Sultans of Sweat

Turkish baths are much better than anyone else’s baths. So much better.

Until today it hadn’t quite hit me how wild it is that I’m in Istanbul about to spend the next 7 weeks traipsing around the rest of Europe. Don’t get me wrong, our first two days were absolutely incredible: wandering through the 1,500 year old halls of Hagia Sophia, strolling the grounds of the ornate Topkapi Palace, eating way too many kebaps, and standing atop a 700 year old tower with 360 degree views of Constantine’s old stomping grounds. It finally hit me when I was sipping apple tea after my Turkish bath marveling at the ancient tradition I had just experienced in a 500-year-old building.



We chose the Kilic Ali Pasa Hamami. If I had to do it again I would go to this one over and over again. Turkish baths are divided up among men and women, and this one does women for half the day and men for the other half. Jessica did hers first and I asked her for every detail before I went in even though I had read up a lot on what to expect.

They brought me into the domed, hexagonal, steamy room made of marble, white plaster, and gold and sat me down with only my hamam towel around my waist while they dumped bowls of water on my head. I just let them have their way with me. They laid me on my back on this warm, giant slab of marble to sweat. And sweat I did. For about 30 minutes I lay there staring up at the sunlight coming through the rings of star, hexagon, and circle shaped skylights that dotted the dome. Then a 60 year old man had me sit against the walls next to the marble basin and he gave me a good scrubbing from head to toe, dumping buckets of water and buckets of soap suds on me for 15 minutes and scrubbing me some more. Then he dumped a refreshingly icy bowl of water on my chest, back, and head and toweled me off. He led me to the relaxation room where I sat wrapped in my towels marveling at how incredible it was.



It’s so amazing to me that this building was built almost 500 years ago for the reason I went there today. It was incredible to lounge on a divan and think about the half a millennia of people who have sat in the since restored building and sweated, bathed, relaxed and sipped. It felt lavish, luxurious, and extremely Turkish. A once in a lifetime experience that I never dreamed I would have.





You can’t take photos inside so I’ve stolen the rest of these from Google to give you a taste:

Istanbul Day 1

There's a snorer in our hostel dorm, and it's oddly comforting. I'm so happy to be experiencing Istanbul with so many humans.

Our plane landed in the middle of last night during a torrential downpour. We ogled minarets and narrow streets through foggy taxi windows, settled into our bunks, and woke this morning to explore the city on foot. It rained most of the day and we loved it. It was beautiful and made the streets look extra moody, the greens extra lush. We didn't have much of a plan for our first day, but our hostel is in the perfect location to stumble upon all the best that the old city has to offer.

We started our day at Sultanahmet Mosque, nicknamed the Blue Mosque. As crazy as it sounds, I felt so at home walking through the doors. My favorite class in college was Islamic humanities, and I honestly never get tired of mosaic arabesques and the melodic reading of the Quran. I made Matt stay for quite a long time so I could take it all in.


Interior of Sultanahmet Mosque



The rain was really coming down in droves after that, so we did what every single tourist in Istanbul did and tried to take cover at Topkapı Palace, which is stunning and grand and basically my dream home (if I were a lavish queen mother, of course). It reminded me a lot of my favorite places in southern Spain. We wandered through the harem and tried to imagine ourselves lounging on divans and poufs with iced desserts and taking dips in the palace pool with the sultan. Truly magical stuff.




I'm convinced that every single dog in Istanbul has the same dad—the canine sultan of the streets I call him—because they all have the exact same snout and build. I don't know if it's just because I miss my dog (thanks for sending videos, Mom and Dad!), but my heart is so full of love for these beautiful strays. They're mostly calm and friendly, and I just about lose it when I see them trot around and slump into an adorable nap. The first thing I googled when I got back to wifi was "stray dogs of Istanbul," so now I'm all emotionally involved in the welfare of Turkey's not-so-wild life. Not surprising.

After a few hours on the palace grounds, we wound our way uphill to the neighborhood of the Grand Bazaar. Because we're traveling with backpacks, we didn't spend much time shopping. The bazaar is a labyrinth of gold bangle salesmen and glorious kebap smells, but most of it is just as touristy as everyone says. I did eye a few rugs pretty seriously though. Once a rug addict, always a rug addict.



In the late afternoon we stumbled upon the beautiful cat-filled cemetery behind the Süleymaniye Mosque, which is truly an architectural marvel. The grounds were a perfect escape from the bustle of town. The kittens seem to think so too. While my Istanbullus dog obsession is to be expected, I never imagined that one day in this city could turn me into a full-fledged cat lover. Every time I saw one licking its paws I told Matt to take a picture. My goal is to have a lifetime supply (of photos, not cats) by the end of our four days here.




One rug salesman told me my hat made me look Australian. Another said it made me look Turkish. We took dinner recommendations from the latter and were rewarded handsomely for our decision in the form of yaprak sarma.

We accidentally found the Spice Bazaar as we were using the view of the Bosphorus to guide us back toward the Sultanhamet neighborhood. I insisted we buy a sampling of Turkish delight because Narnia, obviously. Also so we could say we've eaten Turkish delight in delightful Turkey. It was way more delicious than the Turkish delight I had in fifth grade when a kid brought it in with his book report.



One of my absolute favorite moments from today was when we were walking down a steep cobblestone hill and within a matter of minutes, a fluffy-headed kitten made faces at us through a shop window, a flock of loud birds nearly took off Matt's head, the third round of midday fireworks went off only a block away, and the call to prayer began. Call to prayer is amazing here. With so many mosques, you can hear it echoing from towers everywhere you go.



By this point our untrained walking legs were basically toast, so we decided to take an accidental two-mile detour through Gülhane Park, which has a seriously impressive tulip collection. I also took a photo of Matt because he'd been the camera man most of the day and that's why there are too many dumb pictures of my face.



We were home by nightfall mostly due to another storm, but tomorrow we'll try to act more like we're in our twenties instead of our seventies and get a feel for the city at night.

So far, Istanbul is a dream.

1,440 Hours in Europe

People who know me know that I am not the most socially comfortable human. I often feel out of place and frequently wish I were invisible (cue Clay Aiken). The reason I bring any of this up is because I've noticed over the past few years that one of the few times I feel completely confident and in my element is when I'm traveling. I love solving the puzzle of a new city and figuring out public transportation in another language. And I especially love eating mysterious foods. Somehow, when I'm thrown completely out of my comfort zone, I feel pretty dang comfy.

When I met Matt, I had just gotten back from spending the summer in Uganda. Just a few hours before our first date, I had an interview that ultimately led to my study abroad in Spain. Two months on the Equator and four months in the Mediterranean made me seriously consider selling everything I owned and becoming a nomad. I found myself floating down the Nile daydreaming about becoming certified as a river rafting guide and chasing rapids the rest of my life. In Madrid, I once thought about joining the circus. (Why do all of my fantasy lives require feats of strength?)

Matt and I had been dating for a few months before I went to Spain, and while I was there I was terrible at journal writing, but I was exceptional at email writing. In between professing my long-distance love, I'd wax poetic about mosques and ice cream and museums. At least once a week, I'd make Matt promise that we'd go back together someday.

Last year, when winter was raging along with my wanderlust, I sat down by the only window in our basement apartment and thought about where I wanted to go. Obviously the answer was the entire world, but that felt a bit broad so I temporarily shelved my plans of trekking around South America and Asia and instead focused on Europe. I wanted to get back to Spain, Matt wanted to get back to Italy (where he served his mission), and we both had long lists of European dreams. Who doesn't?

We talked about our plans all year, asked for travel gear for Christmas, and now we're set to blow part of our savings (and some graduation gifts from our parents) and hop on a plane the day after we both graduate from BYU. If I were telling you about this in person right now I would be talking really fast and loud and you would be fully frightened by my enthusiasm. I've already burst into excited tears twice (I'm crazy) since we booked our flights and bought our train passes.

You might think we've lost our minds when you see how much we're trying to pack into an eight-week backpacking trip, but we both decided that now is a good time in our lives for a whirlwind sampler tour. We know that a few days in each place is hardly enough to even break the surface of a culture—and that's a bummer—but we hope that someday we'll get to go back to some of these places. Hopefully this trip will help us narrow down our favorites.

This is the path we're planning on taking:

Turkey: Istanbul
Greece: Santorini
Italy (Our Italy plans are pretty up in the air. We've both been there before and Matt speaks the language, so we kind of want to just take it day-by-day once we're there.)
Czech Republic: Prague
Austria: Vienna, Graz
Croatia: Krka National Park, Split
Morocco: Tangier, Marrakech
Spain: Seville, Granada, Madrid, Barcelona (We'll hopefully be stopping in some smaller towns too along the way. I'm super excited to brush up on my Spanish.)
Southern France: Arles, Marseille, Chamonix
Switzerland: Geneva, Interlaken/Lauterbrunnen, Lucerne
Southern Germany: Neuschwanstein, Munich
France: Paris/Versailles
Belgium: Brussels, Bruges
Netherlands: Amsterdam
Germany (This is still pretty un-planned.)
Denmark: Copenhagen
Sweden: Gothenburg
Norway: Oslo, Bergen, smaller fjords near Bergen
Iceland: Reykjavik, Blue Lagoon, etc.

We're feeling really fortunate and grateful that we get to do something like this, and we want to take advantage of it as best we can. We've already done quite a bit of research, but we'd really love suggestions from anyone who's been to any of the places on our list or has suggestions for nearby must-sees. Even though a lot of our itinerary includes bigger cities, we really want to spend days and half-days in smaller towns as we move from place to place. Especially as we travel north toward Scandinavia we're not really sure which towns should be at the top of our list.

We're traveling primarily by train, with a flight and a bus ride thrown in here and there. And we'll be staying at hostels and the occasional Airbnb (this one we're especially excited about!). We've got a pretty strict budget in place and even though cheap is basically the antithesis of Europe, we're going to do our best.

Honestly we're pretty flexible, and very few of those destinations are absolutely set in stone at this point. So help some peeps out and give us your best European advice! If it's really good advice I might make you cookies.

Not 3000 Words

When I was a wee teenager I started a blog just like this one—only I fancied myself very introspective at the time, and the blog was full of long (mostly incoherent) ramblings that were truly embarrassing. Truly. They often included quotes from the latest novel I'd cried over, or song lyrics I'd deconstructed until I was certain they were written about about my life.

Don't tell my mom this, but I once drove to a creepy desert golf course by myself in the middle of the night and sprawled on a tee box listening to my "heart-wrenching" playlist until I heard a possible coyote and went home. Hormones I tell ya.

I'd like to pretend that I've grown up a little bit since then. After all I'm three weeks away from a college degree and I've spent the last year convincing my bosses that I am a somewhat capable writer who needn't rely on emotional clichés to get my points across.

Now back to that blog of the past. When I lived in the dorms, one of my friends who had the same name as me and my roommate (fun fact: every female born between 1985 and 1995 is named Jessica) said to me, "Yarm," (that's what some people call me because of the whole Jessica thing) "I can't read your blog because every post is like 3,000 words." And she had a seriously valid point.

So here's to posts that are hopefully shorter and less universe-shattering. I can't promise that they won't be completely unnecessary, and I especially can't promise that I won't over-use parentheses—but I will leave my teenage hormones out of it. Hopefully.

Not a Song Lyric

Well, here is our first post. Is there a way to not do this awkwardly?

Hi, hello. Nice wind we're having today.

I suppose we're trying this again because we like to take the long way home and stop to smell the dirt, and occasionally such things deserve a few words. We don't really care to take this too seriously; it's mostly an attempt to write about some of the adventures we have coming up this summer.

Feel free to gawk and ridicule. Or you can be nice and validate our insecurities. Whatever.