Lots of Lamb

---

I woke up at 5:30 to the faint sound of the call for prayer. I thought it would be much louder, but it was barely audible from my room. We'd been right by the Blue Mosque last night when it began, and obviously right there it was very loud, but the hotel is a couple blocks away with some buildings in the way and my window faces away from the mosque. We went to breakfast at the Blue House, a restaurant/hotel a short walk from our own hotel. It was a nice little buffet, and the hotel seemed to be a very classy little place, the type of place that would be somewhat affordable and nice to stay at if I'd ever come back to Istanbul. After breakfast we met up with our guide in front of the Blue Mosque and tried to get a shot from one of the minarets of the mosque but the proper paperwork had not been filed or something of the sort, so instead we wandered over to the Hippodrome area, where cart races had been held like 1700 years ago. The original ground level was about 3 meters below, and there was an obelisk in the middle and a huge stone tower at one end that they believe was used as a tent pole to erect a huge tarp-like cover over the whole track and audience area, which was 800 x 300 feet. I'm not sure about all the details because I was shooting B-roll at the time and wasn't able to entirely pay great attention to the guide. From the Hippodrome we walked down behind the Blue Mosque to a huge, fancy carpet store and museum called Nakkos. We first went downstairs and shot a little bit in a very old water storage culvert that is now being used as an art gallery. Then we went upstairs and got an education in Turkish carpet-making. We saw a woman in the process of making a carpet, and saw all of their storage rooms full of carpets ranging from $50 to $200,000 and more. There were no price tags obviously, and the cheapest price I heard quoted was $500. We did also see a rug that will soon have the world record for most knots per square inch. We weren't allowed to film it though. Next we headed to Hagai Sophia, a beautiful old church/temple/mosque that I can see from my hotel room. I was a bit confused about it. It looks like a mosque, but has a varied history. It was burned down at one point in a riot and rebuilt and from ancient times has been a pagan temple, a Christian church, and an Islamic mosque I understand. Once again, I was shooting B-roll and didn't catch everything that was said about it and I never have time to look around purely for myself. It was lunch time, so we went over to the Topkapi Palace to eat at a restaurant there that overlooks the Bospherus. Unfortunately it had been raining all day long, so the view across the straight to Asia was far from what it would be on a clear day, and during lunch it only seemed to get foggier and rainier. We hadn't filmed any food prep yet, so it was lucky that I was able to go back to the kitchen and shoot one of the cooks as he grilled lamb, chicken, kabobs, and vegetables on a large grill. The meal was good, and included eggplant puree, rice with grapes, the meat sampler plate, and vegetables. I don't get to eat lamb very much, so I pretty much gorged myself. We sat next to a very nice British family and chatted a bit about Istanbul and food. After we had our fill, we saw a few of the exhibits at the Topkapi Palace, but the rain was sort of killing our fun, and we didn't need too much footage there anyway, so we moved on to the Grand Bazaar, which is entirely enclosed. We spent about 90 minutes there, and I hope we go back again because it is something else. Some of it is pretty commercial, but that isn't the case throughout, because there are 4000 shops and they vary quite a bit. I found a lamp I'd love to get but I'm afraid about getting it home in one piece. When Rick went to get money from the ATM, we came across a group of men, all on their cell phones, all yelling and talking loud in a bunch tucked away in a narrow hallway. It turns out they were buying and selling gold and oil. I guess the NYSE had just opened an hour prior to our arrival. We sat and grabbed a drink at the Grand Bazaar, and then met back up with our guide to head back to the hotel. It turns out he's got another group starting tomorrow, so we'll start with a new guide tomorrow. Back at the hotel I called Lynne, jumped online for a bit, and took a quick nap before meeting back up with Rick and Kate to get dinner. We looked around a bit, actually ran into our guide again, who showed us to the top of the 7 Hills Restaurant with a great view of the Blue Mosque, and we ended up eating at Buhara 93, which was recommended by a carpet salesman. Dinner was good, and once again I had lamb chops. On our walk to and from the restaurant, we ran into countless carpet salesmen. Each had their own recommendation for dinner, and they all tried very hard to strike up conversation, some very successfully. We talked with one guy who wanted to send Bush and all the other politicians to space on a one way ticket. Then just as we walked past the Blue Mosque we met a guy who had been to the US four times and was very knowledgeable of the states and we ended up going to his cousin's carpet shop with him and signed his guest book and talked politics, travel, Istanbul, and of course, carpets. We might actually meet up with him for lunch tomorrow or the next day and see his own carpet shop. By the time we left his cousin's shop, it was 11:30pm and I went straight to bed.

---

Comments

[Lori]

Poor Mary...all her lambs are eaten
Oh Joel...how could you, I can see eating Nemo, but lamb...they are so cute...if you see a flying carpet you have to buy it...I bet it would be more PC then the Papa Squirrel.