Dubuque and Chicago July 22-31

I had traveled to the USA to come to Dubuque, Iowa for my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary.

My bus from Chicago arrived in Dubuque at 11:00 on Monday July 22 and I went to the Luther Manor retirement home, where my parents live and where I could stay in a guest room. My brother John let me have use of his car for the week.

Over the next days, I had a dental appointment and a physical exam and did some shopping; I frittered away a lot of time watching YouTube videos, but on two days I did get to the Wartburg Seminary library.

On Thursday July 25 I had lunch with Jeff Walser, a friend from high school days and a fellow University of Chicago alumnus.

 

Jeff Walser and me

On Sunday July 28 I took Mom and Dad to St Peters for church for the first time in a while;

they rarely go anywhere anymore that requires riding in a car.

Later that afternoon, I went to John and Renee’s place, and met there Linda, Dennis and his mom, who had come up from Coralville. I saw for the first time some of the wild turkeys that live in the woods behind their house. Deer also show up on occasion.

The wild turkeys in the backyard

We then all gathered for dinner at a restaurant downtown in celebration of my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary.

The group at the restaurant (from left: Dad, Mom, Dennis’ mom, Linda, Dennis, me John and Renee

The Schick family (from left: Linda, Mom, Dad, John and me)

The next afternoon on Monday July 29 I took the bus into Chicago and stayed for the night in Hyde Park with Fred Donner, my University of Chicago PhD dissertation advisor. The next day, Tuesday July 30 I spent on the University of Chicago campus, including some time at the Oriental Institute library.

In a statement about God versus Mammon, the conversion of the old Chicago Theological Seminary across the street from the Oriental Institute into the new Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics is in full swing. The Coop Bookstore in the seminary basement has moved to a new location a block away; I could not resist getting a few books there.

 

The conversion underway

 

The new Coop Bookstore

That evening I took a 10:15 pm flight from O’Hare to Frankfurt, arriving at 1:30 pm and then after a seven-hour layover I flew on to Amman, arriving at 1:30 am on Thursday August 1, travel that spanned three calendar days.

Istanbul July 20-21

Istanbul July 20-21

On the morning of Saturday July 20 I traveled from Iznik back to Istanbul for my flight to Chicago. But when I got up and checked my flight details, I discovered that I had misremembered the flight departure time. It was not at 10:00 pm, the time of my original flight from Istanbul to Amman, but rather at 2:00 pm.

It was too late for me to recover and take an early bus from Iznik to catch the first ferry of the day from the Yalova ferry terminal. I had to wait for the 11:30 ferry, which as it turned out left late and only reached the Yenikapi ferry terminal in Istanbul at 1:00.  That did not leave me enough time to get to the Ataturk airport before the 2:00 flight closed. I reached the airline help desk at 1:45, but it was too late, even though the departure of the flight ended up being delayed for 45 minutes.

Fortunately the lady at the airline help desk was able to get me on the same flight the next day. I ended up having to pay a penalty of 100 US dollars.

There are worse things in life than having to spend another day in Istanbul, and that afternoon I explored the city for a while, before checking into a hotel for the night.

The next day, Sunday July 21, I got to the airport on time for the 2:00 pm flight to Newark and then an onward flight to O’Hare, which arrived at midnight. I took the subway to the downtown bus station, arriving at 1:30 am. I took advantage of the free wireless internet at the bus station to get caught up, as I waited for the bus to Dubuque that left Chicago at 6:15.

Istanbul and Iznik July 16-19

At noon on Tuesday July 16 I flew from Prague to Istanbul, arriving in the mid-afternoon. I went into the city and checked into my hotel near the Yenikapi ferry terminal. I walked around and was surprised by some rainfall.

The next morning, Wednesday July 17 I took the 70-minute ferry ride to Yalova and from there took an hour mini-bus trip to Iznik, arriving at 2:30.

 

The Istanbul sky-line from the ferry

I had left open my plans for the next days, but as soon as I settled into my nice hotel along the lake front, I decided to stay there for three nights, not just my original one night.

 

The view from my hotel room

I spent the rest of Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday walking around to see the numerous sights and monuments from the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, when Iznik, Byzantine Nicaea, was much more prominent than it is today.

 

Nicaea was the location of the first and seventh ecumenical church councils. The Church of Hagia Sophia, where the seventh ecumenical church council took place in 787 AD, was recently renovated and opened as a functioning mosque.

 

The exterior of the Church of Hagia Sophia

 

The interior of the Church of Hagia Sophia

 

The city wall and gates from the Byzantine period are still largely intact.

 

 

The east Lefke city gate

 

 

The south Yeniseher city gate

The one major industry in the town is the manufacture of replicas of the exquisite glazed tiles and pottery for which the city was famous in the Ottoman period. There are many workshops and stores selling Iznik tiles and pottery, including the Suleyman Pasha Medrese, the first Ottoman madrasah from the 14^th century, which is now used as a pottery market. I bought three plates there.

 

 

An Iznik plate (photo from Wikipedia)

 

Remains of the Ottoman period pottery kilns

 

The Suleyman Pasha Medrese

The most prominent monument is the Nilüfer Hatun Imaret, where the archaeological museum is housed. It is currently closed for a major renovation. I was surprised to see a full crew at work there as I walked by at noon on a Ramadan Friday.

 

Renovations underway at the Nilüfer Hatun Imaret at noon on a Ramadan Friday

 

Nearby is the Blue Mosque from the 14th century.

The Blue Mosque

On the south outskirts of the town is the 14^th century Kirgizlar mausoleum for soldier mystics at the time of the Ottoman conquest.

 

The Kirgizlar mausoleum

Around the town are numerous other monuments and graves, often identified with signs. The English sign for the grave of Alaadin Ali Esved, however, left something to be desired.

The grave of Alaadin Ali Esved

The sign

At least it was not as bad as an English guide book to Ephesus I remember from 1971 that was filled with howlers like a statement that the Virgin Mary was without sin until she came to love with St John in Ephesus – my all-time favorite typo.

I saw very few other Westerners during my stay in Iznik and I was surprised by how much I blended in. On four occasions people started talking to me in Turkish, assuming I was a local.

Madrid and Bamberg July 8-15

After the Islamic archaeology conference in Toledo, on the morning of Monday July 8 I traveled with many of the conference participants to Madrid by train. Anja had arranged for us to tour the Valencia de Don Juan collection of Islamic art.

 

One of the galleries of the Valencia de Don Juan collection

 

Three of the group examining an Arabic inscription

 

Our guide (left)

That tour was the end of the scheduled activities of the conference, but I had decided to stay on in Madrid for an additional day before returning to Bamberg. I checked into a hotel and then walked around the center of Madrid.

 

People in Madrid protesting the economic situation

 I went to the Reina Sofia art museum, where the Guernica painting by Picasso is on display. Later I went to the Prado Museum, where there is free admission after 6:00; I was able to make a quick run through the galleries until closing time at 8:00.

The next day Tuesday July 9 I toured the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Museum in the morning and at noon I walked around the Botanical Gardens.

The Botanical Gardens

I then headed to the airport for my flight back to Nürnberg. The flight left Madrid 20 minutes late, which was a problem since that cut a third off of the single hour I had to get to the outlying terminal 2F in De Gaulle airport in Paris for my connecting flight. I made the flight with only moments to spare.

Back in Bamberg after my trip to Spain, I spent my final week winding things up for this current stay. I finished my article about Jerusalem in the Abbasid period.

While back in Bamberg, I decided on short notice to change my travel plans and travel to the USA for my parents’ 65^th wedding anniversary on Sunday July 28. I found out that the cheapest airfares from Europe to Chicago were from Istanbul; they were around 20-30 percent cheaper than anywhere else. That was fine, since months ago, when I bought my round-trip ticket to come to Germany from Amman, I had decided to spend a week in Turkey before returning to Amman at the end of July. So I already had a ticket for travel from Prague to Istanbul and ended up forfeiting only the Istanbul-Amman portion of my ticket.

So on Monday July 15, I moved out of my apartment and took an afternoon train to Nürnberg and then an express bus on to Prague, arriving in the evening at the airport, where I spent the night in a cheap hotel.

Toledo July 3-7

On Wednesday July 3 I traveled to Spain to attend the annual conference in Toledo of the Ernst Herzfeld Society for Islamic Art and Archaeology. This was my first trip to Spain.

On the morning of July 3, I flew with a number of others from the University of Bamberg from Nürnberg to Madrid via Paris, and then took a train to Toledo. I got a first opportunity to explore the exceptionally attractive old city on the way to my hotel.

The next day, Thursday July 4, I explored the old city of Toledo, before the opening session of the conference that evening. After the opening session, I joined the conference participants for a special tour of the well-preserved medieval El Transito Synagogue.

The conference continued on Friday July 5 and Saturday July 6. I gave my presentation about the excavations of the Burnt Palace in Madaba, Jordan on Saturday morning. The conference was held in the Royal Foundation of Madrid, adjacent to an art museum for the sculptor Victorio Macho.

The Royal Foundation of Madrid and Victorio Macho Museum on the right

 

The view from the Victorio Macho Art Museum

Saturday evening I joined the conference participants for a tour of the city. We went to the Mosque of Cristo de la Luz, a well-preserved 10^th-century mosque that was later converted into a church, where we got a tour by the excavator.

The Mosque / Church of Cristo de la Luz

 

The ceiling of the mosque

Our archaeologist guide, with Fernando Valdes, the conference organizer, behind.

The conference participants on the tour in front of the Cathedral of Saint Mary

On Sunday July 7 I joined the conference participants for a tour of the Puerta del Vado, one of the city gates.

 

The Puerta del Vado

Our guide speaking about his excavations below the gate

Afterwards, I walked around the city and went to the San Juan de los Reyes monastery and the Iglesia de los Jesuitas. There are lots of other sites to see in Toledo that I did not get to.

The courtyard of the San Juan de los Reyes monastery

The Iglesia de los Jesuitas

 

The view from the top of the Iglesia de los Jesuitas

Bamberg June 1-July 2

I spent the month of June in Bamberg continuing to work on my various research and editing projects. I finished the report about the second season of my survey project in Bhimunipatnam, India and started work on an article about Muslims in Jerusalem in the Abbasid Period, which I had presented at the Jerusalem conference last July.

During the last week in June I edited a draft English translation of the latest book by Mohammed Ghosheh about Islamic Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina. That was a rushed book project that needed to be out in time for Ramadan next month. So I only had time to complete a portion of the full editing work needed to get the English text into good shape.

On Friday June 14 I made a day trip to Mainz to attend a conference at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum about Geographical Information Systems and Byzantium. While there I also had the opportunity to speak with Johannes Pahlitzsch about my research grant proposal to come next year to the University of Mainz.

Among the various public lectures, concerts and other cultural events that I attended, on Sunday June 9 I went to the neighboring town of Bischberg to attend a concert in celebration of the 1000^th anniversary of the establishment of the town.

 

The concert in Bischberg

During this current stay in Bamberg I downloaded a lot of operas, ballets and Shakespeare’s plays from YouTube. I was just in time, because a few days after I finished downloading what I wanted, YouTube eliminated the ability to download videos. I was especially impressed by a performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring by the Joffrey Ballet in 1989 with a reconstruction of the original choreography by Nijinsky.