A rainy kind of day!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Hello!

Woke to an overcast and misty kind of day, but as we Tucsonans enjoy rain, no problem for us! Out about 8:30 for our first stop on today’s tourist trail, the underground cistern, located between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Took the tram to Sultanahmet. It’s still early, so many places not yet open. Located the cistern – and it’s amazing! The cistern itself was built in the sixth century A.D. by Justinian to serve as a massive reservoir to provide water in case of a shortage. And massive it certainly is – the size of 2 football fields and holding 27 million gallons of water! In all, there are 336 columns supporting the brick ceiling, and apparently when it was being built, Justinian just grabbed columns from wherever he could take them. There are columns of all kinds, and capitals ranging from Doric to Corinthian – including two huge carved Medusa bases. Interestingly enough, the two Medusa bases aren’t standing upright – one is on its side, and the other is upside down! Does make for interesting pictures!

From the cistern, we joined the crowds across the street at Hagia Sophia. This building – again originally constructed by Justinian – has had a great many iterations over the years – it has been both a mosque and a Christian church and is now a museum. While this is one of the most famous sights in Istanbul, I really prefer the Blue Mosque which is a much more peaceful place.

After these two sights, we were on to the Grand Bazaar – our last visit, for sure! And to be really honest, I know that there are many people who like to bargain and negotiate; who think it’s all part of some big game. We are not like that. Neither of us likes to bargain, and I for one get VERY uncomfortable when we’re in that situation. This time, we looked around quite a bit; lots of interesting things to see. Went through the silver area and it was amazing! I mean, we like to entertain, but whoever uses all that ornate heavy silver anymore? Robert did a good job negotiating for some ceramic bowls that I wanted, and once we had those, we’d had quite enough!! This time, however, we were able to negotiate our way back the same way we had come in – YEA! Took the tram back to the hotel to deposit our “loot” and then out for lunch.

Down the street, Faros Restaurant; have to say it’s the first bad food I’ve had this entire trip! I ordered an eggplant and feta plate, but somebody REALLY burned the eggplant and absolutely toasted the feta! Pretty bad! R had a Greek salad – and I teased him, as he made it all the way through Greece without one! I did have a good glass of white wine, though, and R a big glass of fresh orange juice. A big screen Sony TV was being installed while we were there – and of course, the first position of the mounting bracket was too low, and they had to move it – leaving HUGE holes in the wall! But no problem! Just move a picture! It was a solution after my own heart!! Very friendly folks, even though they can’t cook!

Back to the hotel for a nice nap and R caught up with some Caltech work that had come in.

Decided that we needed an opportunity to look at the lights of the city, so we’d go to Taksim Square in the “new” district for dinner. And of course, this was a rainy day! By the time we were ready to go out, it was raining fairly hard; glad we have our umbrellas! Out and over to Ghilane for the tram to the new district. Took it all the way to the end, got out and headed directly into the funicular which goes to Taksim Square. From there, headed down the main street in the direction of the Galata Bridge. Okay…really think that we were the oldest people there by at least 10-20 years! It’s quite an area, just NOT for us! There were Burger Kings, Pizza Hut, a Kentucky Fried Chicken, as well as numerous Starbucks and Gloria Jean’s coffee! Rather disappointing! Made it back to the old district without finding a place we liked for dinner, so decided to go to the place we went to a couple of days ago for lunch. Excellent choice, as we had a great dinner! For starters, I had an eggplant and tomato sauce dish; R had two roasted peppers stuffed with rice. I won! For mains, we both had the HOT (that is, spicy) ground beef kebab with rice, fresh tomatoes and onion. That was great; glad we came back!

From dinner, directly back to the hotel as Bayern Munich is playing Inter Milan in the Champion’s League final. Was hoping to find it on TV, and it is – in Turkish, but at least we can get the picture! In case anyone is interested, Inter is up 1-0 at the half!

So – that’s it for today! More later!
Much love,
m
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