İstanbul'da...iki

(As always, click for higher-resolution, and come visit me to, among telling me how much you miss me and how you couldn't top thinking about me when I was away, see these images in all their 12.1 megapixel glory.)

Two day ago, then, in the morning and early afternoon, we went for a bit of Istanbul sightseeing (read: religious whatnot, mostly), some of which I found interesting. Mostly, though, my unidentifiable feelings of resentment towards organised religion tended to smoulder as the day continued. I'll elaborate, but chronologically.

Because first...ROMAN RUINS!

Once upon a time, there was a very independent, culturally-rich civilisation that was composed mostly of immigrants who had ousted those who lived in the lands that they now occupied before them. This empire became very strong and influential, communicating with other cultures all over the world. They, however, dominated all of these other cultures and imposed their own culture upon them. They had very strange habits concerning hygiene, religion, capital punishment, and food, that others would consider backwards, or at least quite odd, but they thought nothing of them. Eventually, however, their empire became too vast. They could not feed all of their civilians and soldiers, their currency experienced rapid devaluation, and their middle class was all but destroyed. After their empire fell, the world as they knew it was controlled by malicious rulers who wanted to control all the people in the land. The people became subjugated and stupid, and such things as the fact that the earth was round were forgotten. Like the empire before theirs, people actually believed that there was a magickal man in the sky who had somehow impregnated a virgin woman with his son. The people of all the lands were so guileless as not only to believe all that they were told, but also to give all their money to those who were controlling them.

That's enough of the story for to-day, children. The story, obviously, was not too much in detail. When the empire fell, actually, it split into two. The eastern part became known as the Byzantine Empire. While Europe was busy with the early middle ages, Byzantium was able to preserve many of the ancient works of knowledge. Nomatter what, however, the Ancient Romans kick ass.

Outside, there were Byzantine remains: wicked awesome.

 

Inside, we visited an underground aquifer which seems entirely invisible from the outside. My jaw dropped descending the stairs to the inside. Water was brought from, methinks, over nineteen kilometres away to provide water for the city--both drinking and domestic uses. There were two columns in the back with pedestals of Medusa's head which were rotated ninety degrees. No one knows why, because the Ancient Romans didn't need a reason.

 

We walked along the street and bough boiled corn from a vendor. It was delicious, and not as sweet as the butter and sugar corn that I'm used to at home. It made me miss so much summer evens at 89 Storey Ave, when we used to walk down the street and buy corn to boil at night. Just walking by the corn vendors and smelling that sweet smell was enough to fill my tummy. There are all sorts of fresh treats to buy on the street: simit, which is like a thinner bagel smothered in sesame seeds; chestnuts, which are more for winter, but they have them right now anyways; corn, as mentioned, which can be boiled or grilled; and there's other stuff, too, but onwards.

We went to the Ayasofya (Hagia Sofia), which only pseudo-impressed me. Once again, someone built a wicked cool building, then it was made all Superchristian, then Muslims came in and painted over all of the beautiful mosaics, because everybody knows that making a representation of anything at all is a sin and you will not be in Allah's good graces unless the only art that you produce is girly handwriting and designs. Silly religious people. It's a museum now, and yes, it was beautiful, yeah yeah yeah, but there was all this scaffolding right in the centre because of some work that was being done (uncovering the mosaics or cleaning), and I had a hard time appreciating it, I suppose. O, and when the silly Muslims plastered and painted over the mosaics, they didn't even do a good job.

 

  

What interested me more was the floor and my thoughts. How many feet have wandered here? The soft marble and stone was worm away in places, becoming curved with age and wear, like sea stones. How long did it take to put this one stone, right here, in this place?

One cool thing was a giant marble basin. Even to-day, people will keep water in marble or terra cotta jugs because these materials are naturally cool. The spout is left a little above the bottom, so that sediment can settle and not pour out.

And sometimes, old buildings lean...

Another cool thing was the walnut tree. =)

Outside, across the street, is the Sultanahmet Camii (Blue Mosque) with its minarets. Why is it right across the street? O, because silly religious people decided to try to one-up the Ayasofya. Typical. We walked inside the courtyard, I fought more urges to rip burqas off women (a discussion for an ENTIRELY different time and place, and yes, I understand that this small mention of my frustration here makes me sound like a stereotypical western feminist, and I've heard the arguments about how it symbolises your antithesis to western capitalism and consumerism, but you should seriously consider interpreting hijab to involve more male modesty as well, and men leading around women in burqas with children in tow should at least have damn rings on), and then we realised that it was Friday, and we would have to wait until 1430 to enter, which wouldn't work.

  

I was pretty okay with that. I like that Islam is more of an individual religion, with no one leading prayers or things like that, but, as with anything, people take these things way too far and become way too ridiculous about everything. Enter oppression and ignorance. I'll stop now.