Hansel & Gretel in Istanbul

Well, we got lost for the first time yesterday. Ok, so I was lost, apparently Chris knew (kind of) where we were. Since I'm posting, you can tell that we made it to the hotel ok, and I didn't have to be sedated for hysteria, so it all turned out ok. But not necessarily my most fun experience so far. You all know my complete lack of any sense of direction, and the tall buildings and narrow streets w/o street names made it impossible for me to figure out which direction we were headed or anything. Thank goodness for Chris, but I miss my Garmin!

Anyways, it WAS an awesome day yesterday. I got my fish sandwiches, and OMG, i hope they have them in Izmir! Very simple, just fresh fish, cleaned and grilled right on the boat, put in a sliced baguette with lettuce and onion on top. Absolutely delicious, and only about $3! It was packed all around where the boats are, so we knew it had to be good! I could have that for lunch every day, cheap, filling, and healthy.

I guess I should start at the beginning of our day though, instead of jumping ahead to our yummy fish dinner. We started the day walking to the bus hub (maybe a mile away?) to go to the Chora Church Museum. The bus was pretty typical of any bus, nothing really exceptional. (Except that when I got on to the full bus on the way back, a gentleman actually gave his seat to me. Whoa. Chivalry is not dead everywhere...)

The Chora Church was exceptional. Actually, probably my favorite thing we've done so far. It's a church built in approx 1100 with later mosaics and frescos EVERYWHERE. I mean, thousands upon thousands, in excellent condition! Our necks were sore from gawking at the ceilings. I'm hoping Chris will have time within the next couple days to post some of the pictures that we took. Really really amazing. Oooh, I see he's working on sizing and editing them now :)

We also saw some of the old city wall, which was pretty cool, although not as cool as the remains of a Roman aqueduct that our bus drove under. Totally awesome, kind of hard to wrap my mind around even now. It's kind of crazy how they inter-twine the very ancient with the modern. For example, the city walls had some small portals, and they use them as parking spaces for cars. The aqueduct goes right over a major road, so they built a lane of the road to go through each arch between the support beams. I love that they work with the ancient sites instead of destroying them for modern improvements.

We got back, had our fish sandwiches, and then, because we were RIGHT across the street from it, we headed over to the Spice Bazaar. The Australian couple I met on Thursday (I think it was Thurs? My days are completely screwed up at this point) recommended it over the Grand Bazaar, saying it was a cooler experience and with less pushy salesmen. Mom, you would have had a heart attack with all of the awesome spices heaped EVERYWHERE! Every time I turned my head, there were spices, dried fruit, cheeses (I about had the heart attack there!), Turkish delight (just for you, Bob) and other candies, fish, food vendors (I can have my doner kabop whenever I want, they're everywhere!), in addition to non-food items such as cooking utinsels, fabric stores, clothing stores, SHOE stores (here was Chris' heart attack moment, he hustled me past those so fast!), and pretty much anything else you could ever possibly need. It was because I was so excited about all the shopping opportunities that I forgot to mentally map which turns I had made where, and so when we were ready to go, uhhhh...

So we spent a little time wandering, but Chris figured out where we were and it actually ended up being a much shorter walk back to the hotel than if we had gone back to the bus hub and walked from there. So it all ended up ok. And I didn't even cry. :)

Today we went to a mosaic museum, these were from the Roman times, and less religious. Very very cool, but since it was Chris' favorite, I'll let him tell you about it. I'm headed to go get a snack and some coffee, and enjoy the sunshine.