I can't buy your carpet, I spent all my money on T shirts...

9.22.12
Breakfast is included with our room at the hostel. Sometimes this means cold cereal but here we had the expected tomatoes, cucumbers and olives plus two types of fresh melons, cheeses, some breads and pastries, yogurt, golden raisins, grapes, plums and apples, coffee, hot chocolate, tea, and all the fresh squeezed pomegranate juice you can drink! Plus honey and nutella of course. (Because I don't eat bread anymore I don't have anything to put the nutella on so I have taken to eating it right out of the little cup... Why does this feel so much more wrong than eating the same amount on a piece of bread???)

After breakfast we were off to see the Aya Sofia. What a beautiful building! Dedicated in the year 360, it was a greek cathedral and then a catholic cathedral before becoming a mosque. It was a mosque for 500 years before becoming a museum. We had to wait in line but it went fast, and then we followed our friend Rick's advice and entered at the exit so there was no crowd. We spent a large part of the day in there before heading out in search of the Grand Bazaar. We spent a few hours in there (and a few $$$!!) it's a pretty amazing place... A rabbit warren of shops of all types. After the Grand Bazaar we went and toured the Blue Mosque, the largest mosque in Turkey. It is said that the Blue Mosque is more beautiful than the Hagia Sofia on the outside, but that Hagia Sofia is more beautiful on the inside. Tom said he agrees. When you tour the mosque, you have to remove your shoes before you go inside. Men must have long pants on, and women are required to have covered head, shoulders and knees. We had to return to our room before the mosque visit so Tom could change out of his shorts and I could pick up my scarf. After the mosque we went to a cafe and had drinks and shared a Nargile (probably known as a hookah to most of you). What a riot! We laughed and took pictures of each other. Tom is a much better smoker than I am, of course. He managed to look cool in all of his pictures, I look like a dork;) Because I am the lightweight who can get a buzz from non alcoholic beer, I'm sure you'll have no trouble believing that I got a buzz off the apple tobacco ( little/no nicotine). Dinner and a few night time photos of the places we visited today and then home for a drink on the roof top terrace with a panoramic view of the Bosphorus and the Asian side of the city.