Day 2 - shop till I have no money left.

Today I got up a lıttle later than I had planned. One because the air condıtıonıng was on and two I forgot to put my alarm on. I got up at 9:20! I ate really quıckly and headed out for the day. My fırst stop was to the Grand Bazaar. The street sıgns are not exactly where you would look for them all the tıme... so ıt took a lıttle trıal and error to get there. Once ın there, it was very overwhelming. The market is a huge building organized into sections of whatever they are selling. İ bought some headscarfs and pillow cases. After wandering around here and many vendors trying to sell me whatever they had, İ went to the Spice Bazaar. On my way there İ stopped for a quick sandwich at one of the street vendors. They had chicken and beef cooking on these very tall stacks where they slice off pieces for your sandwich. The meat was excellent!
Once İ got to the Spice Bazaar, İ had to try some Turkish Delight. Turkish Delight is a candy consisting of flavored jellylike cubes covered with powdered sugar on the outside. They were pretty good! The colors and smells of the Spice Bazaar were amazing and very different. I bought some Turkish coffee to take home as well! It smells fantastic.

After all of that, I went to the Topkapi Palace for the afternoon. This was built in the 15th century and used by the sultans for 400 years. There were many areas and buildings on the grounds of the Palace, as well as the Harem which is kind of it's own little town. The concubines, wifes, and children of the sultan would all live here overseen by the eunuch. I spent a whıle lookıng around here and then got a bıte to eat at the only restaurant on the premise. After resting my feet here I headed back to my hostel and met up with Patrick from UB who I would be traveling and working with to Çatalhöyük. We had dinner and headed back to the hostel to see who was around. We ended up talking to a bunch of people on top of the Terrace, a few very drunk British women, an Irish guy, and another American. We went out for a drink somewhere else as the Terrace closed. Then the Turkish guy who works at our hostel asked us if we all wanted to go out to a club. İ hestitated at first... then İ said f*ck it when is the next time I will be able to go out to a club here? So we all got taxis and went to the over side of town called Galata. They had live music there, kind of funny that the turkish band singing "Sexy back" by Justin Timberlake. I liked the turkish music they sang though, the american music kind of threw me off. The drinks were super expensive. We had a great time anyway. I think we got back at 5... I think...

---

Part of trip: Turkey

---