Bosphorus ferry cruise

From Europe to Asia for lunch and back.

Stylish Evil Eye

Every culture has its own traditions and superstitions. One of the things that all Mediterranean countries have in common is the amulet, most commonly called the Evil Eye. The superstition about this amulet is that it is supposed to protect a person who has it, from envious and jealous people.

Before, I used to think that those blue shaped things sold in the bazaars and souvenir shops are just things for tourists. What a surprise it was discovering, after I made friends in Turkey, that the Evil Eye is an amulet, a symbol that is really present in their daily lives.
Since then I've been finding it where only it was possible: necklaces, bracelets and rings for both - boys and girls, tea glasses, tablecloths, carpets, door, bags and so on, but it still was not the end.

One sunny Monday afternoon by the Bosphorus, while I was having a tea with my long time no see friend, her sister called to tell that she just left the beautician and that she is coming to join us. As soon as she showed up, it turned out that she just had her manicure and pedicure done and there wouldn't be anything special about it, if not two little details - one on her fingernail and the other one on her toe nail. These were nothing else than the Evil Eyes!

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of crazy colors nail painting but in this case I really loved to see how the elegance nicely matched with a bit of extravagance.

Hello! Yellow?

Listen to the song "Yellow" by Coldplay

Carpet stories

If carpets could speak, they would tell us fascinating stories. Not only about flying, but even better ones, about lying in one place for years.

Afternoon in Nişantaşı's Theater

On the 9th of May, together with almost 30 out of 200 conference participants, I had a chance to watch a performance in one of the theaters of Istanbul. As it was one of European Universities Theatre Festival's event, the actors were from Marmara University Ada Dance Theatre Troupe. When we got on the bus, which was supposed to take us to the theatre, I was sure that we were going to the Asian side of Istanbul, where the Marmara University campus is located. I discovered very soon that we were not going to cross the bridge... but before I became really disappointed, it turned out that the theater that we were heading to was in Nişantaşı!

Nişantaşı is the quater of Istanbul, about which I've read before in Orhan Pamuk's books. This place is well known for art nouveau buildings, famous people living there and the most expensive shopping area in Turkey. It really doesn't feel like Istanbul there, rather like Madrid.

When our bus stopped near the theatre, we still had a lot of free time before the performance started. We walked for a while along the streets, one of them was full of ladies selling flowers. Meanwhile, I've stepped into Nişantaşı's shopping mall called City's and by chance, checked my mailbox on the computer in the main hall. How is it that people living in rich districts get internet for free even though they probably don't need it and people in average and poor districts have to pay for internet cafes?

Few minutes before 17:30 the performance entitled "Sections", was about to start in the theater called RÜŞTÜ UZEL STAGE. I was waiting in the main hall, chatting with some friends and eating pistachio chocolate, which is an important fact coz we don't have such invention in Poland! The other people waiting just like we did, were Turkish families - mostly women with children.
As soon as we entered the theater room, it was visible that more than 2/3 of seats was empty. Due to this fact, I was lucky enough to have a seat in the 2nd row.

The performance begun as it is shown in the picture above. Actually, there were many more hands moving under the curtain... I have few more pictures (none of them was taken by me) but it really doesn't make sense to publish them here. Instead of that I will write about my favourite part.
The performance was divided into sections, as the title suggests and there was no need to know Turkish language. There were parts about media, books, music, education, love, rape and few other... The most unforgettable scene for me was about Music. So, in that moment there were many actors on the stage and I can't really remember what was happening with one exception:
There was a tall, thin and long haired girl sitting on the chair. The guy standing behind her started acting as if he was a musician playing on a cello that the girl was pretending to be. The guy was holding the girl's hair straight up as if it was a fingerboard. He was also pretending to be holding a bow and playing, while she was moving her legs and hands in the air, in the rhythm of the music. This episode took a couple of minutes and was so expressive and energetic that I still can't believe it was real!!

Parts of the Cello :)

While writing this post I've found an official website of the Theater Troupe that performed:
http://www.danstiyatrosu.com
And what is even more, I've found a video, which is a kind of trailer and luckily the cello part also appears for a second:
http://www.danstiyatrosu.com/1videoeng.html
Also, the entire soundtrack was AMAZING but the only song I was able to recognize was:
Working Class Hero by Ozzy Osbourne

And here is the group picture that we took with the actors.
Can you see my happy face? :)

House in Istanbul

A house where My Friend lives in Istanbul, is a typical house of a Turkish family living in the big city. A multifloor building on the street filled with clothing and grocery shops mostly, in the district in the European side, that is not in the city center, but seems to be, when you take into account all the people and cars passing by.

One of the grocery shops in Istanbul

My Friend's family owned the land, where their house stands now, a long time before anybody settled in that area. Finally, around 30 years ago or so, My Friend's grandfather and the rest of his family decided to build up their new house.

The building that they raised has over 4 floors, a lovely iron door at the entrance, which My Friend's uncle made by himself, a huge mirror and 8 post boxes just in the entrance hall and typical round stairs. From the outside it is painted white and from the inside, the staircase is pink. Each apartment is owned by different branch of My Friend's family. And so My Friend's family lives on the 2nd floor, her cousin and his parents live just above and so on... Still, they all lock their door.

View at the random houses of Istanbul from the Bosphorus shore.

I really admire this kind of tradition in Turkish families of living close to each other. In my country, families live like that only if they really have to.

Turkish tea in the Ottoman cemetery

On the 6th of May I got on the plane that took me directly to Istanbul.
During the flight I kept on reading "The Flea Palace" by Elif Şafak, a book which I bought few days before. I remember well, that one of the chapters was about Turkish housewives being obsessed with cleaning their homes and the other chapter was about cemeteries. The author was trying to explain how different is Istanbul from other cities in this matter. While most of the cities of rich cultural heritage, have huge cemeteries isolated from the rest of the city, Istanbul has lots of cemeteries of different capacity simply everywhere. It was also underlined that as the tombs and graves are everywhere, people got used to their presence. Obviously, I thought that Mrs Şafak was a bit exageratting.

Inside the Tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent

As soon as the plane landed, I collected my luggage and met Sena in the arrivals hall. First, we wanted to xray our stuff coz we confused the airport's entrance with exit. Secondly, we got on the metro, where a friendly guy suggested to exchange the seats with me, so that I could sit next to Sena. It didn't take long until we arrived in Sena's neighbourhood and then at her home. Her Mum was very friendly and welcomed me with various kinds of food that have not tried before, including börek and artichoke. And then the telephone rang. The person calling was Özkan, who was trying to set up the meeting point with us. It turned out we were going to meet next to the çemberlitaş tram stop, in a Turkish tea house located just in the middle of the Ottoman cemetery!!!

The place was nice and cozy, the owner turned out to be a friend of Sena's family. I've seen it before in some of Sena's pictures. After closing, the owner gave us a ride home, which for me, was like a night city tour around Istanbul. I had a chance to see the Sultanahmet Mosque, the old city walls and the Boshphorus shore from a different prespective. I almost forgot, there was 6 of us in the car - the driver, 3 girls in the back and... 2 guys on the front seat!

Shadows of istanbul