It's Istanbul not Constantinople

Hey all! I thought it was about time to tell you about my trip to Istanbul that I got to take in the middle of March. It was a really quick trip; we were only in the city for about two days and on a bus for another 15 hours travelling, but it was very eye opening. I've been wanting to go to Istanbul for years so I jumped on the opportunity when a professor said he was sponsoring a trip for a class. My pictures are more interesting than me rambling on about really cool ancient things so I'll just post the pictures and add a little comment when needed.

Crossing the border into Turkey was insane! First, we took a night bus so we got to the border around 1:30am. We had to get out of the bus four different times. This picture represents time number three when we hauled our bags out, stood in the cold for 20 minutes so some random guys who didn't even look like border patrol could pat the tops of them. Very effective I'm sure.

Inside the Hagia Sofia, the church built by Justinian that was turned into a mosque under the Ottoman Empire and is now a museum. It was so beautiful in an ancient sort of way. Of course after I took this picture my camera died and I didn't have any extra batteries so this is one of the few pictures I have of the church.

The outside of the Hagia Sofia. The menuets were placed there after it became a mosque.

Me. In the distance is the Blue Mosque, which is right across a park from the Hagia Sofia. It's incredibly beautiful and I took about a million pictures of it that I'd be happy to show you sometime.

The Blue Mosque and part of the old city. This was near the old Roman wall so I'm going to hazard a guess that it's somehow related to that, but don't take my word for it.

Inside the Grand Bazaar it's very easy to get lost in its labyrinth of shops. This was one of my favorite parts of Istanbul. Everyone was selling something from spices to dishes to scarves and jewlery. There was also tea delivery service for the shop workers. Turkish tea is very sweet and served in small glass cups. Of course the shop workers are very aggressive and will try to sell you anything and you have to bargain with them. I'm not very adept at this but I caught the hang of it eventually.

A marker from which all distances were measure during the Byzantine Empire.

We visited the underground cistern and it was another of my favorite sites. I also took tons of pictures of the lighted columns. The entrance was a small unremarkable stone building but once I descended down a flight of stairs into the cool air I realized a giant lake existed beneath the street on which I had just been walking.

We visited the Topkapi Palace, which was the home of the Sultans and is now a museum. This is a model of the entire Palace, which seemed more like a garden with various buildings scattered about inside. We visited the treasury and saw a lot of gold and jewels. We also saw a lot of relics (supposedly - I'm a little skeptical that we actually saw Abrahams turban, David's sword, and St. John's arm, which was gross).

Men were fishing in the Golden Horn and then selling their fish to vendors who would cook it up and put it in a sandwich to sell to people. Istanbul seemed full of people all the time. We always had to weave our way through crowds to get anywhere.

The Bosphorus. On the other side is Asia. You can hardly see it through the fog. We didn't have enough time to venture over but I waved.

People seemed pretty used to foreigners but I still received a lot of stares with my blonde hair. We also visited a couple museums, including a mosaic museum and the Archaeological museum. All in all it was a wonderful trip and I'm very glad I got to visit. I would go back and spend more time there if I ever got the chance.

Orthodox Easter

Last Sunday the Orthodox Church celebrated their Easter and since Bulgaria is mainly Orthodox it was a big holiday here. Easter is less commercial here than in the States but for most people it has very little to do with Jesus and more with tradition. It's probably the only day during the year when most Bulgarians go to church. Bulgarians dye eggs but instead of hiding them for kids to hunt for they have little egg battles where they knock their eggs against each other and the person whose egg doesn't break first is the winner.

The Easter service is held Saturday night at midnight. I went with a couple friends to the main Orthodox church in town. It seemed like everyone from Blagoevgrad was there, crowded in the courtyard and the surrounding streets. The priests would walk through the crowd with their candles, chanting something in Bulgarian, and everyone would light their candles on the priests'. Soon the entire courtyard was lit up with candle light and at midnight the bells rang and everyone said (in Bulgarian) "Christ is Risen" and then broke their eggs. It felt very cozy nestled in the crowd although there were several times I saw someone's hair almost get set on fire. And I feared for my own hair as well. It was kind of comical to watch Bulgarians try to smoke their cigarettes and hold a candle at the same time except those were also the moments when I envisioned the entire wood church going up in flames. Then everyone headed home with the goal of keeping their candles lit the entire way. It's to symbolize bringing the living Christ into your home but most Bulgarians think it will give them good luck. Needless to say it was a very nice experience.

I had a heck of a time trying to light my candle

The church

Everyone with lit candles

Update

I think I should probably update you on the happenings in the BG during the month of April. I had several choir concerts around the country - Blagoevgrad, Plovdiv, and Sofia (in the largest hall in all of Bulgaria). The choir has around 30 members and it's pretty good (not to brag or anything). We have a very wide range of songs in our repertoir, ranging from Mozart to Frank Sinatra (if you think it would be weird to hear "New York New York" sung by a choir, you'd be right) to traditional Bulgarian Orthodox hymns. When I first saw the choir uniforms (see below) I thought we all looked like waitresses. Later I found out the vests were donated by a restaurant in Macedonia, so I was close!!

My friend Maria and I with our Choir director, Hristo Krotev.



Martin, Savina, me, and Mitko at our concert in Plovdiv.

Dinner after a long concert in Plovdiv.

The AUBG choir 15th anniversary.

Other than that I've just been getting on with classes and spending time with people. There's only 2 1/2 weeks of the semester left. This Sunday is Orthodox Easter so I'm going to go to an Orthodox service (their Easter services are on Saturday night at 11pm). I'll let you all know how that goes.

I thought I might tell you a little of what I've learned about Bulgaria since I've been here (and the Balkans in general I think).
Lesson #1: People wear their wedding rings on their right hand ring finger. There's an American girl here this semester who is engaged but she was wearing her ring on her left hand and she kept getting hit on by Bulgarians, who didn't believe her when she told them she was engaged.
Lesson #2: Let's say your first class is supposed to start at 12:15. This is about the time people will wake up to go to the class. This means that everyone is perpetually late for everything, except free food.
Lesson #3: This one isn't very funny and is a problem for the Balkans in general. The gypsies (or Roma) and people from the villages still use horse drawn wagons to get around. We also always have gypsies going through the big dumpsters behind the dorms. They tie their horse up on the tree in the yard. We've named him Clippity Clop because that's the sound his hooves make on the stone roads.
Lesson #4: Don't pet the stray dogs because they'll follow you around for the rest of the day.