Istanbul

In the beginning of July, we traded in the Albanian summer heat for a trip to Istanbul, where the chiken kabobs and bread flow like milk and honey. Jen's parents thought it sounded like a good time, so they joined in on our east meets west excursion.

We stayed a block away from the Grand Bazzar, and in spite of the name, it was more Grand than Bizarre. As far as we could tell, the thing covered something like 12 city blocks, and although it is quite immense, it's like an enclosed Tiajana...with Turks instead of Mexicans...full of carpets and jewelery instead of switchblades and leather goods.

After haggling with two shopkeepers for four hours (I wish that was an exaggeration, or typo, or something), we made our way to the sights, like the Blue Mosque. Seems this mosque is the only one in the world with six minorets, which I guess is really hard to do.

Somehow, Jen's dad befriended who seemed like a nice and informative Turkish man, but turned out to be a carpet pusher. Because we're naievely polite westerners, we followed him to an underground cistern in a building where his cousins tried to sell us overpriced carpets. This naturally raises the question, are there reasonably priced carpets in Turkey?

After fending off the carpet peddlers, it was time for dinner...and a show, for which grandpa provided the entertainment. You'll never guess what we ate (see para 1 for hint).



The next day found us at Haggia Sofia. (The following anecdote is key since it applies to all noteworthy buildings--that aren't harems--in Turkey) Seems this place is unique because it was built either shortly before or after Christ was born. It was originally a church, which was added on to over the years, and ultimately converted into a mosque. It shows the diversity of the culture and their ability for tolerance...after their enemies agreed to praise Allah.


Time for a ride though the park via horse, followed by a stop at this noteworthy palace that belonged to a noteworthy king, whose name escapes me...but it wasn't Attaturk.



Ollie was just about done seeing sights, and I was just about done carrying him to see sights he showed no interest in seeing. (Seems my "one day when you're older, you'll really appreciate this visit to Istanbul" speech had lived its useful life.)


While I took Ollie home to watch cartoons or play with trucks or something far more interesting than walking through ancient structures that directly contributed to general European history, Jen took these pictures of the Harem.



Today's adventures mainly included a boat ride up the Bosphorus. This is the river that splits Europe from Asia, and it was loaded with fortresses and beautiful homes.


Somewhere along here, Ainsley's patience with seeing historic (read: boring) buildings grew thin. So I started pointing out the ninjas (read: very modestly dressed Muslim women) to her and we began counting. During the whole trip I think we spotted 74 of them. Ater the Bosphorus cruise, we hit the spice market, which was very enjoyable.

While waiting for everyone to spend their money, Ollie and I enjoyed the pigeons...although I'm not sure how much the pigeons enjoyed us.


The next day it was time to take a break from sight-seeing and go to the mall. Disclaimer: this is not something typical of such a vacation, however, living in Albania for two years has turned the mall from a common structure to a palacial wonder to behold and enjoy from an entirely new perspective. What's more, they had a toy store. Going to the mall also created an easy segue to visit Alev and Ayp, Jen and Ainsley's friends who lived nearby.

Ainsley and Ollie ogling the overpriced animals for sale.

We spent most our time in the toy store where Ollie lined up every car and plane available and Ainsley tried to figure out how to buy $40 worth of stuffed animals with only $20.

Today's trip was to the Domobalche Palace. This place was never a church or mosque, but a palace built in the 1800's when they Turkish empire was flat broke but wanted to pretend like they weren't. King Turkman brought in tons of laborers and spent oodles of money to build a very European structure that fooled no one. That said, it was quite spectacular to look at.


(About this time my camera died, so from here on out you get to enjoy my insight and wit via written word.) The final structure of the day was the most remarkable and enjoyable. It was a church that was bulit sometime around 500 AD and one of the few Turkish churches that had not been converted to a mosque over the years. This particular church was (at one time) wall to wall (and ceiling) mosaics, and the ones that remained were beautiful. The other truly enjoyable aspect of this structure was that it was tiny, making it virtually impossible to spend more than 20 minutes in it. A very well thought out tourist attraction indeed.