Day 17 The Late Empire and the West

The Art and Architecture Group started us off this morning with some themes they saw about the topics throughout our trip and gave us a few classroom application tips.  I have personally loved using art in my history classes to portray imagery about how people used symbols to portray feelings and sentiments of the time.  There is some great material to use of the Ottomans, one example of which  I learned from Michael, one of the teachers in this group who teaches art in an elementary school.  He shared with us an artist named Turhan Seljuk, who created a James Bond type character, which you can see at abdulcanbaz.biz  This character can travel in time, has some very Ottoman friends and has the superpower of the "Ottoman Slap," a real move done by the Janissaries (military) of Ottoman times.  It was quite humorous, though not all of the comics would be appropriate for children.

Barb, who I love more and more every day, then gave a lecture about the empire's political and cultural aspirations of the 19th century and how they could simply not keep up with the industrialization and military might of the West, while at the same time nearby countries and/or those within the empire were achieving independence or causing trouble.  Despite attempts to modernize, there were still so many complicated issues, one of the fascinating ones of which was how women were viewing themselves.  Hopefully, I'lll be able to write more on this later, but elite and upper class women were quite torn over the Western fashions and how to see themselves within their own society.  Barb showed us some really interesting images, mostly from magazines and newspapers regarding women and issues like redesigning the veil, wearing corsets under traditional dress and so on.  

Our field trip today consisted of a tour to Dolmabahce Palace, built in the 1840s and finished in the 1850s, which became the new palace of the Sultans in order to try to stop their image as the "Sick Man of Europe."  It didn't really work, as the empire was obtaining loan after loan from other countries and went bankrupt 20 years after the completion of the palace.  It is a remarkable edifice.  The main grand hall is the largest room in Europe which holds also the largest chandelier in Europe, weighing in at over four tons!  It was like the Palace of Versailles but on a smaller scale without all the gardens and fountains.  It sits on a beautiful view of the Bosphorus.  Unfortunately, you cannot take photographs inside, but it is worth checking out the images on the the Internet if you are interested.  

My illegal pic I snapped inside before they told us no photography. Hey, there were no signs. 

This place also has significance in that Ataturk used the palace for the new republic of Turkey when he came to power and changed the alphabet from an Ottoman/Arabic style to the modern one used now in this building.  Ataturk died also in the palace, and all of the clocks there are set to 9:05, as that was the time he passed away in November, 1938.

We had lunch on our own, as we got dropped off at Taksim Square for that and a scavenger hunt with our age level groups. I was in one of the high school groups with Clara, Ron, Eric, and Patrick. After walking around the hot palace and grounds, my group, myself included, was grumpy and uncaring about the scavenger hunt. We decided to eat lunch together though and see what we could find easily and make a plan. Before finding some American food, yes I resorted to a crispy chicken salad at KFC, we found a bookstore and realized we could knock out a few of our items, like Harry Potter in Turkish, a guide book to the area we were in, and my favorite, a recipe for a hangover. I, of course, don't drink, but because I had already purchased a recipe book, I had seen a recipe in there for tripe soup (not sure that sounds good even if I needed it) that was for this purpose. So I knew what to look for. 

We were having so much fun, and after feeding our bodies in an air-conditioned room, we decided to win. We did too!  Those who know my competitive side, know this is no surprise. 

A political party sign

An embassy; there are several along here.

Fistik (pistachio)

Pic of a religious figure statue

Had to have a pic of an alter

The front of one of the Catholic Churches along here. 

One of the several Christian churches tucked behind Istaklal Street.  

A water fountain

A view of the Bosphorus from Istaklal street was actually kind of tough to find.

This one was for the fez hat. We think we should have had bonus points for finding someone wearing one. 

No problem finding evil eyes. :-)

We had to find an Armenian name--they end with ian.

Clara, Ron and I:  The Champions!  We were hot and sweaty, but what you don't see right behind us was an amazing gelato shop. Raspberry and dark chocolate for me!