"Tip the world over on its side, and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." - Frank Lloyd Wright (Entry 11, Day 6)

Friday, 16 August, 2013; 4:23 PM; bus

Just got done being a tourist in Edina; heading back to Istanbul and the host families now.

Anyway, finishing yesterday:

After the Topkapi (did I mention it was huge?), we went to the Archaeological museum.  They have things from Mesopotamia, including the world's oldest love poem (also, nobody who has seen fragments of Cuneiform is allowed to call my handwriting small ever again); also, they had sarcophagi from Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as things like headstones and statues from the latter two (And the Alexander Sarcophagus!  That was pretty cool).  I kept trying to translate the Greek, but it wasn't really working.  What I found interesting is that they translated chaire/ chairete as 'farewell,' when I've always learned those to mean 'hello' or the singular/ plural imperative of 'rejoice.'

After the Archaeological museum, we went to the Hagia Sophia, which was really cool, if only because it's housed two different faiths.  You can kind of tell in the artwork - it's hard to get rid of the Christian mosaics, especially the ones on the ceiling, but there are places where crosses have been painted over with Muslim Iconography (I assume it's Muslim - Islam was the next faith to take up there).  Also, the Muslim influence is evident in the Arabic calligraphy hung up there - I think they're the names of Allah and the Prophets, and they show up in almost every mosque.  It's impressive in the fact that the idea, at least, of the Hagia Sophia has been on that spot for at least 1500 years (the building burned a few times).
After the Hagia Sophia, we went to the cisterns, which was really cool. The columns are all lit from the bottom so it looks a little creepy and a lot of epic.  There are always to go see through it, which is cool. there's one offshoot that leads to a column carved with Evil Eyes, and two more that each have a large carving of Medusa's face at the base.  For some reason, I remember the whole place smelling like a Smithsonian Museum.

After that was an info session about the Blue Mosque, and then the Blue Mosque itself.  We went to the info thing, partly because it sounded interesting and partly because evening prayers weren't done yet.

The mosque itself is enormous and is called the Blue Mosque for the simple fact that almost all of the 21000 tiles that decorate the inside have some little portion of blue on them somewhere.  In terms of grandeur, it's for sure more impressive than the Hagia Sophia, but I think the Hagia Sophia has more impressive of a story.

Interestingly, the mosques haven't really started running together in my had yet.  I know I had a major problem with the Italian Cathedrals, but I think part of it is that the mosques are far more individualized than the cathedrals.  Also, I never really got any backstories for any of the places in Italy.

For example, a sample of a conversation in Italy:

Mom: we're going to St. John's Basilica Today!!
Me: okay... what happened at St. John's Basilica?
Mom: I don't know... but it's famous, so we're going.
Me: blargh.

Here, though, the backstory is more readily available, so the whole thing is a lot more interesting.

I'm done for yesterday.  Will do today's recap tonight.

p.s. fish dinner last night = super good!!