Missing Turkey, Sweating a Ton

Classic Turkey, I miss it!!

The last few days have been quite busy so I apologize for the lack of blogging... Tuesday we spent all day preparing our presentation for the ICOM Inclusive Museum Conference presentation we were giving on Wednesday. We had a lot to prepare so we needed most of the day. By the afternoon we were definitely a little antsy so we took to the streets for some shopping!
We checked out the Spice Bazaar which was fun. It's spice/food focused (obviously) but most of the shops are replications of other shops... so if you see one thing you see 50 just like it. I'm pretty sure very little is authentic. Regardless we had some Turkish Delights, which were delightful :) The rest of the evening was relaxing with a few drinks on the rooftop of our hostel. I can't get enough of that view.

Wednesday was the conference! We were up early, lookin' sharp, ready to wow museum professionals. Actually I was damn nervous... it was my first conference and I had less time to prepare than the other girls. They had been doing their research all semester... I just started mine. Regardless it went off without a hitch! We had a lot of people attend, including the Vice President of ICOM and a number of well respected professionals. Everyone complimented us afterwards and wanted to know more, and I'm pretty sure we were the talk of the conference. woo!


Podium at Conference

After that a few of us headed to Hagia Sophia, which is beautiful (see below). The history is so astounding and I am so in awe of how grandiose it is that I can barely register my emotions. Usually I just walk around looking at everything repeating "oh wow..." Lame.

Thursday was a busy busy day. It was our last full day in Istanbul so there was a lot to cover. In the morning we headed to the Istanbul Archeological Museum, then over to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. The Archeological Museum was nice, but a lot of the same statues repeated throughout. Plus it's hard to get excited about a statue from Greece when I knew I was going to be there the next day! The modern art museum though, was AWESOME... I loved it. We met with Lora Sariaslon, a curator at the museum who gave us a tour. She was the student of one of my professors in her undergraduate degree program.


Statue in the Istanbul Museum of Archeology


Ceiling at Hagia Sophia

After this we met up with Cagatay for one last horah. We walked to the Grand Bazaar, which is much different from the Spice Bazaar. It's like the Grand Bazaar is the Mall and the Spice Bazaar is more like the market... It was crowded and annoying, due to all of the men pestering us to buy things, a common occurrence in the tourist neighborhoods of Istanbul. Later Cagatay told me that most of the men are Kurdish. This is a talking point of grand size because there is quite a bit of annimosity between the Turkish and the Kurdish. Knowing very little about the subject I press him to go on. He explains how the Kurdish want part of Turkey for themselves. For example, this would be like all of the Chinese immigrants in New York City going, "You know what? There are a lot of us here. We should get this land as our own!" And break it apart from the U.S. Also, many terrorists come from the Kurdish South East area of Turkey, which angers the Turkish. It takes me awhile but I begin being able to tell the difference between the two, although not without fault.

We all walked down to the sea and spent the afternoon drinking çay and talking about politics. After another walk down the bay we said goodbye to Cagatay. :( That evening we decided to stay with the hostel and have a few drinks at the bar. They also had a belly dancer that night which was interesting, as well as odd... There was a creepy man looming in the corner and he sort of ordered her around to people who seemed like they would give her money. I think he was her belly dancing pimp. Not. Good. After some great food we went to the popular street in Istanbul. Our friend from the hostel took us to a bar where you had to go down a long skinny hall, into a little elevator (with no door) up to the 4th floor, down another hall and around a corner where I was sure we were going to be murdered. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a bar! With a band!!


Cumbus Cemaat

The band's name was Cumbus Cemaat, an awesome traditional Turkish folk band that was just zany. Alyssa and I jumped on the dance floor and had an awesome time dancing with everyone. Side Note: It doesn't matter what country I find myself in... musicians are always attractive. The violinist = yummy.

We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, and I would be lying if I said I was completely sober on the plane ride to Greece. However, after a solid 2 hours of sleep we had to say goodbye to beautiful Turkey. I will miss the country and my new good friends.


Crazy Mole Hair Wig.. smelled very bad, looked wicked awesome.