Where Europe and Asia Meet: Istanbul, Turkey (The Culture)

One of my good friends from my home church (Bay Leaf) recently moved to Istanbul to work there for two years, so a group from Bay Leaf decided to go visit her. Since Istanbul is about a two-hour plane ride from Basel, I thought it would be nice to join them. I was sad that Nate couldn't come along, but he was happy that I could spend some time with my friends. What a great husband!

I went a day earlier than the group from the States to spend some time with Julie. Julie and I can really relate to one another because we both moved to Europe around the same time, so needless to say, we had a lot to talk about! In our discussion about the big move and culture shock, we determined that Turkey and Switzerland are complete opposites! Switzerland is extremely orderly, timely, clean, and organized, while Turkey is chaotic, time seems to just be a suggestion, it's a little on the dirty side, and disorganized. But the Turkish think that it is organized chaos. The Turkish people that I got to know were very warm, friendly, and hospitable. In just one week, I grew to love them and their culture. The only thing I didn't like about the city was the traffic. It took forever to go anywhere!

On my first full day, I was able to go to house church with Julie. It was a wonderful experience. Here is a picture of us in the neighborhood.

Later that day, the group finally arrived from Raleigh! They missed their connecting flight in Frankfurt, which caused them to arrive in Istanbul about 6 hours later than scheduled... as if jet lag wasn't already bad enough! This picture was taken on our first morning together at Julie's workplace, where she teaches English.

Two of our evenings were spent teaching English here. This was a real highlight because I enjoyed learning more about the Turkish people as we helped them practice their conversational English. Here are the American guys helping the Turks with their English. Unfortunately, I only captured the faces of the Americans!

Their Homes/Neighborhoods
Some days, we walked through non-touristy parts of the city and I was amazed at all the apartment buildings... and satellite dishes. Click on the picture and see if you can count them all!

Most houses hang their clothes to dry. I think Americans forget that most people in the world don't have dryers.

It is so hilly in Istanbul, that some roofs meet the roads above them!

School's out! This was quite crazy because we were walking against the school traffic and most people looked at us like we were lost. Some kids looked at me like they had never before seen a blonde!

If you're wondering what all those things are dangling above the street, they are advertisements for the on-going election... aren't you glad we don't do that for American elections? I think they get enough coverage from the news!
This next picture is funny... some kids decided to catch a ride on the back of this truck instead of walking!

Their Religion (Turkey is 99% Muslim)
Istanbul actually means City of Islam.
This is the Ayup Mosque. This is considered to be the 3rd holiest place on earth, after Mecca and Jerusalem.
The men here are washing themselves before entering the mosque.
Entering the mosque to the call to prayer. The call to prayer goes off 5 times a day, with the first one sounding around 5am! I had to sleep with earplugs in when I spent the night at Julie's.Inside the courtyard. The tiles on the wall are beautiful.
We went inside the mosque and I had to cover my head and take off my shoes. They consider shoes to be the dirtiest things, which is ironic because it is not our dirty shoes that separate us from God, but our "dirty" hearts and there is only one way for them to be made clean... And that is through Christ Jesus.
It was very warm inside with one big, soft carpet stretched across the floor. Here are some men praying. The women are not allowed to pray with them... they have a separate area in the back.
Their Food & Entertainment

My first night, Julie & her roommate ordered dinner (in Turkish), so I had no idea what I was getting, but we did a little family style of salad, pizza, and beef with red sauce... it was delicious and also really cheap!

We went to a lot of different restaurants, but this one was especially different. The restaurant had games at each table. You could either play backgammon or rummikub. Most people just drank tea or coffee as they played games... I think we need a place like this in the States!
This was my favorite appetizer. They are flatbreads with either cheese and potatoes, cheese and spinach, or cheese and meat... I need to learn how to make this!

This was another really good "appetizer." I had never seen anything like it... it's called balloon bread. It was fresh out of the oven...

Julie showed us how to eat it... you have to stick a fork in it and then break off pieces with your hands. The steam that came out almost burned me!

This was the only meal I really didn't like... it's their version of a loaded baked potato. Where's the bacon and cheddar cheese??

I obviously didn't like it... I pretty much scraped off the toppings and just ate the potato.

To make up for the bad baked potato, we had dessert waffles from a little waffle stand. They were not like American waffles... these were really soft and I think, tasted better. You could choose from a lot of different toppings... yummy!

Chad, our fearless leader, is showing me what he got on his... which I think was a little bit of everything!

After our yummy waffles, we strolled around down by the water... It was a beautiful night. It was a little cold, but still beautiful. The new faces in this picture are friends of Julie's who also live in Istanbul temporarily... we all had a really good time together!

We stayed by the water and watched the bridge light up. This picture is a little blurry, but it was a pretty sight. (It looks a lot better if you click to enlarge it) The lights changed colors every few minutes!

Coming soon... more sights of Istanbul!