Turkey Day 1: Arriving in Istanbul

Last semester I created a separate page for Turkey, which will give the background of many of the sites we are going to this trip.  But for ease of reference, I think I will just add a new entry on the blog each day this time.  The internet in our hotel here in Istanbul is good, so I can upload a video highlight and plenty of pictures . . . on the other hand, it is now midnight, and I am exhausted, so I do not think that I will write a lot of commentary.

First, the highlights video montage.  Remember that my camera selects segments of all the clips I take each day randomly, so I have little control over them.  But they still give a feel for our day:

We left the Jerusalem Center at 11:00.  Though our flight was scheduled until after 3:00, security concerns here always require LOTS of extra time.  We had more than we bargained for, because our flight was delayed almost two hours.

The dreaded sign

Students scattered about during the long wait at the gate

The flight itself was uneventful, shorter than the Tel Aviv airport wait but with surprisingly good food.  I spent the time learning a little Turkish. We arrived in Istanbul sometime before 7:00 and began the process of getting visas, passing through immigration, collecting our luggage, and then meeting our guides, which included Fatih from last semester.

Riding the airport bis from the plane to the terminal

"Reunion Pic" with some of the members of my recently graduated Old Testament class.  I still have their final papers and exams waiting at home though!

Bryson looked like he needed a friend for this pic

Some of the women being "turkeys" in Turkey

Four of my boys sporting closely cropped hair cuts.  Rather short, earning them rough head rubs from Papa Hunts

On our big Turkish buses, so different from last semester

We drove from the airport to and across the historic center of Istanbul and then crossed the Golden Horn to the commercial and urban hub just to the north.  There we got off at Taksim Square, which is kind of like Time Square is to Manhattan.  We walked there to our restaurant, where we had a good meal and a good time visiting.

These flower pics, especially the tulips, are for Elaine.  I love to give her tulips, one of her two favorite flowers

My tablemates at dinner tonight

The Aqueduct of Valens, which we saw on our way back to our hotel

Snow in Jerusalem!

We woke up to a little slushy snow this morning, but it quickly melted off, and the children went ahead to school as usual.  In the middle of my morning New Testament class, however,  I looked out the window and saw snow . . . actual, real snow falling.  During our break between the class' two hours, I let my students go out on the terrace, where they had some fun with the other class, taking pictures and throwing snow balls.

We woke up to a bit of slush snow on our terrace

With a little more in our rose garden, but that was it.

But during the break of our morning classes, the snow started falling in earnest

Group pic in the snow . . .

The Dome of the Rock, barely visible, is obscured by snow

You can not see it, but the Dome of the Rock is over my right shoulder in this pic. Unfortunately it is not snow in my hair . . . I am just going a lot grayer.

Having snow, even if for a while, gave us a great chance to sing "Let It Snow!" This clip starts awkwardly because the security staff member who happened to take it, right before he took the group still pic for me, did not know that he was filming:  It is short but fun:

Rachel got some pictures of the snow down in West Jerusalem as they drove home.

Snow in the yard of the Anglican School

She and some of the other faculty children, with the help of some of our security staff, built a real snowman.

Rachel with the center snowman

Rachel and Marissa Ludlow built a smaller snowman outside my classroom

Later the sun came out, the snow quickly melted off, and things looked pretty much like normal

Though some roofs around the Holy Sepulchre were still white with a thin layer of snow

A Palestinian Wedding

Elaine at the wedding

Yesterday the son of the center's accountant, Ghalib Nubani, got married.  He invited the directors of the center and the faculty, their wives, and the service couples to the celebration, which was held in Jericho.  Sometimes we find ourselves having experiences that never could have imagined before . . . like being at a more-or-less traditional Palestinian in the West Bank!

The celebration was held at the Intercontinental Hotel, which was built in the heady days after the Oslo Accords were signed when peace between Israel and the Palestinians seemed imminent and Jericho was one of the first towns turned over to Palestinian administration.  While much of that hope has been lost, or at least stalled, the Intercontinental is still in business and serves as the venue for important occasions like large, opulent wedding celebrations.

The large ballroom of the Intercontinental

Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, start marriages with formal, binding agreements between the families, much like the engagement or "espousal" of Joseph and Mary in Matthew 1.  This allows the man and women to appear together in public, something that is not allowed, particularly in conservative Muslim culture.  The marriage is actually formalized in a small ceremony in front if the sheik when the marriage contract is signed.  But the big celebration for family and friends occurs when the the new couple comes to the site of the party to make an official declaration that they are married and present themselves as husband and wife.  That is what we got to be part of last night.

Arelen Chapman, Eric and Elaine Huntsman, Margaret and Jared Ludlow, Eran Hayet

Perhaps the most interesting part to me was the zaffa or procession that occurred outside the ballroom.  A group of men, family and friends of the groom, played bendir dums, bagpipes (inherited from the British Mandatory period, apparently) and chanted and sang traditional poems of good luck and blessing.  The couple danced and danced, and at one point the groom and his father were both lifted aloft on shoulders.

The couple later made a formal entrance to the ballroom, where we were all seated for a full dinner.  Everyone was dressed to the nines, but it was interesting, because while many were dressed conservatively (and some were obviously religious), there were other women who were dressed in very Western, even somewhat revealing, attire.  The couple and then their families, and then their friends joined in and danced and danced.  For the most part men danced with men and women with women, but the couple did dance together, and they were all on the floor together, which would not have occurred in a more conservative celebration, where men and women would actually have been in separate rooms.

Samuel's Birthday

March 1 was Samuel's ninth birthday. Go to his page and scroll to the bottom to see pictures of his dinner at McDonald's, trip for ice cream, and party at our apartment.