Happy Holidays: The VanKempens Go to Turkey

What a holiday treat. Mark's parents were able to come for two weeks, and his brother for one, to bring a little of home to us abroad-weary kids in Istanbul. And they provided us with an excuse and some extra resources to do some of the touristy things we couldn't have done otherwise.

Gary and Dorinda arrived two weeks ago yesterday, a few days before Christmas. It was nice for Mark and I to be able to show some people around for once, and to remember how far we have come since we were the painfully new kids on the block. Mark and I both had to work for some of the time they were here, so there was a nice balance of entertaining company and doing our own thing, for us and for them, I think.

Craig came in about 8 hours later than anticipated after missing his plane due to a confusion of departure and arrival times (it will go down in infamy as "Craig's Wii Mistake", by which he had to spend an extra $250 to get here on the next flight and therefore will not be able to purchase that Nintendo Wii anytime soon. Mark's boss was fabulous enough to offer the VKs her apartment for the week of Christmas while she was home in New York. This made for a Christmas in Turkey that definitely defied all my expectations. Dorinda decorated Pam's apartment meagerly but festively, and there were plenty of presents in pretty paper. The presents my parents had sent us were busy making our apartment look like Christmas by sitting under our two-dimensional paper tree and stockings.


No photos of actual Christmas day on our camera. Perhaps Gary has some. But anyway, Dorinda also brought a frozen Thanksgiving/Christmas feast with her, complete with turkey, stuffing, and gravy and completely fabulous. Mark also got to frost Christmas cookies in his new pajama pants, which made entirely too cute. It was overall a very well done affair.

On Christmas Eve we went to a bizarre Italian mass at my favorite Italian Catholic church on Istiklal, Santa Maria. After the formal mass, everyone (all 30 people there) gathered around this strange nativity scene with a blue-sky backdrop and palm trees and sang caroles to a badly tuned guitar in Italian, Spanish, German and French. Since we had been herded to the middle of the group, we felt it rude to leave, so we stuck it out. And it's a good thing we did, because when we had sang all the caroles, in came what seemed to be a much anticipated guest in a very nice suit and with quite the entourage. Everyone seemed very excited, but all we were left to wonder who the hell this guy was. He didn't speak Italian, and the priest didn't speak Turkish, so via hearing his speech once in each language, we understood that all he said was a lengthy Merry Christmas and Happy Bayram. Then the crowd clapped enthusiastically, and the mystery man was whisked out the door by his security people. Very strange. Later we realized who it was when we saw photos of the Mayor of Istanbul on billboards all over town wishing everyone happy holidays. So we kinda met the Mayor. Merry Christmas to us.

After Christmas came the sight-seeing. We went inside the Aya Sofya finally, and though it feels silly and obvious to say, it was fantastic.

Built by the Roman Emperor Justinian some 1500 years ago, it is quite the magnificent (and well-maintained) structure. It has been going through restoration for some years now, and the inside held an unsightly scaffolding, but it was over-lookable with the awesomeness of the history of the building. First an Orthodox Cathedral in the days of Constantinopolis, then a mosque during the reign of the Ottomans, and now made a "secular" museum by Ataturk, there are some very interesting things about this building. One of the most fascinating paradoxes is the retention of many of the exceptionally Christian mosaics, featuring Jesus and Mary and various emperors subsequent to Justinian.

However, all around the second tier of the building there were once carved stone crosses, maybe 150 of them, that someone had gone through the trouble to file them down out to leave only the circular base (though they didn't hide what they were erasing very well). Strange, indeed.

We also visited Dolmabahce Palace, which was the last residency of the Sultan before the empire collapsed and certainly succeeded in its efforts to look rich, decadent, and European. Here are some photos of the grounds and gates.
A weird tree-pond thing in the garden (Dolmabahce means "full garden"), surrounded by the only snowfall we got that Christmas week.

And here is some of the interior.

That ceiling is about 40 feet up. And the chandelier is probably 12 feet in diameter.

The Harem (which the tour guide was very adamant about meaning "private place" and not "concubine hoard" though there were two "Sultan's Wives" apartments and it was described as the place "where the women stayed at all times"...all very interesting) was where Ataturk had his private office, and we even got to see the room where he died. The bed is now covered with a freakish Turkish flag blanket.

We had to wear these funny pink plastic golashes over our shoes when we went in this building. It was funny to see the troupe of maybe 100 school children tromping around in them.

Interestingly enough, this year Kurban Bayram and New Years happen to coincide. Kurban Bayram is the sacrifice holiday where people slaughter goats and sheep and cows, and the family is supposed to eat 1/3 of the meat, give1/3 of it to friends and neighbors, and the last 1/3 to the poor. An interesting concept, but not a spectacle that I really wanted to witness. Fortunately, Mark and I had the five days off, and though Craig had to leave for the states, Gary, Dorinda, Mark and I headed down to Bodrum, a south-western seaside resort town, for the holiday. It was so great to get out of the city and to relax for a bit. The bus ride was about 12 hours, but the coach busses here are surprisingly comfortable and it was relatively painless. Our condo was pretty nice, and since it is about the offest of off-seasons, nobody was around and it was so quiet. The scenery was pretty alright, too. The mountains were almost as plentiful as the olive trees, and the mandolina (Clementine) trees were in full fruit.

For New Year's Eve, we played Euchre and I learned to play Bridge. Super exciting. Just as well if not better, since someone was accidentally shot in the head by celebratory gunfire at the big party in Taksim Square, and, like any city, Istanbul would not have been the place to be. It was nice to have a quite New Years on purpose (and not simply for lack of planning), for once. Taksim was pretty decked out for the holiday though. Here's one Mark snapped before we left.

New Year's Day we went to the castle in Bodrum. Unfortunately, I took all of those pictures with my film camera, so I have nothing to show. We also walked around the town and by the Agaean, which was surprisingly warm (though it was only about 55 degrees outside - no swimming for us). It was a gorgeous day. The town itself was disturbingly reminiscent of Petoskey or Charlevoix: some things, like the trappings of tourist traps, are apparently universal.

The next day, we went to Efes (the beer's namesake), or Ephesus. We had arranged a ride with an English-speaking driver through the consierge at our hotel, which turned out to be an adventure indeed. We were supposed to go in a Ford Connect, which is something like a van. However, that broke down that morning, and we ended up going in a Ford Tempo...with 5 passengers... Needless to say, the 2.5 hour drive both ways was slightly less comfortable than the bus. And the guy managed to take us around to all his friends' places to eat and such. That's how things work here - he brings people with money to his friends and he gets his cut. This is the same way the government opperates. You can imagine how effective that is, and how helpful to the economy. All in all, it was enjoyable, and I never felt unsafe in anyway...just a little swindled, but whatever. Here are some pictures!

We also went to the house where Mary supposedly lived the last bit of her life and died, but again those pictures are on my film camera. Though not thrilling, it was interesting to think of Mary as an old person with an actual house and having to go up and down that huge freaking hill just to get to the town at the bottom. As Dorinda said, it's curious to think of the stories as real people.

Our last day in Bodrum it was raining and cold, which was perfect because we only wanted to sit inside and read. It was wonderful. Then we had the overnight bus ride back to the city, and Mark and I had to work the next morning, but all was well, because the vacation had done us good.

Gary and Dorinda left yesterday after one final dinner at a tucked away Hungarian restaurant that I didn't want to find, but I am glad for Mark's persistence. We are very glad they came, and though I so wish my parents and sister could have been here, too, it was certainly a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.