Days 17-18 Istanbul, Turkey

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Hello from Istanbul! What a city! We are leaving tomorrow morning, but we have had 2 very busy days here filled with kebaps, Turkish delight, and a whole lot of bargaining. Its an absolutely beautiful city, packed full of mosques! needless to say, it was all a little bit overwhelming, the men are quite interested in all of us girls, snapping pictures of us from behind, but everyone is really nice and the Turkish people are very hospitable. Doing my duty as a good Jew, I trekked all the way to probably the only synagugue in Istanbul (Turkey is 99.8% muslim). It was very non-descript on a side street and was unfortunately closed cuz I would have liked very much to see the inside, but i took a few pictures of the outside. We visited the Grand Bazaar, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace, and each one of them was more amazing than the next. The Grand Bazaar reminded me of the markets in Old Jerusalem, and Topkapi Palace was absolutely amazing. Its about 1500 years old, i believe and is HUGE!!! It really is a true palace, everything is made of marble and it's full of jewels and mosaics. It is a very interesting city. Our tour group gets 8 more people today and 4 are leaving, so i suppose the dynamics will likely be changing a little bit. Tomorrow we have a big crive day, as we are leaving Turkey and heading over to Bulgaria, to the capital city of Sofia. The city is supposedly very much a product of the communist regime, all the buildings are gray concrete blocks, but Sofia has one of the biggest synagogues in Eastern Europe, with a museum and all, and inside it is the biggest chandelier in all of Bulgaria! I'm definitely looking forward to that!! My lets Go travel guide book says it's one of the best places to visit in Sofia, so I will definitely be heading over there! I wonder if there were any synagogues in Athens... If there were, I didn't see any. I wonder if there are a whole lot of Greek Jews. Well, I'm not sure of I'll have internet access in Bulgaria or Romania, so I figured I'd update you on Istanbul before I leave. Hope everything is good at home! Like I said last time, I hope to be able to upload some pictures, but i'm not sure if I'll be able to. Internet here is quite slow and I dont think that it makes sense to spend half a day in an internet cafe. You might just have to wait till I get home. Just over 3 weeks to go! I cant believe my trip is half over already! It's really flown by! I miss you guys and love you lots and I'll try to update again soon in a few days! xoxox

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