Pamukkale - the Cotton Castle

The Cotton Castle has nothing to do with any kingdom. It is a breathtaking natural wonder, which looks like frozen waterfalls but in reality is a white cliff covered with white minerals, left by the flowing down, hot water from an underground spring. This process has been running unstoppably for over 14000 years. Around the 2nd century BC, the ancient city of Hierapolis developed right above the cliff, making Pamukkale an ancient spa.

Ever since people discovered Pamukkale, they bathe in the natural pools, especially in the summertime. Nature didn't seem to be bothered by this fact and the terraces remained in almost untouched condition until the last century, when some modern hotels were built nearby and negatively affected the spring's natural processes.

As soon as Pamukkale was enrolled on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1988, the hotels were closed but it was already too late. A couple of years was enough to destroy a huge part of the natural masterpiece.

I've seen the cotton castle two times. For the first time, I went to Pamukkale about 10 years ago with my parents. We were asked to take off our shoes, when entering the terraces. It was very painful for me to walk barefoot there. The day was very hot, the sky was extremely blue and the terraced pools were filled with water and people. There were soooo many of those pools within eyes reach. Also, I still have on my mind, what some local Turkish people told me, that it's not as beautiful as they remember it used to be.

The second time I went there was late April 2011, the temperature was bearable. I must say, that I was impressed by the new arrangements made around the entire area such as wooden paths. It surely protects those of the terraces that are left. However, the visitors are still allowed to step on them and bathe and do whatever they want in the selected areas. This time, I decided to keep my shoes on and not to participate in this act of destroyment, as I had my chance to take a few steps there before.

When I sat on one of the benches, I suddenly heard two older gentleman from Poland admiring the view few meters away from me. It sounded as if one of them was in Pamukkale in the 1960's and his impressions were just like mine from late 1990's, that there were hundreds of people bathing in the healing water.
I didn't notice when it got very late, I had to skip the ancient ruins and hurry not to miss my bus.

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.

Mother's Day

When is Mother's Day in your country?

In Poland it is always on the 26th of May, which is not accidentally today.
Two weeks ago I've been to Istanbul, where one afternoon, my friend's aunt served a piece of cake after lunch and mentioned that it was left after Mother's Day. I asked immediately when do they celebrate it in Turkey and she told me that it's always the 2nd Sunday of May.

It reminded me, that in previous year, while I was in Portugal, it was even different - the 1st Sunday of May.
Because of my curiosity, I've made a small research (about the countries that are tagged on my blog) and it turned out that most of them celebrates Mother's Day on the same day as Turkey, for example Japan, Czech Republic, Ukraine or Belgium. Also, Spain celebrates it on the same day as Portugal but France is a bit odd and delays until the last Sunday of May.

The conclusion should be that, if someone travels too often and pays attention to local holidays, then that person's Mum, may start thinking that her child became crazy, if she was given wishes and presents over few times in May!

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

Queima de Vila Real

Queima das Fitas is a traditional festivity of Portuguese students. The most famous ones take place in Coimbra and Porto. In Vila Real it started last Thursday.

That evening Iva, with a support of Paulina and me, prepared Czech dish called knedliki. She served them with chicken and as a salad prepared cucumbers with yogurth (in polish: mizeria, in turkish: cacık). As you see below we had a big variety of people with different eating habits: a vegetarian, non-pork eaters and also a person who eats mostly junk food. Despite of that, everybody enjoyed the dinner and we have to repeat it!

After having a coffee we've moved to the Camara Municipal - the main square, where crowd of students gathered for the Monumental Serenata. During the Serenata fado and historical songs were performed. However, I was personally positively distracted by the general atmosphere and students dressed in traditional outfits. The picture below shows me and my classmates (from the right: Nelson, Simon, me, Armando and Filipe). As you see, two of them are wearing praxe and two of them not.

Praxe is a traditional outfit of portuguese student and its history reaches 14th century. It consists of a long jacket, trousers, black tie and vest and of the long coat which has many patches on it.

The patches on each student's coat are different. Those that you may see at Armando's coat symbolize his university, his faculty and his favourite football team.

Nelson has a patch of his faculty and many patches of cities that his friends come from. Interesting rule is that the number of patches must be odd (1,3,5,7...101).

Felipe, who studies biochemistry, has not only patches with his country, city or faculty but also favourite bakery, his parents, valentine's day. He told me that it is also common to wear a round black hat with the whole praxe.

Inseparable and main part of Queima are music concerts and even if you are not paying attention to what the band is playing it is still fun. The biggest stars so far this year were Rita Red Shoes and Blasted Mechanism. The week is not over yet!

Turkish coffee - Türk kahvesi

"Coffee should be
black as hell,
strong as death,
and as sweet as love."

- A Turkish Proverb

Turkish coffee and the most necessary accessories.

Unseparable part of drinking Turkish coffee is fortune telling. When there is nothing left to drink in the cup, you turn it head over feet and watch carefully what you see inside of your cup and plate. There is a traditional Turkish saying for doing it:
Kahve Pir
Kalbime Gir
Kalbimden Çık
Fincana Gir
Neyse Halim
Çıksın Falim

Another Turkish coffee tradition is connected with the first visit that the boy pays to the family of his beloved girl for the first time. During that visit the girl prepares coffee for everybody but instead of adding sugar to the boy's cup, she put salt. If the boy really loves the girl, he has to drink the coffee. And then they live happy ever after in the house with pink windows (Sena told me that such house is a dream of every Turkish girl)!

Some people say that a cup of coffee and a cigarette should always go together.