Adventures in Italy 9: Istanbul

As I mentioned before, in order to save a lot of money on our flights to Italy and back, we had to fly Delta to Vegas, Norwegian Airlines to Rome via Copenhagen, Turkish Airlines to L.A. via Istanbul, and Delta back to Salt Lake City.

So it was that on Monday, June 20, 2016, we flew from Venice, Italy to Istanbul, Turkey, where we had an overnight layover. I had always wanted to visit Istanbul, and this gave us just enough time to go out and get a taste of it.

Our flight arrived at the Sabiha Gökçen airport, which is in Asia, and our hotel and the airport we flew out of were in Europe. Below you can see the bridge that goes from Asia (on the left) to Europe (off to the right), with the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.

Istanbul is very strategically placed on the route from Europe to Asia; and spans the Bosphorus strait, which is the only way to get from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean sea and thus out to the rest of the world. That makes it a Big Deal to countries like Romania, Ukraine and Georgia who have no other access to the ocean. It's also a big deal to Russia, as one of their few outlets to the sea.

In its long history, Istanbul served as the capital city of the Roman Empire (330-395), back when it was called "Byzantium"; the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453); the Latin Empire (1204-1261), after the country was taken during the 4th crusade; and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922), when it was renamed Istanbul.

Once on the ground, there was clear evidence that we were in a Muslim country. (We made sure none of us wore shorts that day, out of respect for the local culture). We saw some women with the full burka (only eyes showing), and others with various levels of head coverings.

Woman in a burka in the Istanbul airport

While we waited in line, I pulled out my 3-way splitter, and we all listened to Istanbul (was Constantinople) by We Might Be Giants:

Istanbul was Constantinople,
Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople,
Been a long time gone, old Constantinople,
Now it's Turkish Delight on a moonlit night. 

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople,
So if you've got a date in Constantinople,
She'll be waiting in Istanbul.

When we got to the front of the passport control line, the man said we didn't have a visa, which was required to enter the country. There was a moment there where I wondered if it took a few weeks to get one, and we were going to have to spend the night in an airport instead of the hotel we already booked. But no, we just had to go pay someone 75€ to get a visa for all of us and then we made it out.

As arranged, Mr. Guy was waiting for us with a sign that said "Mr. Wilson" on it, and he drove us from Asia to Europe and right to our hotel.



We saw cool mosques as we drove along.

The Hilton we stayed at was the nicest place we had stayed on our whole trip (and "free" because of points from a Hilton credit card). It was about 10:30 p.m. by the time we got settled there, but I really wanted to go see the Blue Mosque, which was one mile down the main road from our hotel, and everyone said that it was plenty safe, so Linette and I went off on an adventure. Erika decided to stick around the hotel so she could talk with family and friends and because she was exhausted. (We were touring Venice all morning that same day, after all).

As Linette and I walked out of the hotel, the call for prayer sounded, and it was eerie to hear that being played from every direction with nobody seeming to notice anything out of the ordinary. (Click the video below to hear it).

We also came across several ice cream places, all of which had a little performance going on, where they would scoop the ice cream with long scoops, trick the customer into almost getting their cone several times, and even touch their nose with the ice cream sometimes.

 As we neared the Blue Mosque, we came across some famous buildings that I don't know what they are (but I found them in Google Maps and put their names in the captions).

Çorlulu Ali Paşa Cami

Firuz Ağa Cami

We were expecting the place to be deserted, since it was after 11p.m. when we arrived at the square outside the Blue Mosque. However, much to our surprise and delight, there was a huge party going on!

It turned out that it was still Ramadan, and during that month, people fast all day, and then feast and party into the night. The whole town appeared to have turned out, along with their little kids and even babies in strollers.

There was some famous guy walking around talking to people with a camera crew following him around. (Since the main point of our trip was Italy, I hadn't figured out much about Turkey, so I felt very much like I was walking around clueless with no idea what I was seeing. But it was cool!)

Finally we approached the Blue Mosque, or, as it is officially known, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii). It was built between 1609 and 1616 and is nicknamed the Blue Mosque because of its hand-painted tiles on the interior.

Blue Mosque from its courtyard.

Here is a panorama of its inner courtyard.

Blue Mosque from its courtyard.

There was a dress code to get in, which included long pants for men and a head covering for women. So we went out and got Linette a hijab or something like that, and went in.

Inside, there was a display of many posters that teach about Islam. Sort of like the visitor's center at Temple Square.

In fact, one of the displays listed The Articles of Faith (in Islam):

The moon was just rising over the mosque.



Even though the Blue Mosque is open 24 hours, we were not able to go inside the main building, because a Ramadan prayer service was going on inside.

However, when we came outside, there was an amazing light show just starting up, projected onto the side of the mosque itself. It was amazing. It was sort of like Disneyland's "World of Color", Islam-style. (You can watch a video of it below).

Linette and I just sat on the grass and enjoyed the show.

Just across from the Blue Mosque is Hagia Sophia (Latin for "Holy Wisdom"), which was originally a Greek Orthodox Christian basilica (church), constructed in 537 A.D. It served as the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople until 1453, when it was converted to a mosque (at the same time as the city became Istanbul). In 1935, it was secularized and converted into a museum.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.

For some reason, everyone was buying corn on the cob.



So, when in Istanbul...  (Must...resist...corny...joke....Too late!)

The Blue Mosque is surrounded by so many trees that it was hard to get a very good overview shot of it.

Across the plaza, a huge crowd gathered for a live broadcast of a TV show featuring Dr. Nihat Hatipoğlu, who is a famous scholar and theologian.

It was fun listening to the violin, flute and drums do little ditties while everyone waited for the show to start. We waited almost an hour, though, and finally at about 1:30 a.m., we called it a night and started to head back to the hotel. Of course, that's just when the show finally started, so we watched for 5 minutes, realized we had no idea what they were talking about, and headed back. Erika had been a little worried, telling people "My parents went wandering off in Istanbul, and it's 1:30 a.m., and they're still not back..." I suppose if we hadn't returned, she would have been in a bit of a pickle.

The next morning we had almost two hours before Mr. Guy was driving us to the airport, and I still wanted to see the inside of the Blue Mosque, so I busted a move, bought a rail token (then used it to enter the wrong place, so bought it again...), and rode the train down to near the Blue Mosque again.

Here is what the Byzantine cathedral / Ottoman mosque / current museum, Hagia Sophia, looks like in the day.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.

And here is a view of the Blue Mosque in the day.

I had to take my shoes off and carry them around in a plastic bag, but the inside of the Blue Mosque was indeed beautiful.

Interior of the Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque

I got back to the hotel just in time to grab stuff and people and jump in the van for a 40 minute ride to the airport.

Fortunately, all the signs at the airport are in both Turkish and English.

It was also convenient that we were traveling so light.

...unlike these folks who were moving from Azerbaijan to somewhere else, taking with them everything they needed to live for a few years. They were international teachers from Tennessee or something.

Security there was intense. They scanned our bags 3 times, checked our passports 6 different times, and Erika got pulled into an extra security check line that went really slowly. So although we got to the airport over two hours early, Erika was still stuck in line with 10 minutes to go. I stayed by the boarding entrance to make sure it didn't close without us and to stall if necessary. Fortunately, Erika made it through.

(Security seemed ridiculous to us at the time. However, this very airport was bombed exactly one week later, killing 41 people and injuring over 200 more, and grounding all flights for a couple of days, so we felt very blessed to have gotten through without any incident. Oh, and then a few weeks later there was a coup attempt that put the town into an uproar and grounded all flights for a few days. So we picked the right week to be there.)

Once again, we found that what my cousin Robin had reported to me was true: Turkish airlines had very nice food, and an onboard chef with a chef hat who mingled with the passengers. I was adventurous and tried the yogurt-based Turkish drink, found that I couldn't handle the saltiness, and tried the lemonade with mint instead.

I think this is Greenland.

This little red-headed girl in the row in front of me was playing with two toy airplanes. At one point she handed one of them to me, so I did the only thing I could: I started flying the airplane around slowly with appropriate sound effects.

Then she handed her other plane to a young Turkish-looking man across the aisle from her, and he flew it around with sound effects, too. I thought that was so cute.

It had been a very long trip, and we caught sleep when we could. (We're pretending to make fun of Linette here, but really I envied her ability to sleep on a plane).

It was a great feeling to be welcomed back to the United States of America. I remember my grandma Merrill telling about how she always felt a sense of relief when they touched down in America after traveling to other countries.

Unfortunately, we got stuck in a line that was over an hour long to get through passport control in Los Angeles, because I got flagged by the passport machine. Apparently there's some bad guy with my same name that they're looking for. Fortunately, we had plenty of time before our last flight, so it didn't matter much.

Soon we were on our final flight home from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.

The kids picked us up at the airport, and it was wonderful to see them again! We found that they had decorated the house with streamers and signs.

It was really a party atmosphere!

There was a sign saying "Happy Birthday, Dad", because of my birthday a week before.

And then a week after that was Father's Day, so there was a sign for that, too.

And there was another sign saying "Happy Birthday, Jared" since it was his birthday that day.

And then there was this double-purpose green slime birthday cake with Jared's candles on top and mine sticking out the side. What clever kids!

Here's the cake all aflame.

I had worried before the trip about something going wrong that would prevent us from getting to Europe in the first place or that we'd have a problem with the car; or get kidnapped in Istanbul or something. But all of the flights were reasonably on time, we had no accidents or tickets with the rental van; we didn't get anything stolen the whole time; we avoided the bombing and the coup attempt; and we saw a gazillion things.

I hope the girls enjoyed the trip, and I'm sure they'll have memories and a perspective that will last them a lifetime.

So, after seeing

• the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen;
• the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, fountains and a catacomb in Rome;
• the museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican City;
• the hill town of Orvieto;
• the sunset, David, cathedrals and art of Florence;
• the cute town of Lucca (with a nice bike ride);
• the leaning tower of Pisa;
• the five coastal towns of Cinque Terre;
• a missionary we knew from Riverton at church in La Spezia;
• the House of Juliet in Verona;
• the canals, back streets, and St. Mark's cathedral in Venice;
• and the Blue Mosque and Ramadan party in Istanbul

it was great to finally be home, safe and sound.

We slept well the first night, but Linette and I were both awake by 2 a.m. (10 a.m. Italy time) the second night, and were up for the duration.

It has taken until today (two months later) to get caught up on things and get this report written up, partly because of a backpacking trip, reunion, and other travel, but it was a grand adventure. And now I'm glad to be home.