Markets, Mosques, and Ramadan

On Friday we went back into Istanbul to do some more sightseeing. All 22 of us (18 students, 3 Professors, and Cansu) headed straight for the Suleymaniye Mosque so we could tour it before Friday prayers.  Half of the time whenever we visit mosques my shorts seem to cover enough of my knees for the guard at the door to let me pass, and the other half of the time I’m given a wrap to tie around my waist. This visit included a wrap, but it was worth the trouble. The mosque was beautiful, had a lot of little details that some of the other mosques we'd seen didn't have.

Outside in the mosque courtyard, there's a great spot to take a panorama of Istanbul across the Bosphorus.

 After everyone got their panorama and took advantage of the mosque’s facilities (Quick Tip: if you ever need to find a toilet, head for a mosque; the old mosque complexes all used to include bathrooms and cleansing stations so people could wash before entering) we headed over to a museum that housed the remnants of some incredible tile mosaics that made up the floor of the Great Imperial Palace of Constantinople.  Only about 250 sq meters of the original 2,000 sq meters of mosaic floor were recovered. The rest was covered up when the Blue Mosque and surrounding areas from my last blog post were built on top of it. The style of mosaics looked familiar from ,y trip to Rome a few years ago

A group of 5-6 of us broke off from the rest of our hoard to explore on our own and get a little lost. We found a market with lots of crafts, food, and drinks from regions all over Turkey that had been set up in the old Roman Hippodrome for Ramadan, which started Saturday. I tried something called Ottoman Syrup, made of cloves and cinnamon and other spices. Not too bad. After we walked through that we headed to the grand bazaar to take a closer look at all of the cool stuff for sale in the narrow, crowded halls. I didn't buy anything because there’s so much to look at you’re afraid as soon as you buy something you’ll find cooler stuff just a little further down. Not the best strategy I suppose.

At this point we had been walking non-stop for hours and our feet really needed a break. But we were due to meet up in Taksim square with the rest of our group for dinner. Got a little lost trying to find the right tram line, but not for long. And by coincidence the rest of our group hopped on the same car on the same tram about 6 stops later. I think the Turks on the tram assumed all Americans must know each other by the way we greeted the others. 

Dinner was at a great café down an uncrowded side street, where we met up with our other guide Serhat. Great pizza and cold beer.  Ended the night at a karaoke bar in Taksim, where we found out Serhat and Cansu are Karaoke masters. Successfully navigated our way back to Koc via a late night bus from Taksim square. I think we’re all starting to feel fairly confident about navigating the city on our own

Realized I hadn't shared the view of campus from my dorm window, so here goes. 

(Can't tell from this angle, but the Black Sea is on the other side of that clock tower. That tall orange thing to the left is the start of the third bridge that will span the Bosphorus to connect Europe and Asia. It's definitely needed, but is gonna ruin an otherwise unspoiled view.)