back post 5: Sunday

Went to mass today.   Turns out you can do that in Turkey :-)

Took some googling to figure out where it was, but man we are getting to be pros at deciphering the Turkish bus line website.  No idea at all what we’d do without that 3G internet stick the Welches lent us.  

Took a photo of the church front but this one from the interwebs was better (see below); but of course that’s not what you see from the street.  I assume the church has been there for a longer time than the city has been called Istanbul.  I mean, it’s called the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit and is really ornate and elaborate inside.  But all you see from the street is a big stone wall with a heavy door and a tiny sign.  Then it opens into the courtyard with this big bronze statue of Benedict XV looking all pope-ish.  You’re certainly not NOT allowed to be Christian here, I don’t really think anyone cares much at all what you believe, but back when the Sultans were in charge (ie pretty much anytime from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the 1920’s), Islam was all you saw.  I guess at least they didn’t tear it down?  The congregation was mostly asian/pacific islander, I’m really bad at pinpointing which….most likely Filipino.  It was an English service, with a couple songs in Tagalog, though I guess it could have been Vietnamese.  A clump of a couple rows were clearly where the Africans sat, and there was an Irish family behind us, but very few (if any) other Anglo-looking folks.    It was a small group, but it was a good mass.  I will like it better once the weather cools off, but the priest was easy to understand and seemed nice, and there’s a cool lady named Cynthia (per the lettering on the back of her shirt) that we’ll need to meet later who seems to run the show.  

After a little more grocery shopping and metro card money-loading, we had a pretty chill rest of the Sunday.   Used our tiny oven to bake up some chicken thighs, and even made mashed potatoes.  

i obviously did not take this, but this is exactly what it looks like, right down to Cynthia in the front

again, not my photo, but DW has the iphone with the pics on it and he's not here right now