Turkey

Stage one of MESP is over. I am no longer in Egypt. The last few days in Cairo were well spent. Went and saw a few amazingly ornate mosques, dominated my Arabic final, and went to the opera. The opera was a good multicultural experience. A few of us went, all dressed up-mingling with the bourgeoisie. We sat next to some Russians and Egyptians; the opera was performed by the Chinese – in Italian. We saw Turandot, which is a good opera, it had a legit plot.

We left on Wednesday morning for Istanbul, Turkey. It is so much different here than Cairo it is ridiculous. Turkey is basically just like Europe, completely secular and quite democratic, as well as technologically advanced in every way. Istanbul is a city that sits partly in Europe and partly in Asia, split by the Bosporus River. First thing we did when we got here was take a boat ride on the Bosporus. It is actually fall here, and much cooler than Cairo. We went to our hotel, which is on the European side and then walked to the Hagia Sophia, which is one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen. It was constructed in the 6^th century as a church, and was later converted into a mosque, now it is a museum.

I feel like I have learned more about Turkey in a short time than I could have ever imagined. This is just the way our program is set up, we have a lot of articles to read about the current political and religious situations in Turkey and then get to meet with intellectuals and leaders and discuss to find out more info. We went to a university and were able to dialogue with Turkish students, and then a journalist here spoke to us at night, Friday morning we went to the ruling AK Party headquarters in Istanbul and spoke with their representative, and more good speakers to come.

Outside of the academics we actually have a lot of free time to do whatever, which has been fun. Today was a good day of adventuring. Went and explored the old Ottoman sultan palace. They had a lot of amazing relics there, such as Moses’ staff, David’s sword, John’s arm, Mohammad’s beard, and a gold molding of the meteorite that fell to earth and acts as part of the foundation for the Kaaba (the holy shrine of Islam). It was a pretty amazing place, followed by the blue mosque, which might be one of my favorites. Afterwards we had about 5 hours of freedom, so a few of us decided to go to Asia. We walked down to the waterfront and saw some boats leaving, so we just hoped it would take us to where we wanted and it worked out. When we got to Asia (still Istanbul), there was not much to do, we were in like, a residential area. But we found a nice little restaurant where no foreigners ever go and ordered some food that we had no idea what we were getting (no one knows any Turkish). The highlight was Austin flapping his arms trying to explain that he wanted a chicken sandwich. They loved us. Tomorrow we have a free day, and I think I’m going to a soccer match, which apparently is insane in Turkey. Also hope to tour some of the islands maybe in the Black Sea, if I can find the ferry for it. Heading to Ankara the next day for a few days, then off to Syria. Will try to keep updating.