Islam requires that Muslims pray five times a day. On Friday, the Sabbath, it is especially required for men to come to the mosque to pray. For women, I believe, it is encouraged but not required.
My class had the opportunity to observe the Friday noon prayer service, which was quite the experience. All the girls had to cover their hair with scarves as a sign of respect. Then we got split up. The boys followed our tour guide to the men’s section, and the girls followed one of our professors to the women’s section. The women’s section of this particular mosque was in the basement, so we all walked down the stairs outside and stumbled around to get our shoes off before we stepped inside.
The women who were there for the service stared a little bit, not that I was surprised. Tourists hardly ever actually come in to observe prayer services. Also, we had no idea what we were doing. Our hair was sticking out of our scarves all over the place, and we weren’t sure if we were supposed to sit and stand when they did, so we awkwardly tried to follow along before giving up and trying to sit quietly without disturbing anyone. Some of the kids would run around during the prayers and stare at us until they realized we were staring back and smiling. I think the Muslim women liked that we were there though. One of the women even came up to us afterwards and gave us candy that she had also given to the well-behaved children hahahaha
After the service, we were all invited into the imam’s office (boys in one room, girls in the other) for tea, which is a huge gesture of acceptance and welcoming.
A cool note about the particular mosque we were at: There’s a small cave outside the mosque that is traditionally believed to be the cave that the Bible tells us Job stayed in.
Today we woke up at promptly 4:30am and flew to Southeast Turkey, more specifically Mardin. Mardin is thought to have been the home of Noah, Moses, and Abraham. We had the wonderful opportunity to take a tour around an Assyrian Orthodox monastery and an old Islamic religious school, including the inside of their mosque.
Something that fascinates me about Turkey is how peacefully Islam, Christianity, and Judaism coexist. The Turkish people seem to pride themselves in it and want to set an example for the rest of the world where faith groups war over important religious sites.
While we were in Mardin, we also met a boy who kept trying to give us a tour. Kids in Turkey are super funny. We got cat-called by some twelve-year-olds while we were standing outside of a museum. Hahahahaha
I tried throwing all of my pictures into a Flash slideshow since it seemed like the larger pictures weren’t loading before. I’ll keep trying things out until I find something that works. Enjoy!
Last note: I think it’s really funny that Turkish people stare super blatantly at our large, loud group of American college students hahaha A couple nights ago at a bar, some even kept calling one of the blonde girls in our group “Lady Gaga” and insisted on touching her nose to see if it was real. AHAHA I love it here.
Today was our first day of class. We had breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Blue Mosque and then spent the first class introducing ourselves and talking about our preconceptions of Turkey, Islam, and Muslims, and how those perceptions since our arrival.
After class we went on a wonderful private boat tour and had the chance to observe the architecture and landscape of the European and Asian sides of Istanbul at the same time. It was so cool!
Our guide knew the history of almost every building along the Bosporous. Here are some pictures!
One thing about this part of the world that fascinates me every time I go somewhere new is the unique ability these places have to intertwine ancient and modern civilizations.
As my class and I drove through the old city walls cradling the diners and shopping malls, I found that Istanbul greatly reflects this balance in its culture, its buildings, and its people.
It was rainy and dark when we arrived, so I didn’t even bother trying to take pictures through the bus station. Instead, I will elaborate with pictures I found on Google hahaha
Old city walls of Constantinople
Traveling always reminds me of how young the United States is. Today alone, we drove through the Walls of Constantinople (7th century BC), over what was once the location of the dining hall in the Great Palace of Constantinople (330 AD), and past the glowing Blue Mosque (16th century) with its six minarets protruding the sky (which I can see from my hotel room).
Blue Mosque
It’s almost an overwhelming feeling to be in a place brimming with so much history and so many untold stories. The city is so full of life you can practically feel its heartbeat in the cobblestone under your feet.
Today, around 6:30pm, I experienced my first Call to Prayer. The sound of one person at each of Istanbul’s 3,000 active mosques standing in the minarets calling millions of people in the city to come together and pray at the same time fascinates me.
Here’s a video of the call to prayer so you can get some sort of an idea of what it is:
I’m going to go grab some dinner and go to bed. I need to rest up for a whole new day filled with exploring and learning. Good night!
So sick. Pretty sure I’m dying. BUT! I leave for Turkey tomorrow nonetheless, and I am very slowly getting my packing done. I’ll just have to pop a couple extra vitamins or something, because this trip IS happening.
As a reminder for those who missed my previous post about Turkey: I’ll be there for about a month taking a theology course, and I’ll have the opportunity to visit Istabul, Mardin, Urfa, Gaziantep, Adana, Cappadocia, Konya, Pamukkale, Izmir, and Bursa.
And, during my packing procrastination, my-list-loving-self found this:
Brownie points for anyone who gets this for me
This video made me feel a lot better though hahaha:
House Rule #1: No counting down how many days we have left in Ireland. I’ve managed to convince myself that I’ve only been in Europe for about a week. The thought of returning to school, work, and three straight weeks of job training starting literally the day after I return to the United States is depressing. (BUT I’m really excited to see all of my friends and family again)
To avoid breaking the house rule, let’s just say I planned to be abroad for ten weeks, and last week was week nine.
Fear not! I have plenty to look forward to! In January I will be venturing to Turkey for my “Perceiving Islam in Turkey” class.
I’ll be travelling to Istabul, Mardin, Urfa, Gaziantep, Adana, Cappadocia, Konya, Pamukkale, Izmir, and Bursa.
According to the course description, this is what I’ll be doing:
“While traveling across Turkey, visiting sites essential to the development of Islam, sharing meals and conversations with Turkish Muslims, and reading about Islam from both insiders’ and outsiders’ perspectives, we become familiar with the basic beliefs and practices of Islam and its influence in Turkey including worship, family life, politics, modernity, gender relations, relations with other faiths, and intellectual and artistic traditions.”
Cool, no?
Some of you are probably wondering why I’m taking this course. My university requires three theological courses, and I needed to finish up my 300-level this year. I knew I wanted to take a course on something I have little to no knowledge about, and I wanted to take something that would immerse me in a completely new culture (I’m sure this is shocking). So, I picked this, and I couldn’t be happier :]
No, that is not an insult. While people sing Sean-Nós songs in the Conamara area, listeners often shout things at the singers to give them the motivation to continue. These words of encouragement include:
Dia leat – God be with you Up sleamhcán – Up sladdy (sea vegetable) Up scrathachaí – Up sods of turf Croch suas é – Lift it up Up an baile s’againne – Up out village
And my personal favorite: Muisteais frog ort! – Moustache frog on you!
I asked a couple locals why people shout about frogs and moustaches, and apparently there isn’t really a reason. It’s just what they do. Haha I think the Irish may just have a thing for animals with moustaches, because when I was on the Aran Islands, I found this moustashed horse:
I happened to be in the same hostel room as a good chunk of kids who would be in my course. We meandered, bonded, all around become best friends overnight.
I did the beginner level of this course last year, so this year I requested to stay with the same bean a’ tí (host mom) I had last year. When I walked up to the front door she flung it open and said, “Welcome home!” It was so nice after a month of wandering without any familiar faces.
I’ve been studying pretty hard (I even brought my notebook and notecards into the pub and studied there), but I feel like things sunk in more easily last year.
I made a return to several places I journeyed to with this program last year: Ros Muc, Kylemore Abbey, Clifden, and Inis Meáin (where I climbed on and around Dún Chonchúir for the second year in a row…YES!).
I’ll probably write more about my program and what we’re doing.
The night before I left for Paris, I decided to buy the deluxe verion of the Before You Know It program in French. I somehow convinced myself I could master French during the five-hour train ride from Zurich to Paris.
False.
When I rolled into Paris, I realized I didn’t write down the name or address of the hotel I was staying at, so I spent the better half of three hours looking for the Louvre (I knew my hotel was near there), hoping to see the hotel’s name and jog my memory.
Well, I knew I’d recognize the Louvre by the giant glass pyramid I’ve seen in the movies. The movies failed to tell me that the giant glass pyramid was inside the courtyard and is not visible AT ALL from the street.
I finally popped into a Starbucks to steal some Wifi, which was not working. The baristas guided me to an Apple Store in the Louvre (which I realized I had been walking around the entire time). I went in there, stole their internet, and found my hotel.
When I returned to my hotel, the receptionist informed me that everything would be closed the next day because it was Bastille Day. Yes, I was accidentally in Paris on Bastille Day.
So, since everything was closed, I decided to do another free New Europe tour. It was POURING outside, to the point where after an hour and a half of doing a walking tour and hoping the rain would let up, we collectively decided to cancel the rest of the tour. It was still really fun, and my guide was such a trooper. She even gave her umbrella to someone on the tour who didn’t have one. I spent the majority of the remainder of the day in my hotel room wishing my only pair of jeans and my only pair of shoes would dry faster.
The weather cleared up in time for the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eifel Tower. I went out and watched them from Champ de Mars. After a month of going going going, I looking forward to my one good night of sleep and decided to leave at 11:30 to beat the crowds to the metro.
The fireworks ended at 11:35. The armed cops promptly shut down the metro to prevent the 2,000,000 attendees from causing riots below ground. I was forced to walk from the Eifel Tower all the way to my hotel which was on the opposite side of the Louvre. It took exactly one hour and twenty-seven minutes to walk from the Eifel Tower to my bed, and it was miserable. I then had to pack and wake up at 5:45 to catch my plane to Dublin in the morning.
Well, in the meantime, please enjoy my ten thousand pictures of Paris including a wonderful Bastille Day Fireworks montage.
Please enjoy this blog post from almost two weeks ago.
I had so much fun in Switzerland!!! Andy and Philipp were wonderful hosts. My train into Zurich from Bari via Milan was ohhh, just an hour late (which apparently isn’t actually that bad for an Italian train). Luckily Andy was at the station regardless waiting to pick me up! He took me home and I had the pleasure of meeting his boyfriend, Philipp.
On Sunday (the 11th, I apologize for how far behind I am), they took me out to Lake Luzern. IT WAS SO PRETTY. I’ve decided that someday when I have money, I’m going to buy a house on the lake and a sailboat to sail around Lake Luzern. We went on a ferry ride so I could see Switzerland in all of its mountainous and glacier-lake-filled glory.
Then we took a cable car up to the top of a mountain and hiked down To Rütli (where the Swiss Confederacy was first founded). Near Rütli, I saw some really cute cows and went to go take a pictures of them. Swiss cows are undoubtedly the cutest cows of them all. While I was focusing my camera, I suddenly felt like I had been run down or hit really forcibly by some REALLY HUGE animal. Then I realized I had managed to walk into the electric fence, and I electrocuted myself. Perfect, self.
Afterwards we saw the oldest wooden bridge, Kapellbrücke, and then returned home to watch the World Cup Final at a public viewing place in Wohlen.
The next day, Andy and I got a late start due to my catch-up blogging. We went to explore Bremgarten which has a lot of really well-preserved buildings, and then we made our way into Zurich. Andy showed me around the most important parts (see the pictures!), and then we met up with Philipp so we could all go swimming in Lake Zurich.
As we approached the lake, an ominous cloud approached and brought in like the strongest winds Andy and Philipp had ever seen in Zurich. So, we decided to go swimming anyways. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. The water was really surprisingly warm and clear and wonderful, and there were actually huge waves in Lake Zurich (also extremely uncommon).
I wish I could better explain all of the fun things we did. They also introduced me to lots of yummy Swiss foods like Zopf, Cervelat, and Meringue, amongst other things.
It’s almost midnight now. I’m going to go to bed. Please enjoy these pictures of Switzerland, and expect a post about Paris coming soon :]
Oh, also, for those of you who don’t know I’m in western Ireland right now studying the Irish Language in a really intense immersion program. I’ll be writing lots of stories about that later! I’ve been studying too much to write yet… Unfortunately I’m completely serious. I have over 200 notecards from the last two days.
I just spent an incredible couple of days with my friend Rosangela and her family in Triggiano, Italy.
It was really nice to have a few relaxing days as opposed to the go go go go go craziness I’ve been living in for the last month. I have never met more hospitable people than Italians. Rosangela, her family, and her friends welcomed me in and treated me like family despite the fact that no one other than Rosangela really spoke English, and my entire Italian vocabulary consisted of “gratzie” and “ciao.” It was wonderful.
Rosangela’s mom is an amazing cook. She made things like parmeseana, rizzoto, focaccia, pasta, and this really good noodle thing with peas. The family tried to get me to try “trippa.” Luckily Rosangela talked them out of it because I later found out that trippa means tripe. AHHH. I love Italian food, but tripe is not my thing. Haha
I think my favorite part of the trip was when I went to Rosangela’s grandfather’s house. I had the great fortune of meeting her entire extended family, only a few of which spoke English, but I LOVED it. Something about foreign languages and foreign cultures just fascinates me, even when I can’t understand what people are saying. I loved listening to them talk to each other and trying to figure out what they were saying.
I had so much fun in Triggiano and Bari. The people I met were so interesting and kind (Rosangela’s mom even made me a bunch of sandwiches for the train ride to Zurich!), and I cannot wait to go back and visit them again. Hopefully I’ll have a little more Italian so I can converse more :]
![I had this flower in my hair, it fell out and I just kept walking, Cassie commented on how poetic it seemed, so I went back to take a picture :]](http://www.anniemagz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Picture-1457-720x540.jpg "I had this flower in my hair, it fell out and I just kept walking, Cassie commented on how poetic it seemed, so I went back to take a picture :]")
![The short cut to my house through a bog :]](http://www.anniemagz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Picture-1353-720x540.jpg "The short cut to my house through a bog :]")
![The Galway Pub! I felt like I was already back in Ireland :]](http://www.anniemagz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Picture-1308.jpg "The Galway Pub! I felt like I was already back in Ireland :]")
