bazaar, galata tower, river cruise

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Ok, so here are some pictures from a few trips compiled into one. We've made several trips to the bazaars, few pics of that. Also we made a trip to the galata tower circa 1348. cool story: According to a story recorded by Evliyâ Çelebi in the 17th century, Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi, in 1630-1632, glided with artificial wings from the top of Galata Tower in Istanbul and managed to fly over the Bosphorus, landing successfully on the Doğancılar square in Üsküdar. Also I've got a few pics of a castle which I know nothing about. We saw it while on a river cruise which cost 5 ytl.

On another note, I've been eating a lot of turkish food. Mcdonald's does taste the same to me except no bacon, and I don't think they serve plain cheese pizza anywhere including pizza hut. It seems every night we do go out to eat though we have at least 12 different men from different restaurants bargaining for us as customers on the streets.

Still learning turkish but still very limited in conversation. It seems like all adjectives and some verbs are suffixes so an entire sentence can end up being just one really long word. It hasn't posed too much of a problem except when trying to talk to our local handyman who speaks no english and doesn't seem to respond much to the turkish we do know. Most restaurants and some stores speak english, but I still try to use what I know in turkish when ordering and such.

Oh, I start class on monday at 9am in a basement studio. Other than that I know nothing about school.

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Photos

bazaar
Grand Bazaar. Very easy to get lost in this thing. Huge market, but items being sold seem a little limited. same things at most of the shops.

bazaar
There's also this huge section with animals in it at the spice bazaar. Here are a few photos of that. mostly birds in cages. a few bunnies, puppies and kittens though.

Comments

[Sam]

Wow!
Turkey is way prettier than I imagined! That castle is really breathtaking (not to sound like a cheesy romance author). I'm so glad you're having a good time over there. Are you going to bring home a bunny? :)

[ZAN]

ZAN
Looks wonderful. Wish I could come over. Sure miss you. Your going to miss your Mom's 50th birthday, probably better you do, it won't be a fun occasion! The views are fantastic but the animals don't look Turkish, they still look American. Ha Ha. Love You, Zan

[Felecia]

Bunnies?
I hope you are having a wonderful time. Looks like you are. We miss you. But in the picture where you are looking in the cage - is that bunnies or pigeons? Ha!?!?! Love ya!