First Day!

Today was the first day we toured Istanbul and got to see some of the sights. Istanbul is beautiful and the campus that I am attending is situated right on the Bosporus (the body of water behind me).

This morning we had a wonderful brunch at a very nice restraurant and the rest of the day we spent meeting a Sufi master, Cemalnur, who is considered by some of her followers to be an idol. We met her mother later and one boy came up to her and kissed her hands three times: one for himself, one for someone who died in his immediate family, and one for a family friend who had died. Even her mother is considered to be “saintly” and to be blessed by her is like being blessed by the pope or a catholic bishop.

We then went to Kariye Muzesi which is a 4th century Byztantine Church that was rebuilt in the 11 century and the beautiful gold mosaics and mural paintings date to 1340. The church was beautiful but the area was touristy and the lunch we had outside was much more expensive than other places we had been.

Last we went back to the mosque we had stopped by earlier and we listened to a post-maghrib event of Kenan Rifai mawlid in Fatih neighborhood. We sat up on the balconies while the men sat on the floor below. A man sung in Arabic almost the entire time but during the ceremony a man came up and puts drops of scented rose water on our hands to clean our hands and our faces (and to wake us up!). They also gave us candy for some odd reason.

We went back to our rooms and headed out to eat dinner. I had a wonderful dinner near the cell phone shop we had got our phones at earlier in the morning. The food is so cheap here! I had two chicken wraps (which were very good), fries, peach juice, and tea for less than 5 YTL which is about $3.