Melissa's boyfriend, Barry, is helping to open Turkey's first Upper Crust Pizzeria, and this is just the second day they are serving customers. Today's special is buffalo chicken pizza with fresh blue cheese - half that, half cheese - and we are in heaven! Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk! It is so much fun being outside together enjoying the sun, and discovering new parts of the city. After visiting a beautiful mosque on the Bosphorus shore, we go on a sight-seeing cruise. Istanbul is a city that must be taken in from the water, too, and highlights include the great fortress of Rumeli Hisari that was built by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror at the narrowest part of the river in order to stage his siege of Constantinople in 1453; and Beylerbeyi Palace, a "small" summer palace on the Anatolian side of the river.
We're not hungry but we are so fascinated by kumpir that we must try one. Kumpir is best described as a crazy-ass baked potato, filled with everything from corn, olives, sausage slices, pickles, mayonnaise, ketsup, mushrooms, peas, Russian salad, and kasar cheese. They're wrapped in an aluminum foil bowl, and taste about as good as they sound (not that much). But people are lining up in droves to eat them! We found 10 identical kumpir vendors lined up side-by-side.
Isabelle was more inclined to have a dondurma (ice cream) cone, and let me just say they really know how to serve ice cream in Istanbul. A small really is small - which is a perfect little scoop that fits neatly on top of the cone without tipping over or making you feel as if you've just eaten a 5-course meal.
Unable to decide if she liked her vanilla or Daddy's caramel, Isabelle opted for equal licks of both! With a bit more wandering, we find antique furniture stores - but not the kind that are selling $15,000 urns like the other day! These are of the old 1980's TV stand variety, and we find a spectacular carved wooden chair hoisted on top of a broken down refrigerator. A couple of phone calls and a trip to the ATM later, and we're stuffing the chair into the back of a taxi with no idea how we plan to get it home. That question is only answered once Dennis
is "kidnapped" by UPS and pays them triple the cost of the chair to get it home.Tonight's the night we'd been waiting for! The whirling dervish show!! Sufi whirling is not really supposed to be entertainment (but I'm glad it is in Turkey!), it's the practice of the Mevlevi Order and is a physical way of trying to teach religious ecstasy. Rumi was a whirling dervish and taught about humans being created by love in order to love, "All loves are a bridge to divine love. Yet,
those who have not had a taste of it do not know!"
When I was a little girl, I had a pink fuzzy housecoat with a pointy hood. When I'd wear it and spin around, my Mom called me her whirling dervish. That made me whirl all the more! Now we had tickets to see one in real life! The performance was in a very cool location - a converted Turkish bath dating back 550 years. What was not so cool is that they didn't want Isabelle inside ("No babies!"), and only after we promised to leave if she made noise did they let us in. Our forced seating near the door turned out to be the perfect location for filming - also perfect for our frequent trips outside! In an effort to keep Isabelle quiet, I'd say "Shhhh... we have to pretend baby is sleeping" which would only prompt Isabelle to say (a bit more loudly) "Shhhhh... Baby sleeping in the bed." It was hilarious. Much to our surprise the dervishes did not come right out and start whirling madly!! The program started slowly with Sufi music and no dervishes at all! Bring on the dervishes, we cried inside!!! Finally, the dervishes arrived, but their whirls aren't all that whirly at first! Whirl, dervishes, whirl!!!
The first part of the ceremony is The Sema, which represents a spiritual journey; the seeker's turning toward God and truth, a maturing through love, the transformation of self as a way of union with God, and the return to life as the servant of all creation. The dervish (or Semazen) wears a camel's-felt hat representing a tombstone of the ego (I bought one to display in the house); and a wide, white skirt symbolizing the ego's shroud.
We leave a little early, realizing that we have the best whirling dervish show right in front of us! It is walking down Hudavendigar Street that Isabelle gets her first taste of the funny dizzy sensation when the twirling stops. Wobbling side-to-side she breaks out in uncontrollable giggles as we keep her upright.
Next first: Isabelle's first hooka bar experience. (No, we're not even tempted to have one in front of her - and we stay in side room where no one else is smoking them either.) We sit on the floor on huge, colorful pillows, and Isabelle jumps from one to the next as she is served fresh clementines.
Every time she takes her last bite of one, she brings her empty plate to the waitress and says, "More clementines, please." Once, another waiter tried to trick her with an orange which she ripped apart and threw in various directions. Four clementines later, dinner is done! We wrap up the day as we started - with a swim. Except this time it's harder to get Isabelle in the pool because the keys to the lockers have become her greatest source of joy. When she finally does go in the pool, she orders us both out, and attempts to jump in on her own. We love her spirit of independence, but that just isn't going to happen!
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