Kayseri

After Lindsay and I went to Cappadocia, we took a one-hour bus ride to Kayseri, where I was to deliver a lecture at Erciyes University. Kayseri is one of the largest cities in Turkey, and its main industries are business and textiles. The tourists coming through the city are usually only making their way to and from Cappadocia. This bustling Turkish metropolis with a lack of foreigners and tourism (very unlike Istanbul or Ankara) made Kayseri one of the more interesting cities I have visited here in Turkey. Lindsay and I met a whole host of people, from the director of a local historic sight, to an imam who spent half an hour trying to bring me to Islam. Say whatever you want about Kayseri, but it does have character. Shout out to my friend Matt, the newest Fulbrighter from BC who will be teaching at Erciyes University in Kayseri next year!! I think he will have a great time.

I came to Kayseri to give a lecture, and just dragged Lindsay along with me, but I was also excited to visit because Kayseri has several fine monuments from the 13th and 14th centuries. Kayseri is situated in central Anatolia, prime Seljuk territory. Check out this huge tomb (right) that was built for a female member of the Seljuk royal family. It had amazing carving, and looked splendid lit up at night. This picture has a funny angle and framing because I had to hang through a small window in a stone wall to get it. 

As I may have mentioned, I seem to have unintentionally discovered every Seljuk and Ottoman mental hospital in all of Turkey. Just my luck, I stumbled across yet another one in Kayseri, the Gevher Nesibe Hastanesi. Before my lecture, Lindsay and I headed out from our hotel near the city center to find this old medical school. I was interested in it because it was built in honor of the sultan's sister, who died from tuberculosis, brought on from grief for her dead boyfriend whom her cruel sultan brother sent on numerous dangerous campaigns to get him out of the way (so much drama!). Apparently, the sultan was overcome with remorse and asked his sister on her deathbed what he could do to make up for being kind of a jerk. She asked him to build a medical hospital and school. Thus he did, and our hospital was finished in 1210 CE. 

When Lindsay and I arrived at the complex, I was crushed to discover it was closed for extensive renovation. I clung to the massive door, trying to at least have a glimpse of the hospital's inner courtyard. I suppose I looked pretty pathetic because a construction worker walking past noticed us and asked if I were Turkish. I thought this a strange question, because there is nothing Turkish about my appearance whatsoever, but I took the opportunity to tell this man that I was a researcher from America and I had come all this way to see the hospital. The worker was really excited that I was a foreigner, he shared with me that he was also a "yabanci" in Turkey; apparently he was from Macedonia. He looked around stealthily and asked if we wanted to have a look around inside for just 5 minutes. I instantly agreed and he led us through the door, Lindsay being a little confused, as I had just announced the hospital was closed a minute ago. I thought we would just have a look around on our own, but suddenly an older gentleman in a nice suit materializes out of nowhere. He informs us he is the director of the museum and that he would like to show us around. I look at Lindsay, she shrugs, and we commence on what turned out to be a very informative 30-minute tour of the complex. I tried to translate everything that he was saying for Lindsay. It was really wonderful being welcomed this way; Lindsay and I felt like such VIP! In fact, at one point, another group of tourists, seeing Lindsay and I wandering around inside from the door, walked in to have a look as well. The director stopped mid-sentence, whirled around, and shooed them away, repeating again and again "We are closed!" Nice to be the exception to the rule, I suppose. The director showed us around both the hospital as well as the medical school. The hospital, which included a very creepy corridor of cells for mental patients (above, right), had a lot of facilities for homeopathic treatment. That creepy corridor? Well, it's cells have a medieval version of "speakers" in the four corners of the room, piping in soothing music that was played in the hospital's courtyard. I was also impressed that the medical school was linked to the hospital by a corridor, so that the students could practice what they learned in the classroom on real patients. That is pretty much how medical students are being trained today. Not too bad for 1210.

Lindsay and I stayed in a hotel that was specifically for teachers and students. There was a small student art exhibition going on in the lobby, and this is one of the pieces. I thought it was pretty interesting; it symbolizes the change in Turkish in 1928, from Arabic script to a Latin one. In the picture, Arabic letters to the left swirl around Ataturk to emerge form the other side into Roman letters...pretty great.

Just some standard hero-worship of Mimar Sinan. He da man.

Kayseri is loveliest at night. All of the monuments are lit up. I took this picture because I could capture the three essential elements of any Turkish city, from left to right: obligatory statue of Ataturk, Ottoman mosque, and clock tower. What else do you really need?

Lindsay told me that she wanted to buy a carpet before she left Turkey, so we decided to try our luck in Kayseri, since many of the rugs found in Istanbul come from Kayseri and the surrounding villages. I figured if you could tap the source you could maybe get a better deal. Our friend Seniye at the university took us to a carpet shop who had already sold some carpets to guests of the university. We haggled hard, and Lindsay's heart was set on a BEAUTIFUL Iranian rug, with a deep red color. Of course, the first price thrown out was way high (like $800), and this was pretty hard to swallow since Lindsay was only planning on spending $100-ish. We got him down to $300, and I figured we would close at $250, but he just took a look into Lindsay's face as she meekly suggested $200 and turned to his assistant, clapping his hands: "Wrap it up!" Both Seniye and I were shocked; that was a freaking steal on the rug, considering it was such high quality. Seniye asked the dealer why he gave such a low price for Linday. In Turkish, he explained that he sees a lot of people come and go in his business, and he rarely sees someone who is good-hearted and sincere. He saw it in Lindsay, and that's why he let it go. I thought it was a really good way to end our time in Kayseri. Over-all, it treated us well.

**My dear compatriot Lindsay has pointed out that I did not include the story about arriving in Kayseri. We came in on the bus late in the evening, around 11PM I think. Then we hopped onto the service bus, which is a free shuttle that takes passengers from the bus station to the city center, or wherever else they need to go. I thought that I had sufficiently communicated with the bus guys as to where we were going, but apparently not. I realized we were zipping right through the city center, where we needed to be, and we had already headed out to the university's campus before I had realized our mistake. I went up to the bus driver, and he was really annoyed but kept saying, "allright, allright" but I was not clear about what he actually planned to do. After all the people got off the shuttle, the driver parked the bus in the middle of nowhere, got up, announced he was taking a 15 minute break, and jumped off the bus, leaving us stunned in our seats. Meanwhile, Lindsay is trying not to freak out, as we are totally lost in a city we have never been to before and it is almost midnight, and I am getting frantic calls from Seniye, our contact at the university. Finally, the driver comes back out again, hops back into his seat, and commences to drive back the same way we came. After a circuitous route for picking up people going to the airport, the driver finally stops in the middle of the city center, and thrusts his arm to the right "the hotel is down that street." So, Lindsay and I emerged from the service bus, after a one-and-a-half hour trip that should have taken 15 minutes. Ecstatic to have our goal in sight, we trudged toward the hotel, until we heard shouting behind us. It was one of the young gentleman from the bus, waving around a small black object in the air. We had almost left behind our Travel Scrabble!