a post that is far too long for a Sunday

We met our friends for breakfast in their completely improbable Istanbul apartment, huge windows facing a beautiful lush garden/ backyard. 

And in addition to delicious food they speak English so I could be a part of the conversation, another thing I take for granted in my daily life. We ate and then set off on a wild tour of Istanbul churches and mosques. We stopped first at a fabulous corner of the city walls, unfortunately I didn't take photos as I thought we were walking around this part but we left as soon as we got there. 

Ks friend M kindly brought his enormous book of walking tours of Istanbul which we got a good laugh out of since it wasn't really portable but he carried it everywhere and read us facts about what we were seeing. not that I actually retained any of them, unfortunately.

We saw another section of the wall later that people were living in, note the laundry hanging out, apparently people just move into the ruins and live there.

This metal church is cast iron, built by Bulgarians apparently to compete with the Greek church that we saw later--the Bulgarian church was entirely built from prefabricated parts and assembled on site. We didn't go inside as the church was flooded with a tour bus load full of Bulgarians. We then went to the Greek church, except we went to another Greek church first--all Greek church photos are mixed together, they were both fantastic. 

The first on was simpler and didn't allow photography but had a holy water spring inside-I snuck a few photos in the entry including the fabulous red and blue glass cross photo. 

The second church was pretty medieval in the vestibule but inside was incredibly opulent, chandeliers dripping with crystals and gold, gold, gold everywhere. It was so over-the-top, I think perhaps I was born a secret greek orthodox--since I am so incredibly attracted to shiny and sparkley things.

We walked through narrow streets in the "old" section of Istanbul, interestingly this part is not very built up or renovated--K said alot of people who live in this part are from the south-east and it definitely felt very different from the Istanbul that we are staying in. We tried to see a couple of small mosques but some were closed. gratuitous pretty door shot included since I am really all about the colors.

We walked up to the Suleymaniye Mosque which is the huge one at the top of a lot of istanbul photos, unfortunately it is under renovation until the end of the year but it must be really amazing inside--we saw the gardens and cemetery and the tomb of Suleymaniye and then had delicious beans across from the mosque. I thought the place was going to be a total tourist trap, I realized today that I can't really tell what a turkish tourist trap looks like--this was a place locals come to apparently when they want this delicious white bean dish that I can't remember the name of.

We walked more and found a lovely garden to have tea in--I'm not sure where it was or what the place was but I didn't take photos for a while. Afterwards we walked down to the bridge back to the 'new' Istanbul, which is not new by US standards--both sides are older than our entire US culture, not counting the native americans, of course.

As we walked down to the bridge we saw several young boys dressed as little kings--some Turkish people don't circumcize their boys until they are pretty big, 4 to 10 years old, so they can remember it--it's a ceremony that I don't pretend to understand but they dress the boys up in robes and feed them lots of candy and as Kahraman said, the boys have no idea what is coming next. This one was pretty small but we also saw one who was between 8 and 10 years old. ouch.

Another fortune teller with dirty white bunnies and this one had a rooster, too. Apparently they pick out your fortune but I really wanted to know what the roles were--like does it make a difference if the bunny or rooster picks your fortune? However I didn't want to know badly enough to want to know my fortune, so whatever.

More fishing from the bridge, hundreds of people fishing. some were women too.

Next amazing baklava--some with butter and some with olive oil. I expected that I would like the butter better but I actually loved the olive oil. much lighter. Baklava here is better than I've ever tasted, maybe it's fresher and they use sugar not corn syrup but also they pistachio insides are tastier than walnut to me. I was never a big fan of baklava but am becoming much more of one.

Finally we climb the long hill back up to Cihangir and out cute apartment-- my legs are getting used to going up and down so it's much easier--plus we learned the streets a bit so we can walk a little further but up and down less, google maps routes are not so useful here as you can pick what looks like the best shortest route and it is so not the shortest route! Plus stairways are on the map as streets so I'm not sure how anyone drives here.


Also if anyone is actually still reading this I would love some emails--Kahraman is going to Ankara for a few days some I think unless I email people I won't actually be speaking to anyone until he gets back!