Istanbul Trip 2011

This year I spent Thanksgiving, ironically, in Turkey. I was chaperoning a school trip to Istanbul with about 30 students from my school here in Cairo. After arriving at the hotel and getting all of the kids arranged in their rooms, we headed for the tour buses and a whirlwind tour of some of Istanbul's famous sights. The purpose of our trip was to participate in a Junior Model United Nations conference, so this would be our only opportunity for sight seeing.

Hagia Sophia


Our first stop was Hagia Sophia. Originally built as a Christian cathedral around 360 AD, this building was a center of Orthodox Christianity until the mid 1400's when the city was converted to Islam. At that time Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque, and it remained so until the building was converted into a museum by the Turkish Government in the 1930's. When the cathedral was converted to a mosque, all of the intricate mosaics depicting scenes form Christianity were covered in clay.

When you stand inside the main hall of this building there is an incredible feeling of contradictions, as well as unity. Today these mosaics have been uncovered and restored resulting in a blending of Islamic and Christian ornamentation in the same house of worship.


Dome above the altar. Notice the Christian Mosaic between the two large discs of Arabic calligraphy



The Blue Mosque

Literally across the street from Hagia Sophia is The Blue Mosque. Technically named The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, this mosque is known for its blue and white tile work inside. It was here that I had one of the most memorable experiences of my life abroad. We entered the courtyard of the mosque just as the call to prayer was starting.


The Blue Mosque taken from the courtyard outside


The perimeter of the courtyard

It was a surreal moment, having just crossed the threshold as the call began. All at once the birds perched along the tops of the courtyard walls took flight. If you click on the link to the call to prayer above you can actually see the birds flying above the Blue Mosque during the call. I felt like I was on the set of a movie; could this really be my own life? Amazing.

From my seat along the perimeter wall I noticed a large group of our students running across the courtyard toward the other chaperones. They huddle around my colleagues for a moment in conversation and then tore across the courtyard again toward the entrance to the mosque. The Muslim students had asked if they could all go inside and pray together. What an incredible moment for them. All of the adults on the trip had to remain outside, being the infidels that we are, leaving this group of 11-14 year olds to pray together inside. I was quite moved by this entire experience.


I know this is blurry, but it captures my students taking off their shoes before entering the mosque.

Once the prayer had concluded the remaining students and chaperones were permitted to enter the mosque. Below you will see how it earned its name:






The hundreds of chains you saw hanging in the two photos above are used to suspend these massive chandeliers.

Finally, below are a few more photos form the trip.


I liked the color of the buildings and the tiled roof in this photo. Notice the old aqueduct in the back ground?

The temperature had been dropping when we arrived. I spotted this motorcycle during one of my walks. I thought this was a resourceful way to keep warm during deliveries:





I loved this fruit stand:



And finally, I had to snap a quick shot of this dog doing his best to uproot an electrical line. Memories of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and the cat chewing on the tree lights sprang to mind and I ran the other way.

Athens in October

In mid-October I went to Athens, Greece for about a week. I was attending an English teacher's workshop followed by an educational leadership conference. I'll skip the details, but it was a valuable learning experience and I came back to my school with several new ideas and approaches that will improve my practice.

While I was there the public works employees went on strike. Garbage was piled up around the city and the hosts of the conference repeatedly apologized for the mess and the smell. My colleague from Cairo and I had to laugh, because we had commented while walking around the day before that the garbage piles were so neat and organized here compare to Cairo where it is often strewn about the road side and burning in the medians.


Graffiti like this was painted all around the city

Our hotel was centrally located, only a few blocks from the Syntagma Square, and from the roof top restaurant we had a spectacular view of one of Athens' seven hills, Mount Lycabettus and the Arch of Hadrian. I ran up to the top of Mount Lycabettus, which looks more impressive than it really is. The first time I did it my GPS calculated 2 miles from the hotel's front door to the monastery at the top. The second time I ran up I found a more direct route and it was only 1.5 miles. Regardless, it was still a treat to be 1) running in shorts in a city and not feel like I was the equivalent of an adult film star and 2) to be climbing up through green space within 10 minutes from my front door.


View from hotel rooftop at night


A photo of the Acropolis from the monastery atop Mt. Lycabettus

Day Trip to Delphi

The conference organizers arranged a full day trip to Delphi (pronounced DEL- phee). We set out for a 3 hours bus ride from Athens with a guide who has a PhD in linguistics and was the most knowledgeable guide I have ever had. The countryside we drove through reminded me of Tbilisi, Georgia. It was quite raw and rugged terrain, but lush and green at the same time. I did not know that Greece produced cotton. The photo below is of a cotton field with snow-capped mountains in the background.



Our first stop was the museum at Delphi where exhibits showed the artifacts discovered while excavating the Temple to Apollo on this site. During the height of its use Delphi had a market place, a stadium for athletic competitions, the Temple to Apollo, the Oracle at Delphi and an Athenian Treasury.


An frieze depicting Aphrodite, Artemis and Zeus overseeing the Trojan War


A Sphinx that sat atop a pillar before the Oracle at Delphi


Statue of Antinoos, beloved companion of Emperor Hadrian, who had barely reached adulthood when he drowned in the Nile.


A photo of the photo of the excavation that found the statue of Antinoos.


The view outside the museum


Olive groves in the valley below


The Treasury of the Athenians



The Treasury of the Athenians was a store house for donations made by citizens of this city. These donations went to the Temple of Apollo and the upkeep of Delphi, ensuring that any Athenian who came to worship would be moved straight to the front of the line and given preferential treatment.



The photo above is of a wall at the base of the Temple to Apollo that served as a running record of events at Delphi. Think of it as a precursor to the newspaper. The photo below is a close up of one of the stones. You can see how they carved the words to relay the news:



The Stadium at Delphi



The stadium at Delphi hosted the athletic contests of the Pythian religious festival. The Pan-Hellanic Pythian Games were second only to the Olympic Games.




Notice the judges seats in the center of this photo, they are the only ones with seat backs.

The Temple to Apollo


The remains of the Temple to Apollo



I did not realize, until visiting Delphi, that the Oracle was located underground beneath the Temple to Apollo. There was, reportedly, a chasm that would emit vapors that the Oracle would inhale and enter a trance like state and begin uttering unintelligible phrases that the priests would translate into prophecies.

Monastery Visit

After leaving Delphi we made our way back to Athens with a stop at a monastery. The grounds of this monastery were truly beautiful and peaceful. The plants were remarkable. One of the things I noticed in Athens, as well as this monastery, was that herbs were used as decoration as well as for cooking. Huge pots of basil, thyme, oregano and rosemary were planted throughout the city. I noticed the same here.








Basil







Inside the various churches were rows of chairs like those pictured below:



When you look closely you notice that each seat has a hinge in the center which enables the seat to be folded in half and raised like this:



I was unable to find an answer as to why these seats folded and how they would be used. It seems like a clever booster seat to me.

As I was making my way back tot he bus I took a detour along a side path, which led to a smaller church. Behind this church was a natural spring that had been tapped coming out of the rock wall in the hill side and the small gate pictured below. That is an enormous rosemary bush with purple flowers beside it.

Garbage City

We are smack in the middle of a three day weekend and I took a few hours this afternoon to visit "Garbage City" with a few friends. The city of Cairo is rumored to have an, approximately, 80% recycling rate, which rivals any First World nation. This is all thanks to an ethnic and religious minority known as the Zabbaleen. They can be seen in the early morning hours on the streets of our neighborhood in Ma'adi pulling 2-wheeled carts loaded high with bags of garbage. We've spotted young boys flipping head first into the dumpster in front of our apartment building trying to collect the garbage on the bottom.



The garbage that is collected is then hauled out to a neighborhood, made up primarily of Coptic Christians, known as "Garbage City". Here the people live among the piles of trash, sorting it into sellable or unsellable. Often families will specialize in certain types of trash: plastics, metal, fabric etc. A recycling plant is located within the community and a variety of products, including handmade recycled paper, can be purchased. Their main source of income is the money they receive from selling raw materials back to be reused.





We couldn't get out of the car and walk around, so all of these photos were taken from the backseat.









The second part of our trip today took us to a Coptic Christian holy site located just beyond the gates of Garbage City. Here there are three churches carved into the cliffside. It was interesting to see the Bible verses and images carved into the rock face with both English and Arabic writing.







Here is a mosaic dome from one of the churches:



A carving inside one of the cave churches:



This was the first church we visited. Apparently the cave was discovered in the 1970's and was turned into a church at that time. There were signs in Arabic indicating a "women only" section:



At the top of the road through this area a stairway lead to this sad little playground that overlooked Cairo. The kids asked us our names and where we were from (in Arabic) and one little guy held out his hand and said, "Cash money, cash money" to which my one friend replied, in English, "No. That's not polite." I'm sure the message was received and internalized.



The steps leading to an amphitheater style church carved into the hill side:



Finally, I took this photo because it depicts a Biblical scene with a description in three languages: Hieroglyphics, English and Arabic.