Five times a day you can hear the calling to prayer from the minarets of mosques all around the city. This chanting often gives the city a somewhat mystical feeling. The history, religion and culture here in Istanbul are fascinating and I feel as though there is not enough time to explore all of the city's treasures.
Each day, I try to do something different to broaden my cultural understanding as well as to live my experience fully. Today I went to the Spring-Summer Festival. I arrived late and my journey there was interesting to say the least...
I had the pleasure of teaching a conversation class to one of the parents of the children at the school. She's a manager and engineer at an international company with many fabulous experiences around the world. We had such a wonderful connection that we spoke for nearly 2 hours, simply about life. I felt so inspired afterwards. It really reminded me of the passion I have for people. Although I do not mind teaching children, I feel as though I could have more of an impact on an older generation. She spoke English more fluently than any of the other teachers at the school and hardly made mistakes, and yet she kept saying she needed to improve her English. It was really her ambition and passion that reminded me of me. It was both motivating and inspiring.
Due to this prolonged talk, I ended up missing my bus. And so I waited for the next one, and after about 20 minutes it drove right by me. Wonderful. I decided to take a minibus to the Ferry. The minibus concept is an interesting one. the main busses go on all of the major streets while the minibuses will stop at any point along a more obscure route. Anyway, it was just me and a bus driver that spoke almost no English. I think I may have gotten on the wrong bus because when I said Ferry Boat, he started saying something in Turkish. At first he gave me my money back and pointed me toward another bus stop. Then, he decided to drive me there. But all the while, he was saying "you and me- chai, cafe" and then he also asked for my phone number. And of course I was pretending that I didn't understand and that I had to catch the Ferry.
So when I escaped, I ran over to the Ferry Dock and it was closed. Wonderful. So I had to take a different boat to Karakoy, an area that I've never been to. I got off the Ferry, walked across and under the bridge and when I felt sufficiently lost, I decided to take a cab to the Festival. The cab driver was really funny. He also did not speak English, he could only say "traffic" and "party", and somehow we had a conversation about Romania and which country I like more.
The Festival, called "Hildrellez", is celebrated as the first day of the "early summer" each year. It was behind the Blue Mosque on the waterfront. Going into that area, one could see thousands of young people. And I had to find two of them in this craziness. We decided to meet at a certain visible tower, yet this was all the way across the entire Festival from where I was. Weaving through the dense crowds, I wondered if I would ever be able to find Daniel in such a multitude of people. There was music and dancing at every tent, food vendors, fireworks, and drunk and happy people as far as the eye could see.
To my relief, I found Daniel and we decided to explore the Festival more thoroughly. We got a type of Sandwich with only bread and a special Turkish Sausage: delicious! We went and danced to the gypsy music at different tents and even saw an outdoor concert with Greek music sung in Turkish. They have some kind of tradition where they make a fire and everyone jumps over it. We did that too. On the Ferry back Kabatas the party didn't stop; everyone was still singing and dancing. Overall it was a really fun time.
No comments:
Post a Comment