After you have discovered many places in Istanbul, you are maybe thinking about to explore other cities of Turkey. One of them should be definitely Bursa. This historical city was the first major capital of the Ottoman State in years 1335 – 1363. So you can be sure, that you will find some interesting places to visit during a day walking around; you will also try a special kebab. Many tourists love to come here, because it is situated at the foot of the Uludağ Mountain. In winter time you can go up for skiing and snowboarding. In summer time you can walk around in the nature and enjoy the fresh air, which you maybe miss in Istanbul’s concrete jungle. Besides, Bursa is also famous for its hot springs.
So firstly you have to figure out, how to get there of course. The easiest and cheapest way to get there is by the ferry boats company called “Bursa Deniz Otobüsleri” or in short “Budo” which departs in Kabataş. You can get tickets directly at the counter or order them via Internet (then you will just put your credit card on the machine in front of the ferry and it will print your tickets). The price per person for students is approximately 20 TL. The ride takes 1.5 – 2 hours. It arrives at Bursa (Mudanya) and you will have to take a bus which directly brings you to the city center in another half hour. Cheap accommodations are offered at the webpage “airbnb.com”. When booking, pay attention that it is situated close to the city center! Then you can visit all sights at one day by walking. The distances between them are not so big.
City Tour
What is worth to see? Beautiful and large Ulu Camii, which has twenty domes and is directly situated at the roofed “Grand Bazaar” where you can spend all day of shopping. But you are not here because of shopping (you are a poor student anyway ;)), so then you can walk on to Yeşil Camii (Green Mosque). On opposite side is Yeşil Türbe (Green Mausoleum) with tomb of Mehmet Çelebi. At the end of the tour, I can recommend you to go to Emir Sultan Camii. Not only because it is a beautiful mosque, but also because you will have a great view over the city. And what to do when getting hungry? Go to a restaurant and order the İskender kebab. It is a famous dish in Bursa and it consists of thin sliced meat, placed on bread, covered with tomato sauce and served with yogurt. Very delicious! And after this oily food you will need a nice dessert: Kestane Şekeri (sweet chestnut).
ULUDAĞ
If you go to Bursa for skiing, then you have to go to Uludağ Mountain. You have two options how to get there: One of them is taking a dolmuş. I’m sure you already know it from Istanbul. It’s a van pending between two places for a low price. Here it costs 12 TL per person one way. It starts from the corner of Ortapazar Cd. and 2. Osman Gazi Cd. in downtown. Ask for Okçu Baba Parkı, which is just next to it. The second option is the cable car and its station is situated on the edge of Bursa. It’s a very comfortable way to get there. It takes about 30 – 40 minutes and you will change ones to get to the very top of the mountain. There is also a discount for students, but you have to show your student card from your Turkish university. The student transportation card from Istanbul is not enough for them as a proof, despite there is written that you study in Turkey. We had argue with the manager, but they were just very strict about that. You should realize, that if you choose to go by cable car, which is cheaper for students, you will probably have to go to station by taxi, because it’s not in the centre as mentioned above, and it will cost you some money. On the other hand, with dolmuş, you have to wait until it’s full, so it’s possible, that you will wait 10-20 minutes. Now you have to consider which option is the best for you.
When you get up on the mountain, it is time to rent skies, equipment and ski-pass. You can rent also clothes (trousers and jacket). There is a place, where you can rent skies for 15 – 25 TL but I really don’t recommend it, because it is so bad equipment that it’s almost dangerous to use it. So if you are okay with to pay little bit more, then you should go to Karinna hotel and rent the equipment there. Also near to this hotel are similar places. It will cost you about 50 TL and the equipment is better than the cheap one. Nevertheless, if you are used to rent skies in Austria or Italy it is still far away from that quality. The clothes rent is for extra money. Anyway, now you have skis, boots, sticks, helmet (if you don’t feel too cool to wear it) but you still need a ski-pass. You have to find a place in this hotel, where they sell them and you can buy one ticket to ski in the entire resort for 50TL for 4 hours. I’m not sure about the price for all day. Be careful, if you will buy somewhere else, because they are selling also tickets for almost the same price BUT just for one lift. You can also buy one way ticket for 10TL, but if you will buy the right one for entire area, then it’s pointless. The resort is not so big, so in four hours you can find your favourite slope, but generally the ones close to hotels are for beginners and a lot of ski schools are skiing there too. So if you want to find something spacious and steeper I can recommend slopes on the left side (number ….).
Unfortunately we didn’t have more time to explore this city deeply, there are of course other places you can visit, but we hope, that this article will help you to enjoy your time in Bursa and maybe you will have, thanks to it, more time for more fun there.
During your walks through the streets of Istanbul you will often come across some shops ‘windows beautifully displaying appealing golden pieces of baklava decorated with pistachio. This distinguished kind of sweets attracts your sight with its golden polish; it will awaken all your senses with its delicious smell of sugar and butter and with its crunchy sweet taste. Baklava isn’t just a popular desert in Turkey; it is also quite famous in the Near East, in Balkans and Caucasus. Different countries claim baklava as their own national food.
To those who are unfamiliar with it, yufka is a round and very thin sheets of unleavened flour dough. It is used to make Turkish flatbread and pastries, and has been considered as one of the most important food items in the Turkish as well as in the Balkan and Middle Eastern cuisines. Some say that yufka may have been the earlier form of phyllo/filo dough. More specifically, Turkish yufka is usually made from wheat flour mixed with a little salt and water to form a dough.
If you asked me to describe İstanbul in only three words, I would say: exiting, fascinating, overwhelming.
It is not that easy to find the right adjectives because there are no words to describe the kind of special beauty this city has. This city offers you a journey full of adventures where every single day you experience something different and every new day is better than the day before. It’s amazing how the city hypnotizes you and you just can’t help getting addicted to it. And when this Erasmus journey is over you probably will realize right back home that you never wanted to leave this city. It’s not easy to cope with the everyday life at your home country and you will probably ask yourself, “What the hell am I doing here? Why did I come back?” Once you have lived in Istanbul this city will always call you back and you will never want to leave again.
She woke up naked and she realized she was raped. She didn’t know how and when, because she couldn’t recall anything from that night. The last thing she remembered was feeling dizzy and nauseous after a drink that must have had some drug added. Two guys who helped her bring furniture in the new room she rented from one of them, offered her to have some drink and hang out. Then they mixed something into her drink and one of them raped her while she was under the influence of the drug or maybe even unconscious.
In Taiwan there’s a popular sweet, eight treasure pudding. To my surprise, there’s a similar sweet in Turkey which is called Aşure.Eight Treasure Pudding in Taiwan
Aşure is dated from the word “Ashura” in Arabic which means “tenth” in the first month of the Islamic calendar. On the day lots of vital historical events took place. For example, on that day Adam met Eve, Abraham was set off from fire and the landing of Noah’s Ark etc. The most famous legend of Aşure is from the landing of Noah’s Ark . The flood water receded and Noah’s Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. Few groceries was left but they managed to cook something. Thus, they collected what was left such as grains and dried fruits to make a sweet. Noah’s family celebrated their landing with this special dish, distributing it to all the people there. In addition, with the view of Islam, it’s Imam Husayn ibn Ali’s martyr day. People give away aşure on that day in memory of this event as well.
The recipe of Aşure varies from home to home but what can be sure is that it consists at least 10 ingredients. The picture is the Aşure I ate. The nuts, dried fruits as well as chick bean blend well with the yellow soup. I think the rose water in it makes it extremely extinct but a little like you are tasting perfume. Just like another Turkey desserts, it’s very sweet. If it isn’t so sweet, it might be one of my favorite sweet of Turkey desserts. With a bowl Aşure, we can get a glimpse of the fertile land of Turkey. It’s not only nutritious but full of cultural meaning.
As for the eight treasure pudding, it’s quite like Aşure but much more nutritious and healthy. It’s helpful to keep our physical system run regularly and so popular that it’s even made to cans. Generally speaking, there are green beans, red beans, job’s tears, rice, dried longan, tree fungus, red kidney bens and lotus seeds these eight ingredients. All of these do well to our health. If you are hungry anytime, it’ll be a suitable sweet. If you try it, you must love it!
What do we normally expect to see at a wedding? People wearing their best outfits, colorful decorations, flowers, fancy food and drinks, which you won’t eat on a regular day. But would you be surprised to find instead of all these pretentious foods cauldrons filled in with something grey and sticky? If the answer is yes, it means that you have never been to a traditional Turkish wedding.
Creamy, vinegary, sweat or sour flavor can be fined in different types of yogurt. Impressively yogurt as one of the most oldest ingredients that were used in the 3rd millennium B.C., Turkey considered one of the most popular countries that produces high quality of yogurt with a historical prevalence in the Western world but a fast-growing foothold in emerging markets.
“And this is why no bird will ever shit on this mosque.”Şemsi Pasha Camii
Turkish people like stories; well to be fair, probably everyone does. But still, for me it seems the phantastic stories of the Turkish people are ceaseless in their buds and blossoms. And of course, who wouldn’t pin one or two stories to the man who is known under such a range of exotic names like the greatest architect of the Ottoman empire; the Euclid of his time; Michelangelo of the Ottomans?! One of the stories takes us to the little picturesque Semsi Pasha Camii in Üsküdar which Sinan built exactly at a spot of a very specific microclimate. Apparently there are two winds crossing right over this mosque (and apparently they’ve been crossing for almost 4 centuries since the construction. Proof for Sinan’s far-sightedness?!), making it impossible for birds to fly over the mosque’s dome and hence making the contamination of the dome with bird’s feces impossible! Some say, it’s a sad day for the birds, others say it’s a stroke of a constructional genius. Again others say they just saw a bird sitting on the dome yesterday.
5 Centuries Later 4 Seasons in Istanbul from Sinan’s Minarets
‘’Love is all around. Love is in the air. I feel love love.’’ From my short stay in Istanbul I realized one thing: everything is about romance and love in this city. You can feel it from the couples walking in the streets holding hands, you can listen to love ballads in every radio station and finally you can watch many many many romantic films that come out every once in a while in this city’s cinemas. Words as ‘’ aşk, sevgi, sevda’’ are heard all the time from men and women of all ages. People in Turkey are capable of feeling strong emotions and they are used to express them. Either they love or hate they do it passionately. Couples of all kinds are shown in every romantic movies. Either they are free to express their love or they suffer from being separated from their other half.
The European Union has declared the multilingualism of its citizens as one of its long-term goals. According to the EU objective, every European should speak two foreign languages additionally to his or her mother tongue.Motivation
The Erasmus program could contribute a lot to this goal since languages are learned best in the countries where they are spoken. However, it is commonly known that during Erasmus the students mostly make international friends, and get to know very few locals. So are Erasmus students really motivated to spend their time abroad learning a foreign language? This seems especially questionable concerning languages that are only spoken in one single country, for example Turkish. Students might think it is not worth learning those languages.
Ebru is an old, traditional art in Turkey, it passed out of mind until Hikmet Barutçugil found out his passion for it and started to bring it back to the Turkish culture. I had the chance to talk to him and two of his students.
We Love Istanbul: A lot of people never heard about Ebru before, what is Ebru?
Hikmet Barutçugil:
Hikmet Barutçugil
Ebru, well you call it paper marbling, the first name that was given to this technique in Central Asia was Ebre. Then it came to Iran and they called it Abru. “Ab” means water and “Bru” is face, also surface. So the shortest way to explain it would be water-surface-painting. And here in Turkey we say Ebru, which means colourful. In Turkey it was developed in the 15th century, in the 17th century this technic came to Europe under the name Turkish Paper.
WLI: When did you start to practice Ebru and what was the reason?
HB: I started to study at the Academic of Fine Arts in 1973. You haven’t been born this time, it’s too long ago. I studied Fine Arts and Textile Design and I met a Calligraphy master who was teaching us the Latin alphabet calligraphy. But he was also kind of explaining our old culture, our based culture. Turkey has turned its face to the Western world and so many things were just pushed away.
This traditional culture we pushed away. We had different rules back then as the Western culture. If you look with your western eye to the eastern culture, you don’t see reality, because they have different traditions. So my teacher tried to teach us this old cultural heritage and then I got interested into the Calligraphy. The Arabic alphabet calligraphy, which is the most beautiful art as I believe. Picasso said: “All my life I tried to reach the aesthetic level of the Arabic alphabet”. Then I researched the old examples of Calligraphy masters and some of them have a background in Ebru, some of them used the Art of Ebru to frame their works. That was when I fell in love with this unknown beauty. In those years there was only one single man in whole Turkey doing this technique. It was like a kept secret all the time, there was no interest, no one wanted to learn it. So this is how I started. I am self-thought. I started to train and invent new things, actually I tried to learn the traditional way, but coincidence, no that isn’t the right Word, by destiny, and I discovered some new techniques. That is how I came to this level, I have now.
WLI: When did you start to do it as a professional?
HB: Well, since the beginning I focused on Ebru. I finished my Textile Design Studies, but then I connected Textile Design and Ebru. So that I can use the Art of Ebru on fabric. Also it is not said, that Ebru can only be made with paper. It’s a technique like sculpture. You would never say, that a sculpture can only be out of marble. So my idea was that Ebru can be used on other surfaces. Ebru always has been paper art, but with the right technique you can use the Ebru Art on many more different surfaces.
WLI: There are many old art traditions in Turkey, why did you stay with Ebru?
HB: Rumi, the poet, was asked the question: “What is love?” And he answered: “fall in love and see”. Because you cannot explain how it feels. It is like this with the love for Ebru, this unknown beauty. The secret things about this Art made me really excited to get involved. And I’m still having the same excitement and I still try to find something different, something new.
WLI: What is the difference to other, to Western Art styles and techniques?
HB: Very shortly I can say, Western Art goes to the eye, but Eastern Art goes to the heart. It is all about imagination. In the Turkish language we have a special Word for when the heart is full of love, when it touches your soul. That describes how it feels to do it and to see Easter Art.
WLI: When did you decide to teach it and open the school? And why?
HB: Long ago I was so pleasured and happy about practicing this Art, I wanted to share this feeling. I’m teaching for more than 30 years now. This place started in 1973 and since 1997 we established it. It is called Ebristan, which means Ebru and Istanbul. I believe, when you share your knowledge with other people, people who need it, then your knowledge grows. But if you keep it, you can’t learn more, it always stays the same.
WLI: What kind of classes do you teach?
HB: We have two different levels, the first is Beginners. It takes 8 months. We start with the colour grinding, the brush making, the water and the whole preparing. It is an active teaching, the students learn by doing it. Then we have the Higher Class. She (the student sitting next to him) is coming for nine years now and is creating her own style. This is also a kind of therapy, because when everything is prepared, to make the Ebru painting don’t take you longer than a few minutes. This high-speed you cannot find in any other art. You can’t finish a painting in a few minutes or a sculpture. So in this short time-period you just focus on that process and it comes out of your soul. It is called catharsis, cleaning your mind or soul.
WLI: To ask you as students, why did you decide to learn Ebru, a kind of old-fashioned Art style?
Student1: As HB said. It comes from the heart, you have to love it. It makes you calm and peaceful. Through Ebru I got to know me and also the other people.
Student2: If you asked me, we can’t say, that it is old-fashioned. Right now Ebru is really popular in Turkey, we can find so many examples everywhere. For me there is a difference between the other Art styles and Ebru. I feel a love, I can’t explain. You are playing with water, you are playing with water, and I just love it.
WLI: Would you say Ebru became more popular the last years?
HB: Yes. It was almost dying in the past, but then some people were fighting for making it popular. They really worked hard to bring it back to the people’s minds. I think it is a big success. Also to come back to tradition, tradition happens in the past, but also in the future. Tradition is life.
WLI: You’re doing workshops all over the world. What kind of reaction to you get from the people?
HB: One thing is important, Turkey has a really sharp cut in history with its culture. But then we discovered that tradition is genetic. There are things that we bring genetically from the past. We realized that Western culture doesn’t really fit us. That is when Ebru became so popular. And it is quite interesting, because with Ebru, we bring something new to the other countries. Last week I was in Tanzania, they never heard of it before. They’ve never seen anything like this before. They were really amazed. They would never have felt like this if I brought them some piece of their Art that I made. But that is the thing we were doing in the past. We brought classical music to Vienna, nobody cared about it, because they have already the highest level. But when I bring Ebru, it is something new and exciting. Next week I’m going to Vietnam, I’m sure they’ve never seen something like Ebru.
WLI: Do the people invite you to come?
HB: Some of them invite me, but also the foreign minister or the minister of culture organize Turkish festivals, Turkish weeks in other countries. And because Ebru is one of the really Turkish things, they invite me. These events are quite new, Turkey is changing these years, and we are focusing on our traditions again. That’s all you can say about what I am doing.
Enter any ocakbaşı or kebap restaurant and prepare yourself for a difficult time choosing between the ezmeli kebap or the beyti, the patlıcanlı, domatesli, yoğurtlu, urfa, adana or şaşlık kebap. In a good establishment, all these dishes would be delicious, juicy, well-spiced and gorgeously grilled.
In 2011, I spent six months living in Istanbul during my study abroad. After these six amazing months I made myself the promise that I would return at least once a year. As I write this I am living up to this promise.
What I loved about Istanbul when I first got here was the fact that the city has everything, from great fancy places to shitty kebab stores, from very rich to very poor and fun very quiet to extremely busy.
Since I left in the beginning of 2012 I followed Turkey with great interest, during the Gezi Park protests I was online all the time and my Dutch friends were calling me to ask if my Facebook was hacked because there were so many posts about the protests.
As I am sitting here sipping my çay I am wandering about what has changed over the last couple of years. I think it has changed, the city has become a bit harsher. I think the differences between people are more shown that before.
What do you think about Turkey is a question frequently asked? It really depends on what you want to know when you ask this. If you follow the news about Turkey and you hear the president say that men and women aren’t equal, pregnant women should not walk on the street (because than men can see they had sex), that Turkish women should give birth to at least three children or that Muslims and not Columbus discovered America and so on and so on.
But when I visit Istanbul and meet it’s people you feel warmth, you feel welcome and I feel at home. There is no one who can match Turkish hospitality. I spent the last couple of days with so many new Turkish friends and this city shown me again that it is a city like no others. As said all the extremes are present, from extremely rich to extremely poor. Even though the Turks can be very divided when it comes to football, politics or basically everything when it comes to friendliness they’re all extremely the same. Extremely friendly. So you want to know what kind of country Turkey is like? Don’t listen to a president but visit and I am sure that you’ll love it.
Künefe is a dessert that comes from Southeast Anatolia and was a typical dish of the previous Ottoman Empire. There are different variations of the dessert, but the one that is called “Künefe” relates to the Turkish version.
The Turkish dessert is made with very fine vermicelli or pasta, the so‐called Kadayif and filled with a special cheese (Dil‐Peynir). The idea is to put the cheese between two layers of kadayif. Künefe is cooked in small copper plates and it is served warm with pistachios on top. Most of times it comes with clotted cream (Kaymak), but it could be replaced with vanilla ice cream. Both ways are simply great!
Turkish Dessert by Merve Illeux
You can find Künefe in almost all Turkish restaurants of the city and the price ranges from 7‐20 TL. This dessert ‐like most of Turkish desserts‐ is very sweet, therefore on the first time I recommend that you share it with another person and that you have it with tea or water. For people who do not like “too sweet” then ask for extra cream and get some bites, it is definitely worth it!
In some touristic restaurants of Sultanahmet nuts and strawberry sauce can be included, but this is rather an exception. The original version and the one you will find almost everywhere will be served with pistachio and clotted cream.
If you really enjoyed Künefe and will miss it after visiting Turkey, do not worry! It is possible to find a “home‐made” version of the dessert on the Turkish markets around the world. I live in Germany and I was very glad when I found it. Of course, it will never taste exactly the same like in Turkey but at least it will be a good opportunity to sweet your life from time to time.
The interaction of vermicelli + Cheese + Syrup + Pistachio + clotted cream/ice cream is an absolutely delicious combination and a “must try” when one visits Turkey. I totally recommend it!
Having leaved in Greece for more than 17 years I have always heard the word ‘’Πόλη’’ (Poli). Greeks use it when they talk about Istanbul. ‘’Πόλη’’ (Poli) means ‘’the city’’ and they call it this way because it is believed to be the most beautiful city in the world, for them is an old lover whom they lost. What is it about Istanbul or Constantinople or Poli that makes it so special?
Months ago when I was preparing to experience one of the most amazing and strange 5 months of my student life. As the plane was about to land in Turkish ground I felt thrilled, the same feeling I have now that I am 2 days away from leaving from this magical place.
French Street in Istanbul by Anna
Talking about Istanbul I can find plenty of adjectives to describe it: magical, mysterious, hard to understand, interesting, vivid, different… But I still wonder what is it that makes this place so different and magical? Being able to wonder around colorful streets, talking a walk in Gulhane Park and at the Bosporus seaside, at street markets and numerous palaces made me realize that Istanbul is endless. The morning breeze walking to the university campus through Çırağan Caddesi, the hot cup of coffee or tea at the Bosporus sahil, the Bosporus tour towards the Black sea, the delicious yemek in Galata, Beşiktaş, Kadıköy, and Cihangir: all these are the ingredients of a rare recipe who was its origins in a city with a double identity.
Every day in Istanbul is a new adventure, every day you can see new things that you hadn’t noticed before. Turkish people with their loud voices and their funny gestures are offered to help you in any situation. Istanbul has everything for everyone: the old city for the history lovers, the palaces and mosques for the architects, countless music and exhibition venues for the artists, glamourous neighborhood where Istanbul’s richest people gather, delicious traditional food and desserts for food lovers. It is for sure that days are passing so quickly in this magical city and that even 5 months are not enough for someone who enjoys it very much.
Turkish people love eating. Therefore the breakfast is the most important meal of the day and people know very well to extend and vary it with different elements and specialities. That’s why the Turkish breakfast is never exactly the same. It depends where you go in Istanbul or Turkey, you will receive different breakfast compilations. But in general I can say, that there are some basic elements which you can find everywhere as well as some typical specialities which vary from place to place. The word -kahvaltı- can be translated as kahve-alt, meaning the food you eat before drinking coffee.
You can get tickets directly at the counter or order them via Internet (then you will just put your credit card on the machine in front of the ferry and it will print your tickets). The price per person for students is approximately 20 TL. The ride takes 1.5 – 2 hours. It arrives at Bursa (Mudanya) and you will have to take a bus which directly brings you to the city center in another half hour. Cheap accommodations are offered at the webpage “airbnb.com”. When booking, pay attention that it is situated close to the city center! Then you can visit all sights at one day by walking. The distances between them are not so big.
