Bursa Silk, Iznik Ceramics

March 15th-ish

This past weekend my friends and I decided to take a trip to Iznik and Bursa. We've developed an acute sense of superiority over those we term "ESN-ers," or those who are Erasmus/exchange students who actively participate in Erasmus Student Network activities. We accidentally took a trip to Bursa the same weekend they did, because we were too good to get ripped-off by the club. ...then we spent four times as much as they did. Oops.

Iznik is formally Nicea, where some important church councils were held (Nicean creed...that's the place). We saw a really cool church that had just the remnants of frescoes. There was also a really cool wall around the city, which I believe was pre-Alexandran. Iznik is famous for its ceramics, and I picked up some beautiful tiles. People in Iznik were nice and we got a fair amount of free food. There were some hooligan kids, too, and I felt old.

Bursa was the first capital of the Ottoman empire. We spent the night in the city; it was very strange, but good, to see a city besides Istanbul. The Ulu Cami (Great Mosque) was breathtakingly beautiful. Easily my favorite mosque so far. We also saw the Yesil Cami, the Green Mosque, so-called for its green tiles which fell off in an earthquake. It is no longer green. We met a man inside the mosque who was helping restore some of the tile-work, and he gave us a tour of the mosque. It was really cool.

The other great part about Bursa was the food. We sat down in what appeared to be your run-of-the-mill doner stand shop (doner is the meat that is rotated on a spit in the window, often served in bread or pita with vegetables). We were ushered to a long table with other eaters (all locals...we knew then it would be good) and asked how many "porsiyon"s (that's Turkish for portion. I know a lot of Turkish.) we'd take. We ordered and soon they brought out steaming plates of meat with some hidden fat-drenched bread underneath. We tucked into the delicious mess immediately, only to be interrupted by a man whose sole purpose in life was evidently to pour pans of browned-butter over your food.

My. Gosh. In my top two meals since I've been in Turkey.