All in all, it was a rather full day.
Cathy and I savored our usual breakfast of eggs, cheese, olives and vegetables. The same seagull perched next to the same window and gave us the stink-eye as we greedily gobbled up our food. I gave him the stink-eye right back and continued in my conversation with Cathy about the plight of snorers and the untimely, dreary weather.
"It's been perfect the last couple of weeks," I whined through a mouthful of white cheese. "Ach. It's too bad that everything got so nasty just when you arrived."
"It's okay. It'll just give us something to overcome."
New goal in life. React to bad weather like Cathy.
"But I'm glad we did the Bosphorus tour yesterday. It would have been miserable being on the boat in this weather," I jammed my fingers into my coat pockets as we walked across the mostly abandoned square to entrance of the Blue Mosque.
"I think it's ten degrees colder today than it was yesterday," Cathy added as she pulled her light blue headband down over her ears.
We had gotten an early start and were well ahead of the frenzied, gawking crowds. The Blue Mosque opened to tourists at 8:30 and I believe we marched up to the entrance at 8:35.
It's fabulous that Cathy is an early riser. I hate missing out on mornings.
This was my second time in the Blue Mosque, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as the first. I appreciate the incredible detail in the tile work and I love being in an atmosphere of appreciative people.
After the Blue Mosque, we took a quick jaunt over to the Hagia Sophia. Every step of the way we were harassed by Turkish vendors spouting off the typical lines of, "Hello ladies, how are you?" and "Are you going to the museum? Do you speak English? Do you want an English guide?" and "Where are you from? America?" and "I think it is my turn now."
I have long since adopted the harsh strategy of pretending that these people are talking to the tourists walking behind me. I simply ignore them and go about my business as if nary I word had been uttered. I do not feel like this is rude because they are the ones interrupting me as I go about my business and I ought not feel obligated to address them when I know that all they want is to sell me something I don't need.
Cathy responds to most of the vendors with a very cheerful, "No, but thank-you!" I'm inspired and refreshed by her extraordinary level of politeness, but I'm curious regarding how long it will last.
This was my first time in the Hagia Sophia. Cathy (who has been amazingly generous to me throughout this whirlwind vacation) bought my ticket and we journeyed inside the courtyards of the church turned mosque turned museum.
I get so much more out of exploring with Cathy because she tends to notice the things I would have missed on my own.
"You see how that angel has a face and the other two don't? I wonder what that means."
"Wow... I didn't notice...you're right..." I stared at the angels and berated myself for not paying better attention.
Don't spend ALL your time watching the people watch the angels. The angels are worth looking at too, Bourget.
"You see the balcony up there? I wonder how you get up to it..."
How in the world did I not see the balcony?
After the Hagia Sophia, we plowed through several pushy vendors towards Topkapı Palace. I didn't have remarkably high expectations of the palace -- I'd seen one in Morocco in 2012 and the tilework had been great, but the whole experience had been on the sterile side.
But Topkapı Palace was an unexpected delight and the glamorous craftsmanship took my breath away. The lavish, extravagant rooms with exquisite tile work, mother-of-pearl doors, gleaming stained glass windows and emeralds the size of chicken eggs gave me an entirely new mental picture of the word "luxury".
 |
| Ha. |
"I just can't believe this sort of lifestyle was normal for some people," I managed to say after I'd collected my jaw from the marble floor.
On our way out of the palace grounds (tulip gardens), we were interrupted by two friendly looking blokes who shared my love of pomegranate juice. I addressed them warily, worried that they were going to get our names, our nationalities and then ask us to come buy their carpets, lamps, dried fruit or other Turkish paraphenalia.
"We're from Colorado," endlessly polite Cathy offered up our homestate to the well-dressed hoodlums who'd used my favorite juice as an "in".
"Colorado? Denver? Boulder? Colorado Springs?"
Oh... clearly this chap knows what he's talking about. Maybe he isn't a hoodlum.
"Grand Junction. Near the Utah border. You seem to know Colorado. Have you been there?" my good friend pleasantly inquired.
Turns out both men had spent significant periods of their lives in the states and were not at all eager to sell us carpets or lamps or dried fruit. They were, however, eager to offer me a job selling carpets in their carpet shop this summer.
"I am very serious," said the gray-haired, persuasive man who'd "lived in America longer than you've been alive". "I need clean-cut Americans to work in my shop to deal with American customers. You will make so much money. Thousands of dollars in one month. I can teach you all about carpets and all about people. You will know when they are lying and when they are telling the truth. You will be at home here. Do you like swimming? I have a pool. I have a dryer. I have a washer and a dryer. Do you like films? I have a big TV. You will be at home. If you want the job, I am so serious. Do you want to see my shop? You will love it. It is like a museum."
"Sure, why not take a look?" Cathy replied after casting me a quick glance.
"It is only ten minutes away. You will love it," the Turk drove his point home. Like a true salesman.
And with that, we were led up the street to a little carpet shop that did indeed resemble a museum. A creaky, freshly painted circular staircase wound up several flights, the walls were bedecked with antique carpets and ornamental headdresses hung from the ceiling.
"I love old things," the man stated in response to our appreciative exclamations.
After listening to several more minutes of the loquacious carpet seller presenting his, "you should work for me," case, Cathy and I bid the men farewell and tiptoed down the treacherous staircase and set off in search of lunch.
Lunch is never hard to find in Istanbul.
"I don't think I'll take the job," I mused over my roasted eggplant. "I want more direction in my life. I have skills teaching English and teaching yoga and I want to pursue those things. Actively."
Then the subject quickly turned to an enthusiastic dissection of the light, simple, flavorful mushrooms on the appetizer plate between us. Green onions, dill, parsley and a few drops of lemon juice managed to create a divine fungi dish that dominated most of lunch's conversation with random interjections of, "Well, maybe if they marinated them overnight..."
It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when we finished our final sips of apple tea (a present from the waiter who'd taken a liking to Cathy. Probably because she's so polite) and starting discussing plans for the rest of the day.
"I need to be on the tram by four because I have a lesson with the airport guys tonight. And we're pretty museumed out for the day, yes?"
Yes. We were both decidedly museumed out for the day. The museum of modern art could wait until Tuesday, when our overstimulated brains had recovered enough to appreciate the art and our stiff bodies could tolerate another two hours of standing.
"Should we ask the waiter about a hamam he recommends?" Cathy suggested as she donned her purple jacket.
"Pardon?" I called the waiter over. "Is there a hamam nearby that you would recommend?"
"Yes. It is clean and not so expensive. It is nearby. Walk up the street and turn," he motioned to the right and smiled.
"That's the one that Seher said we should go to," I said to Cathy as soon as the waiter had returned to his wrangling duties at the front of the restaurant.
So we followed the T1 line up the street and turned right into a small alley before the Grand Bazaar.
"How long is the massage?" Cathy asked, aware of my time restrictions.
"One hour," the woman behind the counter answered curtly. "You take these bracelets. Pay now."
After undressing in a small changing room in the main area, we were shown the toilets and the sauna. It was Cathy's first experience with a Turkish toilet (the ones where you stand on grooved surfaces and squat over a little hole) and it was certainly my most epic experience with a Turkish toilet, as when I flushed, the water gushed onto the walls and over my feet on its way down the waste hole.
probably not the best first experience for Cathy...
The initial stage of the hamam was a sauna, so we gingerly hopped inside the small, sweltering room in our towels and turned over the fifteen-minute hourglass.
"Fifteen minutes?" I could hardly breathe, the heat was so intense.
"I think I can make five," Cathy closed her eyes and concentrated.
I tried to slow down my breath, but all the mucus in my nasal cavities evaporated and my nose hairs started to burn. So I laughed and the burning went into my throat and lungs. I could see my friend's back turning scarlet and I felt all the blood in my body relocate to my cheeks. Cathy and I both squinted at the hourglass and bolted from the searing torture chamber as soon as the sand trickled past the five minute mark.
"We couldn't make fifteen minutes," flushed and wobbly, we apologized to the stern woman who'd given us our bracelets.
"Come," she ignored the apology and motioned us into a back room containing stone basins rippling with hot water and plastic bowls propped behind the dripping spigots. She laid our towels out on either side of the basin and then tossed a bowl of hot water over Cathy. To demonstrate what we were supposed to do to ourselves. I laughed, Cathy yelped, and the stern Turkish woman kept on looking stern.
"Wash, ladies."
So Cathy and I sat down (stripped of our towels and stark naked) on either side of the basin and commenced in dousing ourselves with bowls of hot, chlorinated water.
"If I were any less mature, I would challenge you to a water fight," I giggled as the water ran down my legs.
Cathy smiled, "I think a sign of being more mature is that you get just as much enjoyment from the idea as from the action. What do you think that ladder is for?"
I stopped looking at the rivulets of water running down my legs and started paying attention to the room in which we sat splashing. The ceiling was domed and dirty white and had several small carved holes through which weak light filtered. The textured walls had once been white (I assume), but had gracelessly transitioned into an off-white accented with bright green.
The floor was stone. Hard, hard stone.
"These are the moments you just don't forget," I commented after mumbling some gobbledygook answer about the ladder maybe being used to help clean the ceiling.
The austere woman emerged from the hall. This time she was accompanied by a rather plump friend who seemed significantly more amiable. I eyed them nervously, hoping that the administrator of my massage would be the one who didn't look like she could (or could not) be hiding daggers in her boots. Fortunately, neither masseuses were wearing boots. Both were clad only in flimsy, string bikini bottoms. I tried not to laugh.
Why is this so funny to me?
"Come, ladies."
We followed the mostly naked, generously endowed Turkish women into the adjacent room. Once again, there were water basins in the corner, but there were also what appeared to be hostile stone massage tables in the middle of the room.
This looks like where the White Witch stabbed Aslan to death, I was taken aback. I always thought massage tables were supposed to be relaxi --
"Sit, lady," the plump, friendly woman interrupted my thoughts.
I sat.
"Turn, lady," she gave a small flick of her wrist to help demonstrate the direction in which she desired me to turn.
I turned.
I heard splashing water and a yelp from Cathy. My body went rigid with anticipation. What now? Will they scald my skin with even hotter water? Will they spray me down with a --
And a bowl of searing hot water hit my back. Hard.
I laughed.
The woman ignored my laughter and continued to dispassionately catapult bowls of water at me. After I'd been re-soaked and was probably the color of one of Judy's blood-red roses, the buxom masseuse started briskly rubbing me up and down.
"Turn, lady."
I carefully rolled onto my back, trying to keep my elbows and knees tucked in and safe from Aslan's grim table of death.
The mostly naked Turk rubbed my chest, belly and legs. As she grabbed my arms, my hands somehow got quite stuck in the... umm... region of her well-endowed chest. Probably through no fault of hers and definitely through no fault of mine. When you're that voluptuous, things just tend to get caught there. Like cookie crumbs and spaghetti sauce and the hands of unsuspecting American clients.
I tried not to laugh.
"Sit, lady"
I sat. I can't remember what she did to me while I was sitting. I was trying too hard not to laugh.
"Turn, lady."
I turned onto my stomach, glancing over at Cathy as I did so. As she seemed one step ahead of me in the process, I wanted a clue as to what was coming next.
A glove... what are they going to do to us with a glove? Is it because Turkish people are so afraid of germs that -- ARGHOUCHMYGODMAKEITSTOP...
The exfoliation had begun. My masseuse grabbed a thick, textured glove and proceeded to vigorously scrub thick layers of dead skin from my body.
I am 24 years old. I have never, in these 24 years of living, exfoliated.
I think I left half a pound of skin in the Turkish hamam. My masseuse didn't even have to hide her disgust. The amount of skin I shed transcended, surmounted the emotion "disgust" and went merrily skipping straight along to a shocked "is this humanly possible?"
"Turn, lady."
I saw the thick, chunky debris of my epidermal layer covering what remained of my skin.
This is epic. I feel like a phoenix. I shall rise out of the ashes -- no. Phoenixes do that whole self-combustion thing. I just shed a few layers of dead cells and turned really red. I feel like a SNAKE. I shall slither out of these discarded scales --
"Sit, lady."
I sat.
The exfoliation continued up the front of my body and over my face.
If you steal all my eyelashes, I will put up a fuss when you tell my friend to "pay, lady."
"Turn, lady."
I shot another quick glance at Cathy before my forehead met hard, white marble.
Bubbles?
A light, feathery brush swept across my skin, enveloping me with scented bubbles lighter than meringue and more mountainous than my eight-year-old self could ever have dreamed possible during the many afternoons she spent playing dinosaurs in the tub with her little brother.
How is this happening? I don't feel a sponge or a brush or hands or... how are the bubbles getting from the masseuse to me? Are they dropping from the ceiling? Is the entire room filling with bubbles and I'm being engulfed with everything else? Is --
"Stand, lady."
I stood. Sadly, this time.
I liked the bubbles...
I sulked as the lesser-of-two-evils, half-naked lady threw more bowls of hot water at me, washing the final bubbles off my singular and sensitive layer of skin. Then Cathy and I were led to the adjacent room where dry towels were laid on slabs of marble and we were instructed to relax.
We were left alone without further explanation.
"At least yours said "lady"," the ever good-natured Cathy commented as we "relaxed" on the marble. "Mine only said, "turn!" "sit!" You got the gentler one. When she pulled both my arms behind my back, I thought, "my arms don't go that way!" Oh... it hurt."
We finally wandered out (after we'd realized that they weren't coming to throw more water at us), put on our clothes and hastened back to the Spectra hotel. It was nearly three thirty and I needed to be on the tram by four o'clock to meet the airport guys #2 in Beylikduzu at six o'clock.
"I love that all that just happened!" I crowed exuberantly and deliriously to my wet, flushed companion. "Thanks for the bizarrely wonderful experience."
"Well, you know," Cathy adjusted her bag, "I'm happy that I can afford to share experiences like this. And you'll be able to give a lot to the world someday, too."
Ah... I hope. I hope I'm able to give some of this goodness back.
I hopped on the tram just before four o'clock. It was going to be tight, but I'd make it back to Beylikduzu by around five thirty and hopefully have time to scarf down a quick dinner before going to practice English with my group of Turkish technicians. I listened to one of my favorite podcasts about people overcoming psychological issues and found my own space inside my head to escape the crowded tram. I was so caught up in the space inside my head that I didn't hear the phone ring and certainly didn't hear the "you have a text" tone. As the metrobus approached my stop, I pulled out the phone to check on my time.
One missed call. Umit. One missed text. Lesson canceled today. Well, I've always said that I need to work on becoming more flexible. And not only in my hips.
So I power-walked the half-hour trek back to Umit's apartment and settled into the silence of an empty flat. It was cold and I was tired. Seher, Ayse and Öykü had flown to Izmir earlier that day and Umit was still in Topkapī with his family. I made myself a large cup of nescafe to hold, browsed the internet, took a shower, thought about redesigning my website and caught up with Umit when he breezed through the door three hours later.
I crept into our room at 10:30. Cathy was already sleeping, so I softly slipped into the bathroom and got ready for bed.
Food tour tomorrow... ah!
I found it quite difficult to fall asleep. Thinking about a food tour was almost as distracting as thinking about Santa Claus climbing down the chimney.
No comments:
Post a Comment