Brenden & Carissa Go To Turkey, Part 2: New Year's Eve in Istanbul

Although we hadn't slept well, December 31st was a big day, as we woke up early to see the two most famous sights of Istanbul: the Aya Sofya (its Greek name is the Haghia Sofia) and the Blue Mosque. The Aya Sofya was immense and amazing. The scale is incredible—and in this case, a picture is probably better than any number of words, so see the first picture of me next to the pillar, below. It has been carefully restored, and they are still in the middle of the project (there was massive scaffolding leading up to the dome). The transformations it has gone through are amazing—it was built in 537 A.D. As a church, until Istanbul was conquered in the 1400s, and it was converted into a mosque. It remained a mosque until 1935, when it was converted into the museum it is today.

The Blue Mosque is across the street from the Aya Sofya and was built in the early 1600s to surpass the grandeur of the Aya Sofya. It is beautiful and has been immaculately kept up (and is, in fact, still used as a place of worship), but it is more difficult to appreciate its beauty due to the large crowds. While we spent plenty of time in the Aya Sofya, wandering and lingering, we spent only 15 minutes at the Blue Mosque; it was much too crowded to linger near anything in particular, and it is one large room, with everything immediately visible (well, at least the part open to the public is). However, the lighting was much better there to take pictures...;)

After the Blue Mosque, we walked over to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar on the waterfront and browsed for a while. We were able to buy some spices that we can't find in Georgia (vanilla extract, ginger, and saffron among them), and it was fun just to wander in and out of tiny stores.

Later in the day, we walked through Gulhane Park, once the private park of Topkapi Palace, and now a public park. From there, we passed through over to the Hippodrome, which contains many old obelisks and statues. Since it was New Year's Eve, we headed over the Bophorus to the heart of modern-day Istanbul, a neighborhood called Beyoglu. After dinner, we wandered in and out through the cobblestone, pedestrian thoroughfare before deciding a visit to Starbucks was necessary. I believe Brenden has covered the availability of coffee in Georgia quite thoroughly on this blog so you all know that brewed coffee and espresso don't exist here—it's all Turkish coffee (for those of you who Brenden made coffee for after he returned from Armenia, it's exactly the same thing, except with half the sugar) or instant—so you can imagine how much a treat real espresso was. Actually, there are a few places that do serve espresso in Tbilisi (the major English language bookstore being the primary place), but many of the places who advertise espresso do not, in fact, serve espresso, so do not be fooled.

About 11, we decided to go out to Taksim Square, where the big celebration was slated to happen. Our sitemate, Jason, had gone last year, and told us it was completely crazy—tons of people, all pushing and shoving. Since Istanbul is a city of 16 million people and this is their equivalent of Times Square, we were expecting humongous crowds. Instead, even at 11:30, there were only a few people milling about. The huge square was decorated for New Year's and some vendors were selling party hats (or Santa hats, if you preferred) but nothing like what Jason had described. So we decided maybe the celebration had been moved farther down Taksim, and we began walking. At 11:45, it became apparent that no one was really headed the way we were, so we turned around and walked back. About five minutes before midnight, a bunch of people came out of the bars and restaurants that line the streets around the square, but it was still nothing like what we had expected. There was no ball drop or countdown, but there was a pretty amazing fireworks display. I've never been that close to fireworks before, and the falling ash freaked me out a bit at first, but that was fun. The next day, we found out why the crowd at Taksim was so small: apparently, the Turkish government actually canceled New Year's Eve celebrations in Istanbul this year in memory of a PKK attack in Turkey. Oh, well...I actually wasn't too excited about the huge crowd anyway (I get kind of claustrophobic in large crowds where people are packed in tightly).

The pictures below are:
1) A lovingly preserved mosaic at the Aya Sofya
2) The dome at the Blue Mosque
3) The Obelisk of Theodosius at the Hippodrome (c. 1500 BC from Egypt)
4) Istanbul at night

- Carissa