Day 210, Istanbul, Turkey
We started the morning at Starbucks, along with many groups of students who filed in to study at the tables. After we were caffeined up, we grabbed a couple of falafel for lunch, headed home to get the girls, who had just rolled out of bed.
Entrance of Grand Bazaar
We walked over to the Grand Bazaar. There are over 4000 stalls, the place is a formidable maze, but a fun one to be lost in. The shopkeepers are 99% male. This is true in the bazaar, in the outdoor shopping area, and even the street food vendors. My favorite part of the bazaar may be the tea runners, who deliver tea on trays all over the maze. Here they drink the tea out of little glasses, and the tea runners put a few of these on a silver tray and expertly dodge their way through the crowds.
Most of the thousands of stalls will fall into one of these six categories; jewelry, carpets, tea sets, dishes, textiles, leather. One way in which the vendors try to get your attention is to compare you to a celebrity. One man called Cali, Jennifer Lopez, and another called Madi, Sanza Stark. We had a good laugh over that, and it did get our attention. Another man offered to help us spend our money. We ended up eating in the maze and had a very chatty, entertaining waiter who either came from or wants to visit Texas. One can easily spend the day here. But after a few hours, we headed for sunlight.
After the bazaar we walked through more outdoor maze-like streets to get to the mosque perched at the top of the city that we can see from our apartment, the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. What a view. We heard the evening call to prayer being broadcast throughout the city from there and the other mosques around the city. The voices echoed off the hills, creating a sound that was truly unique and unforgettable.
We walked back down the hill, through busy parts of town, through the underground shopping area, and the restaurants located under the bridge. We’ve walked across the bridge a number of times and didn’t know about the worlds happening underneath. We could see all the fisherman’s lines coming down from the top of the bridge above us. We saw two fish being caught, hauled up past us while we were looking at the city lights. Commerce is happening everywhere in this city, from phone cases to street food.
You hope you get to the point with each new city where you have your bearings a bit, how to get around, use public transportation, how to blend in the best you can, what to eat, what to see. We were feeling like we crossed that threshold today.
