Misha!!!

In April my brother came to see me!! It was so nice to see him and have a little whiff of home in the middle of the semester. It also ended up being a great opportunity for me to explore the historical part of the city a bit more. Misha had a lot of jet lag so I ended up just walking around on my own in the afternoons, stopping to chat with the hassling merchants, getting a lot of free tea, practicing my Turkish,....

The weekend started off rather inauspiciously, actually. The hostel we had intended to stay at was somehow overbooked, so we got shifted to a hostel next-door. They, however, were also booked so instead of staying in one of the normal rooms we stayed in the apartment of some of the staff. It felt really uncomfortable, especially since the front door didn't lock. We could lock our own room, though, so it wasn't so insecure. It mostly just felt uncomfortable to be kicking some people out of their own space and staying in someone else's home. The last couple nights room opened up in the regular hostel so we got to move.

With my brother we went to the mosaic museum and the archeological museum, my first trip to the latter. There were some really amazing Egyptian and other tombs. And some real mummies as well.

My brother and I also went to a hamam (Turkish bath). I've been to hamams before but never with the full traditional treatment. It was definitely full treatment. First we were asked to undress and wear only a cloth. Then we waited in the main hamam area which was really warm. There's a big flat heated stone in the middle that you lie on. This was already super relaxing. Then the friendly woman who had been at the reception area took me into a separate room. She and I were both wearing only our underwear, no bras, and no cloth. Then she scrubbed me down. All of me. She scrubbed parts of me I didn't know existed. As she scrubbed she excitedly showed me the gray dead skin of whose presence she was relieving me. This whole process was followed by a soap "massage", which is pretty self-explanatory. After my hygiene had been thus assisted I re-wrapped myself up and returned to the main hamam area to rinse off more and wash my hair. I met my brother there, who had just had the same experience. The slightly stunned expression on his face pretty accurately reflected my own feelings. Afterward my brother got an oil massage and I changed and had some more tea while waiting for him. The feeling I had at this point was delicious; incredibly clean and relaxed.

The next day we tried for a second time to visit Dolmabahce Palace, which historically had served as a residence not only to the Ottoman Dynasty but also to Ataturk himself. Ironically, considering the fact that he took down the Empire, this was the place where he died. At the moment he passed all the clocks in the building were stopped and the bed where he had suffered until the last moment is still guarded.

However, it seems it was fated for us not to see neither the clocks nor the bed nor the palace's excessive ornateness; tourist season having started, the line to get in was almost two hours long. So instead we decided to hop on a boat to one of the Prince's Islands, in the Aegean. It was a long ferry ride, but the island was beautiful. The weather was sunny and warm. On these islands cars are prohibited so everyone moves around on bikes and horse-drawn carriages. Yep. We walked around for a while, had lunch, and for dessert got some lokma (basically honey-soaked donut holes). Since I had never been there before and didn't get a chance to prepare, we didn't really know what to see or do but just walking around was lovely.

Our last day together my brother actually came to campus with me and sat in on a couple of my classes. It was nice to share it with him, but it was a long commute. The following day I made the trip again and he went to join an organized tour that would travel throughout Turkey and then on to Greece.