Sally in Istanbul: Drums and Dolmabahce Palace

I had a cool experience this morning - I feel asleep at Sinan's house, which looks out onto a road, so there are a lot of different noises compared to my garden view. Ramadhan started last Thursday or Friday, which is when people fast during the day (obviously there is more to Ramadhan but that's all I'll go into here), so people need to wake up pretty early to eat a meal, before the day starts. They start fasting at about 5, and they can break the fast at about 8pm. Anyway, most people wake up, eat, then go back to sleep. This morning, I heard someone walking through the streets beating a drum at about 4am! I just finished this book about Turkey, and I remember reading about someone doing this to wake people up so they will eat before the fasting started. I read about it happening in central Turkey, I didn't imagine it would happen in the cosmopolitan Istanbul, but sure enough, someone was beating away at this drum. I was too groggy to remember if it sounded good, but I think it did.
I'd say only about 1/3 of my students are fasting, but that figure is no where near scientifically based. The sort of people who come to Wall Street are more forward-thinking and liberal, but I know in other parts of Istanbul and definitely Turkey many more people are fasting etc. I really don't notice much of a difference while walking around, but again, the places I live and work are not as traditional as other parts.

I decided to be a tourist today on my day off and I went to Dolmabahce Palace. It was built in the mid-1800s (quite new compared to other things in Istanbul) and it was used by sultans (they abandoned residing in Topkapi palace to live here) and Ataturk also used it until he died there in 1938. It it is so opulent, magnificent, and over-the-top - it's worth visiting, but I probably wouldn't go again for another time. If I was shown a picture of the interior, I never would guess it was a palace in Istanbul, it has so many European architectural influences. The major giveaway were the numerous hamams throughout the palace. I got a deal with the ticket- for most people it's about $17 but I showed the ticket salesperson my residence permit and I told him in Turkish I'm an English teacher (ok, I actually said mine English teacher but oh well) and I got in for about $.60! Excellent. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside but I snapped a few outside.