists.
01 Topkapi Palace Entrance
I have a teensy cheeseburger with a thin little slab of minced lamb serving as meat, and no cheese in evidence. That costs Lira4.50. The tiny diet coke is the same price! In all, the lunch costs about US$7, and is not very satisfying. Good thing I have brought some snacks with me from the States.After lunch we tour the St. Sophia Church, which is now a museum. It has scaffolding all the way up to the top of the central dome, and the guide says that he has seen that same scaffolding there ever since his first visit at the age of six. Two of my clients had been here 10 years earlier, and they remembered seeing it then as well. We joke that the scaffolding is supporting the dome.
We return to the hotel and check in the guys who had been in exile the night before, and the guide takes half of the group to the Grand Bazaar for shopping. I opt to stay back and rest before our late dinner and belly dancing show this evening.
The show is an absolute delight! The dancers are amazingly talented, and of course the group loved the men holding hands while doing ethnic dances from the Black Sea region, Later some Cossacks took the stage with wild dances involving jumping rapidly from standing to kneeling and back up again. They make it look effortless and painless-neither of which descriptions are applicable, no doubt.
The evening ends with a singer who asks each table where they are from, and then proceeds to do a popular song from that country-even if it is Japan or China! Truly amazing! And the crowds would all join in if they knew the song. One of our guys said he is from West Virginia, and he broke into "Country Roads, take me home, to the place I belong...." We all sing along happily. The couple beside our group is from England, and the entire room sings the Beatles "Yesterday." Of course I get teary-eyed hearing all these people from every corner of the globe singing this beautiful song together and making some really fine harmonies. What a moment!
Another beautiful moment is when Chris from our group gets called up on the stage to do a special rendition of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm." I have it on video, but it is too long to post on the Blog. The crowd pleasing moment was when they sang "Old MacDonald Had a Fish . ." and Chris makes fish faces instead of sounds. But then the leader says that these are kissing fish, and they make sounds like (long, loud smooching sounds). So they do those sounds and at the end the leader gives Chris a big kiss. The crowd goes nuts.
A wonderful ending to a wonderful day in Turkey!
