Gateway to the east and land of the unibrows

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before i go any further i must say that the unibrow situation here is quite unfortunate. perhaps post-retirement i can come here and make a living off of my eyebrow waxing tent...

anyway, today we got up around 9:30 and headed up to yet another amazing rooftop breakfast. we could tell that the day would be a little bit warmer, but with the breeze coming off of the ocean all we'd have to show for it was a little bit of a sunburn.

by the time we got our of the guesthouse it was almost noon, and at about 1:10 we had intended to sit outside the blue mosque and videotape the call to prayer, so we ended up just going there to chill for an hour while enjoying some ice cream, mine being pistachio flavored. we sat under an arbor of grape vines, which was of course beautiful. i applaud the city of istanbul with its ability to maintain such beautiful and tranquil places amidst such a sprawling and cosmopolitan city. even as we've sat amongst the rocks on the water there are always workers coming through and picking up trash that has fallen between the rocks.

at 1:10 the chanting began. i'm not sure whether or not its in arabic or turkish, though. either way its beautiful in a haunting way, and there's almost an interplay between the various mosques around the city. we were talking today and our only "issue" with the chanting being projected throughout the city is that not everyone there is muslim, and turkey itself is a secular country, so why should everyone have to put up with it so many times a day? perhaps i'll find an answer at some point...

one of the things we planned to do today was buy food for the family of cats we met, since the mom looked kind of gaunt and had to provide for a whole litter of kittens. we named her e. macy. grey (reminiscent of emaciated). we went and bought tuna at a store and put it out for them. two of the kittens came out and started fighting over the can. it was the cutest thing ever. we're totally feline-iterians.

moving on...as we had intended, we returned to the shore of the marmara sea to bask in the sun. it is one of the most peaceful things ever, with the part of the city across the water sprawled out before you while a wonderful breeze keeps you from getting hot. we managed to see jellyfish in the water this time, which makes me wonder how safe it is for all the people that swim right off of where we were sitting. looking at my chest and arms right now i most definitely got some sun...definitely not a tanktop day tomorrow...

the next thing on the agenda was the sultan's palace of dolmabahce, further up on the main part of the city on the water. we managed to get on this train of sorts, but it ended up only taking us so far. we walked along the water, or rather, pushed throught the hordes of people selling things and trying to buy tickets for the various boats. people fish right off the docks there and sell their catches. other people even catch and shell mussels. really cool. we did manage to find the other tram system and got on that further north toward the palace. incredibly new and modern, the trams are air-conditioned and almost monorail-esque in their design. props to istanbul on that one...once we got off i couldn't resist and bought a 2 lira (a little over a dollar) sandwich with grilled meat and vegetables off the street. kasia then bought this sesame pretzal ring. we enjoyed them outside the palace next to a big polish family. memories...

going into the palace, we realized it was almost closing, so we only were able to buy tickets for a tour of the harem. the interior of the complex itself was ridiculously ornate and more modern than the palace at tokapi, but that's obviously because it was built centuries later. the inside of the harem itself was pretty cool, but the incredibly detail at peles castle in romania still blows it out of the water. had we not been with the most putsy annoying tour group ever, we might have enoyed it all. seirously, i want to die when i'm with a tour group.

out of the palace we decided that it might be fun to take a trip to asia, considering it was right across the water. how many times does one get to go to asia for like a dollar? we bought a ticket for this random boat, having no idea where it would take us, but we hoped it was going across the water to the asian part. sure enough, that's where it was headed. the other side was a bit dirtier, at least what we saw of it, but asia is kind of a big place, so i woulnd't be jumping to any conclusions.

we were hungry so we basically just picked a random place and sat down. the menu had pictures, which was helpful. we both got nice green salads and i got iksender kebab which had a yogurt sauce with it. nice and cheap. then we decided to hit up this pet store we saw, and before we knew it we had like 6 turkish friends talking to us. its a weird thing here in turkey; like every place you go people talk to you and ask where you're from, while at the same time the number of people talking to you keeps getting bigger. we're not sure of their intentions, since we haven't gotten ripped off yet nor have we had anything stolen. especially in that pet store all we were buying was cat food (for our cat friends, duh) one of the guys had this shirt with a british flag patch on it, and under the patch is said 'drag queen'. you so know he's totally clueless as to what that means. silly turk.

after some pistachio ice cream we headed back to mainland europe, where took one of the nicest trams i've ever seen anywhere back to sultanahmet, our neighborhood. it wasn't too late, but we were pretty tired, so we pretty much just chilled back at our place writing postcards, sipping some beer and coffee, and looking out over the ocean...

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Photos

beautiful park
there are so many places in the city just to sit back and relax

man plus mussels
shelling mussels along the golden horn

palace
sultan's palace over the water

street food
im a big fan of eating off the street

fountain
fountain and small pool upon entering the palace gates

clock
cool working clock in front of one of the palace gates