Dolmabahçe Palace

On Tuesday, as I had no class, I went to the Dolmabahçe Palace with my two Turkish friends. Due to language barrier, I thought we were going to Tokapi Palace. But this palace was also really great. It was a cold rainy day as we got on the ferry. When we got to the European side, we first went to a museum filled with items from the Ottoman Empire. It was really cool especially since I am currently learning about the Ottoman Empire in class. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take photos but did take one of the building. The thing was that it wasn’t posted anywhere that we weren’t allowed to. My friends asked in Turkish and was told no. But as we were looking around, one of my friends got really upset because some guy was taking pictures. Two reasons for upsetting her. First, she didn’t like that he was breaking the rules (though he didn’t know he wasn’t suppose to). And second, which I found out when I tried taking pictures of them, they hate getting their picture taken. I tried asking them why and what I got from it was they think when people take pictures of them, the people talk about them, I am guessing in a bad way. I really didn’t understand and still don’t.

Anyway, we then went to this restaurant where I had something that is now one of my favorite foods. It is like a burrito with chicken and some type of hot salsa, which was so tasty. One of my friends was saying it was bitter and many other friend and I was laughing at her as it wasn’t at all bitter.

We then walked a while in drizzle to the palace. We were all surprised to see such a long line since it was a weekday and horrible weather. So we waited for about an hour. It was fun to be a tourist place where there were so many languages. When we finally got to the ticket counter, I really surprised the lady. She thought I was tourist but when I showed her my student ID, her facial expression was very funny. She was expecting me to have a student ID.

So we finally get in and there was a beautiful garden with a foundation and many flowers. We went up to the palace and had to put on pink shoe coverings. People were divided into Turkish and non-Turkish groups. Meaning the tour was either in Turkish or English. My friends stayed with me in the English line though. It was about a forty-five minute tour. The tour guide had a very thick Turkish accent and since the group was so large, it was hard to understand him most of the time. But just walking around this huge palace that belonged to Ataturk (the loved founder of the Turkish Republic) and many other people. It was so beautiful. Going up the staircase, it looked like a scene of the Titanic (before it hit the iceberg!). Once again, I couldn’t take pictures. Though I did sneak a quick picture before our tour started.

It was a lovely day and even with the super long bus ride home (as it was rush hour), it was a great day.

Ending on a very positive note, I got a 90 on my Gender midterm! J

As we were waiting in line.

The quick photo I took inside!