mardin, mesopotamia

last week i spent some time in mardin, a small ancient city (dating back to the 3rd century AD) in the southeastern region of turkey overlooking the plains of northern syria. it is a very different place from ankara. in mardin you hear more arabic on the streets than turkish, and see lots of traditional dress, and the majority of the population of the province is more kurdish than turkish, mixed in with syriac orthodox, arabs and armenians. it was a great opportunity for me to experience eastern turkey, as we were well taken care of by our host university, although it seemed like a safe enough place to me that i'd feel comfortable traveling to as a tourist. people were kind and seemed very used to the presence of tourists on the streets. here are my photos:

the airport- tiny- and notice the 'flight tower' to the left that had steps leading up to it! ben and i laughed when our plane landed, taxied to the end of the runway, and then turned around on a sort of cul-de-sac to taxi back to the airport on the same runway...

view of the city of mardin (on the mountain) from a distance
walking around the village, our bosses saw this shop and decided ben should wear this in our wedding. we're still on the fence...
dramatic landscape
we visited the deyrulzafaran monastery on the first night- which is one of the oldest surviving syriac orthodox monasteries in the world... and still functioning as a temple and school of the syriacs today! we were told the stones on the exterior were rubbed with saffron after construction to help it blend in with the surrounding landscape, hence the name meaning 'saffron monastery.'

when we first arrived at the church, they seated us in the 'greeting room' and brought everyone tea.
inside the worship room

in the courtyard
in the original 'sun worshipping room,' in the basement of the monastery, the stones in this ceiling are suspended entirely by pressure. when the ceiling was built, the room was first flooded with sand and mud, then the stones were laid on top, and the room was emptied out. this room was designed to worship the sun, with windows facing east.
the monastery had incredible views of the plains that were even more magnificent as the sun set




the city of mardin is literally built on the slope of a very steep mountain, so looking out from any point there is a great view over the rooftops into the plains that lead to syria


this is the view looking at our hotel from a courtyard- it was a beautiful old ottoman building that had been restored.
on our last night the hotel had this band playing a lot of arabic music, along with a guy making cig kofte (raw meatballs) that were served with dinner

here are some photos i snapped while walking around the city
donkeys are everywhere in mardin, as they are ideal for carting things up the narrow streets on the steep mountainside that the city is built on. they serve the city's residents as taxis, garbage collectors, porters and water-carriers.


the municipality meat truck was making deliveries- gross!



pomegranate bushes



"utku's house"
a famous mardin restaurant- ben ate, i watched

not your average meeting

with our bosses in town from albany, we've had a busy week of meetings. yesterday was no different, although at 5:30 we had the pleasure of meeting with the 9th president of turkey, süleyman demirel, in his office. for me this was a first, as i've never met with a former president of any kind, certainly not during a routine day of business meetings. i guess you could say this was one of those days where my job is kind of cool...

of course, this had to be the one day when i wasn't carrying my camera, so we had to take the picture with my iphone, hence the quality. but here it is none the less... president demirel, along with our staff and the former turkish higher education council president:

istanbul with mom & dad

mom and dad have returned home to the us, and i miss them already! we had a wonderful end to their visit in istanbul, where we saw the sights & ate the wonderful food.


we took an early flight from ankara that allowed us to start our sight-seeing around noon last wednesday. our hotel was in the center of sultan ahmet, which is the location of many historic sights and therefore a very touristy but beautiful spot in the city. the location was especially great because it allowed us to walk to places like topkapi, where we began our tour of istanbul:




i hadn't visited the harem section before, and it was fascinating, though we all agreed a bit depressing. this picture, of course, was taken BEFORE the tour: that night we had a lovely dinner at my favorite istanbul restaurant, cok cok, that offers great thai food. we had the pleasure of listening to this cellist's own arrangements during our meal:
the next morning we started at aya sofia, where we learned more about the history of istanbul and saw some very ancient, very beautiful mosaics that have recently been uncovered:
mom put her finger in the 'sweating column,' which is said to bring good health if your finger comes out wet (ours just came out cold, and probably covered in germs so we washed them immediately):
dad made friends everywhere we went, and aya sofia was no different. here he's chatting with some school masters who were visiting (from norway, i think) for a conference:


that night after a tour of the grand bazaar in the afternoon, we headed to asmali cavit, a fabulous turkish restaurant located on a very lively street in taksim:
the next morning we were up early and headed to the port to catch a ferry to anadoglu kavagi, a 1.5 hour ride up the bosphorus. along the way we enjoyed views of istanbul's multi-million dollar bosphorus properties, as well as a special yogurt made exclusively in kanlica, where we made one of several stops to pick up passengers:


we got off at the final stop, anadoglu kavagi, and followed our fellow passengers up the steep mountainside to the old castle, where we got an amazing view of the end of the bosphorus and opening of the black sea

after hiking back down we had lunch at the port, where fried calamary, mussels and meze are the specialty (though we weren't brave enough to try the fresh mussels), with very close-up views of the fishing boats

en-route back to besiktas port we saw more beautiful ottoman-style homes along the water
along with giant ships
and tiny ships
later we walked to ortakoy, another area of istanbul along the bosphorus, where we stopped for tea
and walked along more lively streets

the view from our hotel with blue mosque in the background
and an early morning view from our hotel of the bosphorus
all in all, it was a great trip!