Domabahce Palace, Wedding Receptions and Boat Trip with VA Tech Students

I need to explain the photos that I uploaded a few days ago!

Hatice and I visited Dolmabahce Palace (means "filled garden" in English) on Friday. It is the biggest palace in Istanbul, situated on the Bosphorus. It was built in the mid 1800's, has 285 rooms, 44 halls, 68 toilets (!) and 6 hamams (Turkish baths). The styles used are neo-classical (very French-looking) combined with Ottoman elements. It has the largest collection of Baccarat and Bohemian crystal in the world. The floors are beautiful parque covered with elaborate Turkish carpets. All the furnishings are intact and original. It was home to six Sultans and in the 1920's ownership was transferred to the new Republic of Turkey. Ataturk used the palace as his summer home, and died there in 1938. To enter you must wear disposable plastic booties over your shoes. We had a bad tour guide, his English was hard to understand and his accent wasn't Turkish....or American...or Russian..or British. maybe he learned English from a robot? That's what it sounded like! The first part of the tour, the guy who was following the tour to make sure everyone kept up with their group made up for the poor tour guide, and told us many interesting things about the palace. No such luck on the 2nd part of the tour when the man doing the same job kept rushing us! And he looked mean, too!

Remember I had a craving for a baked potato? I've been passing them all along - street vendors sell them! All I saw were the toppings so I didn't know! Here, the toppings for baked potatoes are butter, cheese, yogurt, meats, peas and corn, mayonaisse, potato salad (!) and olives! I had mine with butter, cheese, peas, yogurt and mayo. Hatice said I was grinning the entire time I ordered it :-))

That evening we crossed the Bosphorus by ferry (about 1/2 hour ride) and went to the Asian side of Istanbul, where she lives. While waiting for Ferhat (her husband) to get off of work, we shopped and I bought a really cute jacket on sale for 3 Lira at Mangos (a store from Spain)! Then we went to a place called "Teacher's House". Hatice is a teacher (government school) and they get many benefits, including this one. There are Teacher's Houses in many places...they have restaurants and rooms rented very cheaply to teachers on holiday. (Teachers also have great medical insurance, cheap transporation fare and often free entrance to museums, etc.) This place was very nice and on the Bosphorus, where we could see the bridge - which changes colors at night - blue, purple, yellow, green, etc. It's very beautiful to watch and the bridge was lit at night only recently (I forget - one or two years ago they started.) There were two wedding receptions there - one Kurdish and the other Turkish and lemme tell you, the people know how to party! I took videos but still can't figure out how to upload them on to youtube??? It was great fun listening to the traditional music and watching the people dance dance dance, dances I've never see before :-)

I spent the night at Hatice's apartment. I saw parts of Jay Leno - in English - but was too busy talking to pay much attention. That's the first tv show I've seen in English in 1 1/2 months :-) Hatice is teaching me much more about Turkish culture and Islam than Nihal does. Nihal is "copying me". She is starting to buy clothes like mine, went on a diet to get "skinny like you", started drinking some protein drink (she saw I take protein powder), had bangs cut like mine. Hatice thinks maybe Nihal thinks I represent Western culture to her and she is imitating? She picked the wrong person to imitate - I'm not a Western fashion icon! My clothes are usually a bit ...unusual. (I just bought the coolest Nepalese pants!) People will begin to think she is very strange here... :-)))

Sunday I got to take a free boat trip thanks to a Turkish friend I met in Memphis (Mert) and his friend Husnu here in Istanbul. Mert got his MBA at VA Tech and ever since they have been hosting students in Turkey for a study abroad program. (Business majors) I was invited to go on the boat trip with them on the Bosphorus. We traveled down to where the Bosphorus opens into the Black Sea and the scenary was beautiful! But like typical kids, they spent more time sunbathing on the boat and making fun of the music on one of the professor's iPODs (think "Freebird") than looking at the scenary! But everyone was nice, and fun and interesting and I had a really good time. I talked with some of the professors a bit about the tragedy at VA Tech, but not much...If anyone reading this works at a university, I recommend these people for a study abroad program. The professors and students were very impressed with it, and what more fascinating, historical place to be than in Turkey!