istanbul

so this past weekend i met up with my roommate from school in istanbul!
i left on thursday and ariel and i met up around midnight at our hostel when her flight got in! i got in around 6, so i basically just hung out at the hostel on the rooftop terrace with people in the hostel that night. the hostel was pretty sweet. the owner was SO nice. on thursday i was trying to decide what i wanted to do for dinner, since i didn't really want to go out by myself, and the owner was like, i'm cooking, you want to eat some? i thought that was very nice of him! and that night ariel and i had the room to ourselves! it was nice catching up!
anyways.
friday. we wake up early to begin our day of sightseeing. we first decide we need to go to the tourism office because we have no map. so we take the guidebook that they have at the hostel with its tiny little map and set off in search of the touroism office. we never find it. but we do meet lots of nice people willing to give us directions! eventually we just give up and go to the blue mosque. the blue mosque is the only mosque in the world (beside mecca, which has since added a 7th) to have 6 minarets. its very impressive from the outside, and pretty on the inside too, but very tourist-y.
after the blue mosque we went to ayasofia (hagia sophia or st sophia for us english speakers) which was right across the square. this is a very impressive old building. it was built by constantine in the early 300 AD as a church. it was then converted to a mosque...i can't remember when, and then into a museum in the 1900s. so in the building there are all of these old christian mosiacs of jesus and mary and st john the baptist, alongside these huge wooden discs with arabic script of prophets names etc. it was an interesting juxtaposition.
anyways, after the ayasofia we walked up to the topkapi palace, and i'm sad to say we weren't really sure what all we were seeing here. i think for this you should spring for a guide. it was really pretty, and had gorgeous views, but like i said, not really sure what we were seeing.
anyways, after the palace we went and had lunch at this cute little restaurant where we got to sit on couches on the floor. we tried traditional turkish dishes like dry yoghurt with mint and something else, speical rice wrapped in wine leaves, and filo pastry with feta cheese. and then dessert! baklava! it was delish! and our waiter was super nice. we asked her how to say thank you, and its hard to say thank you in turkish! she said it..and we sort of looked at her..and then she wrote it down for us... and kept saying it over and over for us. we eventually got it (sort of...) but it was kind of like the them of our trip..how to say thank you. lol
after lunch we decided we were going to go see the bascilica cistern, but on the way we got distracted by some souvenir shops, and one of the shops had this really nice guy who offered us some apple tea, a local speciality. and we read in our guidebook that its really rude to refuse, so we were like..ok. whatever. so we sat down with this guy in his shop, and we talk for a bit... he's been to georgetown, life is good..and then he starts trying to sell us a carpet! mom i tried calling you to see if you wanted anything..but my phone wouldn't work. he did however have wonderful selling skills,c ause he convinced ariel and i to buy a couch cover and pillowcases. he gave us a great deal though.. don't judge us. we're very excited for our apartment that we have yet to rent... if anyone needs a carpet though, we have his cards.
after that rather expensive apple tea break, we made it to the bascilica cistern, which is this underground area that holds water. i believe it was built my emperor justinian (i think he was early ADs... can't remember the exact date) here again it would have been nice to have a guide.

after that we decided we had had a long day and needed a nap because we hadn't slept well the night before (the prayer call at 4:30 in the morning does tend to wake one up...). so we go back to the hostel and do that.
after our nap we go to the rooftop terrace where we hang out for a bit before going to dinner, where we have more traditional turkish food: lentil soup (very good) and humus(also very good) and then turkish coffee (i enjoyed it!)
that night the hostel owner offered to take us out to fun turkish places, so we went out to this bar that had a turkish singer and band, and it was a lot of fun! the singer was a great entertainer, she had the whole bar up and dancing at one point! ariel said it reminded her of a bar mitzvah. we went to some other places too and had a lot of fun.

the next morning ariel and i woke up early again and went to the grand bazaar which was overwhelming and crowded and expensive. so we wanedered only a little bit and then gave up and went to the egyptian or spice bazaar. i liked this one much better. it had fun food shops selling colorful spices and turksih delight and other sweets and dried fruits and nuts. i bought some pistachios (i wanted to bring some home for you dad..but i don't think they would have held up great) and some honey and pistachio sweets. very good.

after that we were tired cause we stayed up late the night before and woke up early, so we went back to the hostel and napped. after our nap we went to the hostel across the street from ours to have a late lunch and it had gorgeous views of the water and ayasofia! then we went and tried to take a ferry boat ride on the bosphorous, but of course, we get there around 5 or 6, which is rush hour and basically all 16 million residents of istanbul were there...so...we gave that idea up. we admired the water for a bit, and then went back to the hostel and chilled on the rooftop terrace before going to dinner. we had lentil soup and humus again. we had finally figured out how to say thank you and the guys at the restaurant loved it. they gave us some free appetizers!
we basically wanted to call it an early night since we had to get up at 4 the next morning to catch our taxi to the airport since i had a flight at 640... but somehow didn't get to sleep until around 1:30...

overall it was a great weekend! turkey was more expensive than i expected (in fact..it could give paris a run for its money...)but i think its just cause we were in such a touristy area. i would go back to turkey in a second!

anyways: here are some funny phrases that were said at us on the streets:
"how can i steal your money today?"
"talk is free!"
"come buy things you don't need!"
"can i steal 2 minutes of your time? don't call the cops on me!"
"i love you. but you already knew that"

and i'm too lazy to post photos: but most of you have facebook anyways and can see them there. or when i come home in 2 weeks.
eek.