Home to D.C. for a Bayram Thanksgiving

Turks know the importance of a good holiday, or bayram, in Turkish.  There have already been three holidays of different sorts since my arrival here at the beginning of September.  For the first Bayram, I went to the town of Alanya in the south, and the next two were consumed by work.  For the big Fall Bayram, my mom kindly offered to bring me home for an early Thanksgiving.

One cool thing about flying Westward is that the sunrise is following you, making it seem as if, well, the sunrise is following you....

Amsterdam was the point of connection for my flight home, and while there wasn't enough time to venture out into the city, I made due entertaining myself in the airport.  First I stumbled upon a grocery store, which of course intrigued me in the interest of observing culinary differences between Istanbul and Amsterdam.  And what did I find?  A diverse amalgamation of international cuisine, all very difficult to find in Turkiye...

bratwurst



Ayran, a slightly salty Turkish drink



Asian food!

 

a maple syrup section

peanut butter! a difficult find in Turkey...

mushy, not-very-appetizing-looking salads...

mmmm beer....

 


And then there were clothing stores...

 

my first Christmas tree of the season!

And then, back to D.C....

On the Amsterdam-D.C. flight, I sat next to a Turkish man going to Bethesda to visit his son and grandkids.  I was surprised at how happy I was to speak Turkish with him.  It oddly helped my transition from Turkey back to the U.S....

The first thing I saw as we came in to land were the beautiful Fall colors in the Virginia countryside.  Istanbul is rather pretty in the Fall, but I really miss the vibrant colors of the New England Fall, and was pleasantly surprised by just how vibrant the colors in D.C. were this Fall.

 

First things first, after unpacking, and by unpacking I mean throwing my bags on the floor and digging through them, I put one foot in front of the other, in a very jet-lagged fashion, to a concert that my friend Paul's band, Metrorail, was having at Chief Ike's in Adams Morgan.  The concert was awesome, or at least, what little I could process of it through my jetlagged-haze.



All should go check out a Metrorail concert. http://www.metrorailreggaerock.com
(photo by Austin Purnell.)

Another really talented and wonderful band to go see is the group "Ramzy and the Brothers Handsome".  Also based in D.C., three of my fellow Sidwell grads started the band, and I was lucky enough to be in town for one of their shows this week.  Their sound totally mellowed me out and I was blown away by how much they have worked on their musical craft since high school, not that they weren't amazing in high school!  Just check them out...they have pretty regular concerts on U St.

Second things first! After necessary trips to the Verizon store and a physical therapist to help me with my marathon-training injuries (yuck), I made another necessary trip to my doctor's office.  Now when I say doctor, I mean doctor, but I also mean pediatrician.  Yes, I still go to my pediatrician, and as much as you all may chide me for that, I tell you he has been in the business for 5 decades - he knows what he is doing.  And if his eyesight starts(continues?) to fade, he always has a peppy third year med student who is learning the ropes on call to assist with the check-ups.


On this particlar day that I had scheduled an appointment, my good friend Megan, (popularly referred to as "Mega" by our friend group) was that third year med student on call.  That's right, Mega, my friend who is always up for (always healthy) fun, was in charge of assessing my physical health.  She measured me, took blood, gave me a TB test, assessed my eyesight, the whole shabang.  And if you ask her who was a better sport about needles that day; me or the 9 year old before me, she will definitely say ME. no question. (and my nose grows bigger and bigger...)

I couldn't find a picture of Mega in her scrubs, so here she is after just having finished the Marine Corps marathon this year, which she ran to raise money for MS.  Doesn't she look responsible? Well, as giving as she is, she can be quite heartless.  She pricked my finger and stole blood. 


And then there was Barnaby...too emotional of a subject for me to get into in public :)

Moving on! For about a month before my return, my dear friend D and I had been planning a cooking-fest that would hail all things Americana Fall.  The menu was decided in advance of my return:

Spicy Squash Salad with lentils and Goat Cheese,



photo by Smitten Kitchen

Haricots Verts (string beans!)



photo by Smitten Kitchen

Cabbage, Kale and Mushroom Galette,



photo by Smitten Kitchen

Spiced Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Frosting Layer Cake



The meal was a great success, and it was much fun to cook with D, who accomodated my aversion to chopping onions and juicing lemons (due to a terrible cuticle-picking habit).  Thank you, D, and thank you friends for coming over and sharing the feast with us.

Aside from cooking with and for friends, we had a BIG, early Thanksgiving meal.  Twenty-two people were in attendance, which is quite a large group compared to our usual five.  Big Thanksgivings are officially awesome, and I never want a small one again.  We doubled tables, tripled recipes and quadrupled our belt buckles.  I was too busy cooking to take pictures, this will never happen again.

Having an early Thanksgiving also made me realize that it doesn't matter what day the Holiday is celebrated on, we had family come in and friends come over and celebrate as if it were the "real" day.  My grandparents drove down from Pittsburgh, and Tim, my honorary father flew from Cleveland just to be there.  Interestingly, the people on either side of Tim on his flight were both flying in for their own early Thanksgivings, apparently this is something people do....

One thing I was really looking forward to while being back were my hometown eats.  The usual hotspots were visited; my favorite and the best, cheap sushi place in D.C. - Yosaku, of course Chipotle was a designation.  Last but not least I went to Sweetgreen with my dear friends Andrea and Kirsten, who I spent a semester abroad with in Turkey - so they understood me when I expressed "Istanbul seviyorum, ama çok, çok büyükşehir!!!!"




Kirsten and Andrea, at Krak des Chevaliers in Syria


After our nice salads, Andrea and Kirsten introduced me to Baked and Wired, at which I felt instant pangs of jealousy towards the founder for setting up such a place before I could.  Baked and Wired is a very cool bakery and coffeeshop in Georgetown on Thomas Jefferson St., that makes delicious and wholesome treats.  They use my favorite, New Hampshire brand King Arthur Flour in all their products, and are very outspoken about their desire to well be "baked and wired".  You an read into it what you like...I got the vanilla cake with chocolate satin icing...

Besides indulging in all of the aforementioned food, a lot of activities involving nature were had.  Various lovely dog walks, bike rides, and runs took place.  On a lovely evening, Camila and I went for a walk with our pups around her neighborhood, and we suveyed the local real estate and Fall vegetation...

photos coming...

All in all, it was wonderful to be home, though definitely strange to encounter the culture clash so suddenly - both ways.  Coming back to Istanbul after the Bayram was actually quite tough for the first day or two, but I quickly realized that I have a home here too now.  so it's good to be home...weird...:)

Tiles, Ruins and Bumpy Boat-Rides in Iznik

Our Late Antiquity to Byzantine archaeology class took a trip this past Friday to the town of Iznik, which is a boat ride across the Sea of Marmara and then about a 40 minute drive East.



Elif and Emily on  our pleasant boat ride on the way to Iznik

After a pleasant boat ride from the Eminonu district to the shores of Anatolia, we drove about 40 minutes, by plush fields of agriculture.  I spotted lettuce, wine vineyards, and then we drove by the picturesque Lake Iznik, a large lake on which the town of Iznik is located on the most Eastern shores.

Lake Iznik

Once in Iznik, we head to the city walls, built just after the Goths invaded the area in 258 C.E., they were constructed as a means of defense from future attacks.

map of the ancient cityscape

entrance gate to the ancient city

You can see in this photo the hole in which a lifting mechanism would of been placed to list a large gate resting between the stone layers of the gate.

the point of attachment of the gate to the city walls

After observing the gate and the walls in detail, we were able to surmise that there are clear dilineation of style, indicating different stages of construction; the gate is early antique, evidenced by the large ashlar stone and the more rudimentary cornice decorations.  The brick used for the walls has at least two different stages...

The use of spolia is a clear indicator that multiple stages of development in a place, which tells us that multiple civilizations inhabited the same city.  Spolia are the ruins of individual pieces of antiquity, for instance a column, and they are commonly reintegrated into the body of monuments of a later date.

our first sighting of spolia, a half column built into the walls

beware of falling rocks!

the houses in Iznik are generally one story, and many had plentiful flower arrangements outside

remains of a küçük Ayasofya

After observing the Ayasofya for an hour or so, we decided it was time for lunch.  We meandered down the main street of Iznik, into a little restaurant that turned out to be quite good.  Not only did they have a plethora of vegetarian options (as in they did not use meat-broth in their "veggie" dishes), they also had the Antakyan dish, Künefe, which is a bird's nest type pastry, soaked in a honey-like syrup, and lightly (?) fried with a sweet cheese on the inside.

Künefe

After lunch we went to the ruins of the 4th century St. Sophia Church.  After Constantine converted to Christianity, he called the first Council of Nicea (modern Iznik) in 325 C.E., to be held in the St. Sophia.  It was here that the first (of seven) worldwide council of the Christian Church was held in 325 C.E.  Around 300 bishops gathered for the first time to discuss doctrinal issues such as whether Christ was equal to or different than (Arianism) God were deliberated over.  Again in 787 C.E. bishops gathered for the Second Council of Nicea, at which iconoclasm (the use of icons as a means of religious worship) was tackled, restoring the veneration, but not worship of icons in the Byzantine Empire.

checking out the tiles

The presence of a semicircular altar apse indicates that this church was built with the plan to have a bishopric here...

If you know anything about Iznik, it should be about their tiles.  They are most famous for highly decorative tile production that was most popular in the 16th century.  These tiles are used in the royal palaces and mosques of Istanbul, so I thought it quite funny that street trashcans in Iznik are decorated with these lavish tile patterns.

Yeşil Camii, (green Mosque)

viewof the beautiful green minaret

We made friends with some local puppies...

Elif happened to have cat food in her bag...because she is an avid animal lover and I guess is always prepared for situations such as this.

see the spolia? 
This is some serious spolia; the rectangular shapes on the left side of the photo are marble faces that have been placed within the wall, quite decorative.  On the right are also some columns.

close up of the marble facades

gate at the other side of the city

and the dogs followed us...
After looking at the other city gate, we got in the bus and took a short ride to...a tile "factory," a very, very nice factory.  In our world of capitalism, Iznik tiles have become mass produced so that in Istanbul Grand Bazaar (and throughout the world), one can find Iznik tile patterns on plastic ceramics.  The Iznik Foundation (http://www.iznik.com/) makes very high quality tiles in the traditional Iznik style.  To give you an idea of how high quality their tiles are, instead of using ingredients for regular ceramic pottery, the Iznik Tile Foundation uses finely ground-up quartz in their tiles.  Very nice.

a painting station, you can see a tile in the design stage at top and a further along tile at bottom

employee working on a tea cup

The Iznik Foundation employs mainly women, from positions of transfering tile to the crafts(wo)men who paint and glaze the tiles.  Given that the Iznik Foundation does quite well financially, (they were just given a job of providing tiles for a mall in Dubai), this provides local woman with a wonderful financial and career opportunity.

design for a tile



after one glaze


Iznik Foundation glazes and fires their tiles at least three times, if not four.  A lot compared to the regular one or two.

tiles that have just been glazed...about to be fired?

so cool.

Now, we visited the gift shop, and learned that there really is a hefty price for these quality goods.
"Çok pahalı" - very expensive.  One candle holder cost about $85...

final place setting

incense holder on left, platter on right

We departed Iznik after a quick çay at a local cafe.  The hour-long ferry home was not as peaceful as it had been on the way there.  They were not kidding about big waves...we felt sorry for the clean up crew.

We all survived, however, and most of us headed off to the Beşiktaş area of Istanbul for a bite and a beer.  Beşiktaş is definitely at the top of my list of neighborhoods to move to next year.  There are a lot of pubs and bazaars, but it also attracts a younger, laid back crowd, as opposed some other more crazy areas. To be looked into at a future date...

Nick also had to pick up the turkey from Canan's fridge, in preparation for the next day's Thanksgiving celebration....(next entry)

on our way back to Sariyer, Nick with our 15 pound turkey in tow

iyi geceler - goodnight!