Mar. 7, 2001

My main project for the Kurban Bayram vacation is to not work. I hope to relax enough so I start feeling creative again. Hopefully this will occur before the vacation ends so I can do something. However, I will most likely get that burst of creative energy right when I stop having time to do anything.

I also wanted to get out of Istanbul. Our original plan was to go to Sile and hang out on the beach. We changed our plans when we found out the place where we wanted to stay charged 35,000,000 TL /per person per night for sleeping in a wood hut. They also required a minimum 2 night stay. We decided to go to Edirne instead.

The weather was cloudy when we caught the bus in the morning. As we drove through Thrace, past bright green fields, it started to rain. It continued until the next day. I think it has stopped now. Not to be daunted by a little rain (I'm from Seattle, remember?) we continued on our way. We reached the bus station at Edirne. It was a new station, that hadn't made it into my Lonely Planet. It was a lot farther from town than the old one. A huge crowd of people were waiting for the service bus to town. There were no dolmuses, only taxis. Roshan asked the price into town and was quoted, 7,500,000 TL. We both had to use the toilet, since there had been no toilet on the bus and no pit stops for the 3 hour bus ride. In doing so, we missed the service bus. There was still a huge crowd waiting as the packed bus drove off. We decided to hitch. As we started walking a taxi picked us up. Roshan explained he had no money to pay but the driver told us to get in anyway since it was raining. The center of town was a ways off but not a 7,500,000 TL ride, in my opinion. R- gave the taxi driver 3 million anyway.

The first place on our itinerary was the Selimiye Mosque. This is considered Sinan's greatest work. I don't feel that I know enough about Islamic art to be a good judge. It is a pretty mosque. I really liked the tile work, especially in the Sultan's Loge (which was unfortunatly inaccessible). I could have quite comfortably settled down somewhere in the balcony and relaxed for a while. Most of the mosques I have visited make me feel that way. There were a few people praying, but it seemed like most were shooting photos.

As we left the mosque, it started raining harder. From the outside, the Selimiye Mosque struck me as being rather tall in comparison to other mosques I've seen. It is also made of sandy yellowish stone rather than the grey stone that all the mosques in Istanbul are made of. Of course, I suppose any stone left exposed to the air in Istanbul for any amount of time would eventually end up grey.

It was a short walk down the hill to the Old Mosque. It was being restored so a lot of stone and concrete was visible. The key features of this mosque are large words in calligraphy painted on the walls. There was some nice painting on the walls and domes too. Across from this mosque was a statue of Sinan. If you looked at it from the street, the Selimiye Mosque rose behind him as if it was part of monument to Sinan. There are a few covered markets and a caravanserai. The caravanserai was also built by Sinan and is now a hotel. It looked nice inside but I didn't look at the rooms since the listed price was way above my budget. One market was closed (since it was the Bayram Holiday). The other, the Arasta Bazaar, was open but didn't have anything worth looking at inside. It had been damaged by a fire and restored so most of the brickwork was fairly modern.

We stopped for lunch at a lahmacun place and then walked to the river to see the Ottoman Bridges. By this time it was raining fairly steadily. The river is probably very busy in the summer. There are a lot of tea gardens, bars and restaurants. However, in the beginning of March on a rainy day, it was empty. We walked over the bridges and admired the ducks in the river. We were both cold and soggy by this point so I suggested we walk back to the center and dry off in a cafe.

On the way back we walked around the Great Synagogue. This had once been a beautiful building but it had been mostly destroyed by one thing or another. All that was left was the front and back walls and the ruins of the sides.

Our attempts at finding a cafe failed. At my first choice, we were informed that they were full. The second one we went into was crowded and smokey. The third one was full on one floor and smokey on the floor that had space. Finally, I suggested we go to a pastry shop. It didn't have real coffee but it had eclairs, and few people inside, none of whom were smoking.

In this cafe we decided, since it was not good weather for walking and all the museums and markets were closed for the bayram, to take an earlier bus back. Roshan suddenly couldn't find the return tickets. We searched everywhere with no success. Then we ran back to the Bazaar to see if R had accidently thrown them away. They weren't there either. The only possible answer was that the ticket had been between the 3 million TL R had given to the taxi driver.

We went back to the bus station on the free service bus and approached the ticket desk. R- explained what happened. To my surprise, they not only agreed to give him new tickets, but they also let us switch to an earlier bus. This settled and the new tickets put safely into my purse, we settled down in the bus station cafe for tea and coffee.

The bus ride back was uneventful. We were in the front and the bus driver smoked. R- told me to be happy that we were riding the bus now as opposed to a few years ago when passengers were able to smoke to. Then the heat was turned up and besides roasting us, the bus began to smell like sweaty feet. The bus host was a young high school kid. When he saw R- was studying he began questioning him about what university he went to and the entrance exams, etc. Later he found out I was American and asked me a bunch of questions about America and Americans. "What do Americans think of Turkey?" he asked. "Well, they don't really think about Turkey," was my reply. "At least not as a country. Turkey is a bird." "What do Americans think about Turkish people?" "They don't really think about them either.... They are pretty much lumped into the category of Middle Eastern Islamic Fanatics." Somehow the topic of Armenia came up. One of the big issues right now is Europe's (or is it just France's) acceptance of the "Armenian Genocide". Once again, I am not an expert by any means, on Ottoman or Armenian history. However, I wonder why this hasn't come up until now. I mean, all that stuff (that is, whatever actually happened) happened over 100 years ago. The people who are calling for the acceptance of this are 2 generations away from the people who were alive when whatever occured, occured. In Istanbul, I see Armenians and Turks who are good friends. There are many Armenian churches, too. Of course, something happened in the East but I think what really needs to be done is for everyone to dig through Turkish historical records and find what happened from the Turkish point of view. I am also inclined to believe that some of the problem probably arose from what I will call the "hick" factor, that is, ignorant hicks in places far from the cosmopolitan cities who can't accept people who are different from them. I believe the "hick" factor was one of the main causes of the war in Yugoslavia too. Yes, I admit it, I am a city snob. Anyway, our new Turkish friend insisted, "We love Armenians. Turks love Armenians." In my opinion, this is definitly a more healthy approach to the problem than, "One of your ancestors were killed by a Turk 100 years ago so all Turks are bad." The Turkish government is by no means perfect. It has done some lame stuff to various people at various times (although the worst is probably to its own people... see current economic crisis). Eventually, the bus ride was over and we were able to dry off and warm up in our nice apartment.