Under the (Freezing) Tucson Sun

Thus far this blog has focused exclusively on my international travels. While these travels are definitely more glitzy, I feel like excluding my American adventures is a mistake. Traveling, even to places that are almost as familiar as home, always results in new insights and adventures. On that note, here are some pictures and stories from my most recent domestic travel adventure- Tucson, Arizona. *All the photos in this entry were taken by my very talented aunt, Dede DeJager*

Holidays in Tucson- A slightly more dangerous Christmas light decorating style...

Tuscon is one of those familiar places for me, full of 22 years of fond memories with my family and Grandma and Grandpa. Even so, this year when I visited Grandma with my wonderful Aunt Dede, I saw a side of Tucson I had never experienced before. This new view of Tucson was mainly due to the freak cold snap that started the day we arrived and ended the day we left. Yup, freezing temperatures for the whole trip. To put this in perspective, the week prior, my cousins had visited and enjoyed some poolside 80 degree sunshine. Despite the chill, my aunt and I had a wonderful time making Southwest Christmas wreaths, hiking in our favorite canyon, and playing cards with Grandma.

Just to prove the cold for those of you who cannot imaging a chilly Arizona- Frost on the golf course
Snow on the Catalinas
And ice on the sandy dessert floor during our hike

Scavenging and Southwest Wreaths
As I mentioned, we made Grandma, Aunt Lizzie and Grandma's dear neighbors Southwest wreaths from materials we scavenged in the arroyoh. Warning- the aged snow birds of Tucson will think you are up to no good and a young hooligan if you wander around picking up seed pods. Just try it, it will be worth the entertainment to see the worried looks on their faces. Here is some of our loot:Grandma and I with her freshly made wreath

Brisk and Beautiful- Catalina Hike
Aunt Dede and I both love to hike, and despite her sore knee, we set out on the most beautiful hike I've ever been on in Arizona. I've hiked the Catalinas before, but never with such lush vegetation and flowing water.
Usually this hike is a dry stream bed, or a trickle at most. Due to the unusually high rainfall, the stream was gurgling in full force and washed over our trail at various spots.
We scampered like little mountain goats over widely spaced rocks to keep our feet dry.
Even so, in an attempt to capture the perfect picture, Aunt Dede ended up with soggy feet. Revealing my true nature, instead of being concerned, I almost wet my pants giggling. Good thing she already bought me my Christmas present...
A beautiful old tree against the crisp, clear sky
A crazy old saguaro , look at this growth! Apparently these deformed cacti are in very high demand, and people will come steal them from the desert. Therefore, in attempts to thwart all you cactus thieves out there, this location will be kept secret!

Can you believe how beautiful this hike was? Seriously, it was unreal and so awe inspiring. One of those experiences that was so beautiful as to inspire thoughts deep thoughts and contemplation.
I loved my time in Arizona with my aunt and grandma. Definitely one of the most special Christmas gifts I got this year!

A little police problem- Prince's Islands

Remember how this trip started out in such a dazed, disorienting mess? Well as it turns out, my parents were so disoriented, they thought we were supposed to leave Istanbul a day early. We did some last minute site-seeing, went back to the hotel to check out, and eventually convinced that we were actually supposed to stay another night and that we were a whole day ahead of schedule. Since we had already hit all the highlights of Istanbul, we hit the guide books and came up with the plan to visit Prince's Island- a 45 minute ferry ride from Istanbul. In this post, I will first give you a little insight into the magic of Prince's Island, and then tell you probably the funniest story of our trip.

Prince's Islands have a interesting relationship with Istanbul, once serving as the location of exile for princes and etc who got on the sultan's bad side, then transforming into a luxurious retreat sometime during the Ottoman empire. The sumptuous wooden houses resulting from the Ottoman boom set the tone of the islands today, pulling visitors and inhabitants alike back to a more genteel, magical time. This nostalgic and euphoric sense is only heightened by the horse-drawn carriages and carts and prohibition of motorized vehicles. The moment you step off the ferry, you feel as though you have walked into a enchanted village throwing a party, complete with flower crowns, charming villagers, and the steady clip-clop of ribboned horse-drawn carriages. What I loved most about the island was the sense of relaxed elegance, of a place that is so comfortable with its identity and so content with its history that it feels no need to rush into the future. While that may not be realistic for most of society in our constant race to the top, it makes the retreat of the islands even more compelling.

And now, as promised, a story. My family, as those who know us can attest, is generally very law abiding and upstanding. In this little episode, we found ourselves turned into giggling renegades, unwittingly breaking the law and narrowly escaping. It all started with the horse-drawn carriages, which of course we were dying to ride. As it turns out, the carriages are very regulated by the city, and you had to stand in a que and pay a set fee for a set time. After being told we would have a 40 minute wait, we decided to not waste our time and instead explore the town center. As we stood admiring some shop, we heard a sharp "pssst, pssst," and turned to see a man in a carriage waving us over. He told us that he could take us on the same ride for a cheaper price if we hopped on there. Always loving a bargain, we clambered in his little carriage, only to have him grab a camera, frantically take a picture and motion for us to get out. With great bewilderment, we climbed back out, and our would-be-driver started talking to a policeman who had just approached. It seems you are really supposed to go to the official line... As we stood there, another carriage driver beckons at us "psst, psst" while waving for us to follow. We look around, giggling now, and follow down the alley, looking around and seeing no trace of the carriage driver. Feeling a bit foolish, we stood on the corner looking around, and suddenly the carriage driver appears from behind us, smiles widely, waves for us to keep following and disappears down yet another alley. We trot after and approach the stopped carriage. The driver turns around, calls for us to climb in, slows as we throw ourselves in the cart, and takes off at a gallop! As we gallop up the hill, the driver turns around and says with a sly grin "please excuse us, we had a bit of a police problem". So there we Hamacheks were, renegades, on our illegal carriage ride, loving every minute of it.
Other than the rock start, the carriage ride was a delightful way to see the island and all the old houses.


We finished the day with a lovely seaside dinner, complete with the obligatory swarm of cats (probably encouraged by the scraps Nat and I kept dropping, just a hunch).


So if you ever find yourself with some spare time in Istanbul, escape to Prince's Island. The antiquated and friendly pace will leave you refreshed and delighted. Just make sure you follow the proper carriage procedure... I can't wait to go back.

Katie

P.S. Check out the Prince's Island style AAA. How many Turks does it take to fix a carriage?

Best of Istanbul

Before moving on to the surreal loveliness of the Prince's Island, I feel as though I need to take a few minutes to wrap up Istanbul. I have been told that Istanbul doesn't fully represent Turkish culture, in a very similar way that Milan does not fully represent Italy. The modernity and commercialism of Istanbul apparently dilute the charm and authenticity of the traditional Turkish culture, at the same time that it enhances the diversity and complexity of the city itself. If the warmth I felt in Istanbul is only the tip of the iceberg, I have to say without a doubt that Turkey is the most welcoming and gracious country I've been to, and I will certainly be back to explore the rest. This post will contain a few examples of my favorite images and memories from Istanbul that haven't made it in yet.
The picture above and below represent the playfulness and fun of Istanbul. These ice-cream carts are sprinkled all around the city, touting a special thick (think taffy) ice-cream made of full fat goat's milk and wild orchid pollen (a treat I only found the need to try once...). When you bought your ice cream, it was no simple, rapid transaction. The seller would scoop the ice cream out with his metal pole, use the blob of ice cream to pick up and hand you a cone, and then go through a playful routine of taking away the cone, or leaving the cone without ice cream, spinning the cone around, and finally handing you your treat. Look at the first picture, my mom is thinking "oh, how nice, he handed me an ice cream cone stuck to his metal pole," and in the next picture, Nat is cracking up due to the shenanigans. The people we met were so genuinely friendly, and so eager to engage, hear your story and tell you theirs.

Another part of Turkish culture I loovveeed (bias alert, I am a vegetarian) was their treatment of animals. Turkish people believe that you should treat animals the way you want God to treat you. Needless to say, the animals in Turkey were loved, fed, and otherwise well cared for. Calling the ever present menagerie of cats and dogs strays would be inaccurate, they were more like beloved visitors and friends. The animals were all so gentle (I didn't touch them, I promise) and peaceful, not at all like the skittish, edgy strays I've seen elsewhere. The government tags the dogs and brings them in to be vaccinated, etc on a regular basis. Our guide said the Turks
are horrified by our "humane societies," or kill shelters where an animal has a brief amount of time to get adopted or is put down. Just play out that scenario in your head through the lens of treating animals as you wish God to treat you, it makes me shudder just a little. All this to say, the Turkish people are gentle and compassionate.

I just had to sneak one more picture of Hagia Sophia in here. You've already read all about that, and how I feel Hagia Sophia is a concrete symbol for tolerance and understanding.
This was the view from my hotel room. I love that it shows the deck on the hotel across the street (and the blue patch under the sky is actually the Bosporus straight). The rooftop living spaces were amazing- I loved eating breakfast every morning up on the roof, having to choose between views of the Bosporus, the Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sophia.I included the above picture because it is an example of my own incorrect presupposition. The architecture of Turkey surprised me. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but I wasn't expecting all the wooden, rectangular grandeur. The Ottaman style houses were so beautiful (just wait till you see the pics from Prince's Island!). And the colors were so vibrant!

That wraps up my time in Istanbul. I hope that I've passed on, even fractionally, how incredible of a city it is. I hope that my future travels will lead me back someday, and I hope that you go as well!

Katie

Bazaars

There are two main bazaars in Istanbul, the Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar. Both were much more westernized than I had hoped, full of touristy trinkets. None the less, they were very fun experiences, and with a little imagination I was able to appreciate how magnificent they must have been in their peaks as the centers of trade for the Ottoman empire. Plus, the sales pitches provided some laughs and an ego boost! I managed to come away with some treasures, too (hello, ikat fabric!). I think in the case of the bazaars, the pictures tell you way more than I could hope to, so I'll throw in a few of my favorite sales pitches and leave it at that.

Sales Pitch #1: "Angelina Jolie/Princess Diana/Shakira (who me?), want to buy something you don't need?"Sales Pitch #2: "Angels, you need your Charlie, come here!"

Sales Pitch #3: "Lady, you need lady jeans? Come see my lady jeans" (this just sounded absolutely hilarious to my sisters and I at the time)
Ooo! Look at the next picture- this is the old section of the Grand Bazaar, packed with jewelry sellers. Look at the ceiling, pretty cool right?


And here is Natalie, or as the vendors started calling her "devil girl". At first when they saw her come up they would try to butter her up, "sweet angel, angel girl, come see my watches/purses/whatev." Nat would go in, find what she wanted and completely low-ball the price. They would act alarmed "Oh, no, I could never" and offer a slight reduction. Nat would smile, tilt her head and say "But I'm a poor student! I don't have any money!" And offer a slight bump up in her offer. The vendors would then try to appeal to my Dad, who would cross his arms, laugh and tell them he had nothing to do with our money, they had to deal with us directly. Natalie would haggle a bit, and usually get her "genuine designer fakes" for under half the first price. After purchasing her wallet, pulling out a bigger bill than she said she had, the vendor glared at her and said, "she's no angel, she's a devil girl!" and put his hands like horns above his head, much to the amusement of the other surrounding vendors and our family (I could have told him that!). Here's a picture of Nat with one of her bargains, doing a little victory shimmy.
There's your tour of the bazaars, I'll try to finish up with Turkey tomorrow, and then we can move on to Greece!

Katie

Hagia Sophia- an allegory for respect and understanding

I promised to tell more about Hagia Sophia, my favorite site in Istanbul. I couldn't bear to lump it in with everything else, it was too special. This post won't be long, but I felt like Hagia Sophia (or according to my dad, the "grand Sophie") deserved its own space, and hopefully by the end I'll have managed to communicate even fractionally why. Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque are situated directly facing each other, the Blue Mosque the clear attempt to upstage the older, originally Christian Hagia Sophia. Though both are beautiful, Hagia Sophia is serene, intimate and warm while the Blue Mosque is ornate, distant and polished. Maybe with my western preconception of what a holy building should look like, the openness and lightness of the Blue Mosque just didn't resonate as much as the more bulky, dark Hagia Sophia. But it felt to me like Hagia Sophia was this incredibly wise and elegant dowager queen, whose maturity made her so much more magnetic and commanding than the comparatively modern and sleek Blue Mosque.

Anyhow, Hagia Sophia was built in the 530's ad by Emperor Justinian in the Byzantine style. The building served as a church from the time of its construction up until 1450's when it was converted to a mosque. In the 1930's it was turned into a museum. As our guide Ata explained, Istanbul has plenty of mosques, it would be a shame not to share the beauty of the Christian art discovered beneath the whitewashing. Hagia Sophia is incredible as an architectural feat, as a parable of compassion and tolerance, and as a work of art.

What I mean by calling Hagia Sophia an architectural feat is that it was the largest cathedral in the world until the 1520's completion of the Seville Cathedral. Doesn't that just blow your mind?! I can't wrap my head around the fact that builders in the 500's were able to build something no one else could surpass until the 1500's. Do you know how hard the French and Italians and English worked to rediscover the technology to build domes? The duomo in Florence (1300's) was left incomplete and dome-less for at least a hundred years until Brunelleschi came along. The brilliance of the mathematician builders of Hagia Sophia awes me in the same way as the single piece dome of the Pantheon.

As I mentioned earlier, Hagia Sophia represents a true story of compassion and understanding between religions. This story exemplifies one of the beautiful truths about Islam. When I was in Religions of the book at UPS, I leaned that out of the three Abrahamic Faiths (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), Islam is the only one that recognizes the others as legitimate paths to God and salvation. At its root, and for all but the extremist Muslims, Islam is very accepting of Christianity. In the case of Hagia Sophia, this fortunately translated to the preservation of the Christian art when the building was transformed into a mosque. Instead of chipping off the beautiful, intricate Byzantine mosaics, the sultan simply ordered them plastered over, where they were preserved and protected. This was even more remarkable considering the strong iconoclastic movement at the time (that continues to influence modern Muslim decoration, not the lack of images, as opposed to designs and words, in the Blue Mosque). Ata even showed us an stone baptismal pool that was moved into one of the courtyards (as opposed to destroyed or removed from the premises). These gestures of respect and compassion made me love the building even more. Although Turkey, like most countries in the world today, has not faithfully followed this peaceful trajectory, the story of the Hagia Sophia remains a powerful reminder of what we should aspire toward.

And finally, I mentioned Hagia Sophia is remarkable due to its beautiful decorations. All the Byzantine mosaics sparkling in the natural light had me craning my neck and lagging behind for the entire tour. The most beautiful mosaic in the building, and hands down that I've ever seen was the one of Jesus, John and Paul, shown in part 2 pictures above. The faces of Jesus and John are so expressive and powerful, it's hard to comprehend how little tiles could make an image that touching. My dad got a kick out of the fact that when he was taking a picture of the mosaic, the facial recognition technology on his camera picked out Jesus's face, something he had never had happen while photographing any other work of art.

Ok, that was a little longer than I had intended, but I hope you enjoyed the mini tour about my favorite place in Istanbul!
Katie

Most of Istanbul

I just have to tell you all about our amazing official tour day in Istanbul. Our amazing guide Ata took us through the Basilica Cistern, Blue Mosque, Topkapi palace, and the lovely Hagia Sophia (or as my dad likes to say, the "Grand Sophie"). Poor Ata was a little distracted because his little cat had fallen out the window the day before, but the cat ended up being fine, and Ata was able to give us a fantastic tour.
First, you have to understand something about Ata to fully comprehend how wonderful this day was for me (you probably all know by now how much I lovvvee learning the history and facts behind the places I travel, you might even know I read travel guides and watch Rick Steves for fun...). Ata is THE most amazing story teller. He made every place we went come alive with incredible tales of love, passion, struggles and ordinary life. He filled in details so lush you could feel the places coming alive again right around you. And he orchestrated each visit so that the story was perfectly paced with the site. And he won over Tori and Nat by allowing us to stop for snacks along the way.
The first place we went was the Basilica cistern. Ata made us get there a half an hour before it open in order to be first in line to beat the crowds, and I'm so glad he did. As I'm sure you know, a cistern is a man-made underground water storage tank that provides water for the surrounding area. This historic cistern is remarkable not only in the fact that it is still holding water, not only in the fact that it was completely forgotten as Istanbul grew and changed on top of it, but is especially remarkable because of its beauty. The cistern was hurriedly built before some byzantine war, so the resourceful byzantines plundered nearby ruined temples and recycled the pillars.Because the pillars were originally meant for the glory of gods above ground, they are beautiful, and the cistern looks like some hidden underground temple or palace. The cistern was dimly lit, with beautiful classical Turkish music piped in echoing through the cavernous room. As we were the first ones in, we had the place somewhat to ourselves for the majority of our visit, which made the experience much more reverent feeling. We stepped out of the cool, dark cistern and back out into the blistering heat of the day.
Next we went through the Topkapi palace, the old palace of the sultans, abandoned toward the end (read: decline) of the Ottoman empire. The palace is built in a series of courtyards and gardens, back in the day, entrance through each subsequent gate was increasingly difficult and prestigious, culminating in the personal residence and harem of the sultan. Though the palace was empty of furnishings (they're all at the new European palace), there was an amazing display of some of the crown jewels, including a diamond roughly the size of a fist. Ata and my Dad started laughing when Tori, Nat and I ooed and ahhed.
After a quick lunch, we headed off to the Blue Mosque, where I was given a incredibly flattering bright blue tarp to wrap around my inadequately covered legs, and all us ladies wrapped our shawls around our heads. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I saw. After the pervasive, weighty darkness and gloom of Italian Cathedrals I experienced last year, the lightness and spaciousness of the Blue Mosque caught me off guard.It suggested such a different idea of God and worship. God was still big, still impressive, but not in an overpowering, looming manner. The light, delicacy of design, and openness combined with the sheer magnitude of space suggested the presence of a lovely and loving omnipresent God big enough to hold incredible dualities. I can't quite put my finger on it, I'll have to give that more thought.

That's where we wrapped up for the day, and where I'll wrap up this entry. Next post, Hagia Sophia, my favorite spot in Istanbul.

Katie