I know that I am behind on posting but in my defense we are really busy and I have to do some school work right? Plus it doesn't help that the wifi is really unreliable.
That said here is what we did last Thursday. I awoke at 7:00 in the AM. The mosque didn't awake me nor did jet-lag so woo hoo! We got some breakfast and got on the bus around 8:30. The bus took us to the Egyptian Bazaar (or the spice market but I think Egyptian Bazaar sounds so much better). This is probably one of my favorite places. the building is in the shape of an L and each hall is about 200 meters, so its pretty small. What our guide told us to do is to first walk all the way through and then go back to places that looked interesting and start shopping.
Now I'm going to assume that most of the people reading this have never been to a Turkish Bazaar so I'm going to go into how the shop owners behave (if you have been you may feel free to skip over this part). Basically there are two types of shops in the Egyptian Bazaar: 1-Stores that have spices and teas 2-Stores that sell trinkets. Basically all the stores have the petty much the same thing; therefore it is the shop workers responsibility to get people walking down the hall into their shop and buying their goods. Pretty simple right? Well this is bad and good for tourists. Bad-you are just walking admiring goods from a foreign land but you have to be really sneaky in the way that you look because if you look at the shop people or seem to show any interest in their merchandise they will not leave you alone. Good-first of all it can be taken as an ego boost for the ladies because if you're a woman walking by they will just keep saying how pretty you are yadda yadda yadda second-and this is the most important because these people are so desperate for customers, you can haggle with them and get the price reduced.
Okay back to our experience. So we take our guide's advice and just look at first. Some shop owner asked if we were Australian, which is odd because most everyone just assumes that we are American. Also something fun about the spice market, at the stores where tea is sold they will brew the tea and let you try it before you buy it.
One of the funniest encounters at the Egyptian Bazaar was at this one store where Linh was looking to buy a hookah for her boyfriend. The guy took us downstairs to see more of a selection. So, she is looking and trying to haggle and he just won't go any lower than 30 TL (turkish lira) which is about $21. She is not looking to spend that much, so he comes down to stand around where I am standing to show her the quality of the merchandise/smaller ones that he has. All of a sudden he is touching my hair and picks up the strand with the feather in it and asks "What's this?" I just sheepishly respond "a feather." This seems to satisfy him and he goes back to haggling. We end up leaving the store because it is just too expensive for Linh. Different people want to go to different stores so we split up. I buy a present for Mom and Amy. (Note: if you buy anything at any Turkish Bazaar you better stick it in your purse because once the shop workers see that you are spending money they are relentless) Kara and I are walking back to a store that we were in earlier because I decided to buy a turtle there (shocker right?). We pass the hookah guy and he sees that I have a bag (because of the gift for Mom and Amy). The following is our exchange: Him-"You break my heart" Me-"No this is such and such (telling him I didn't buy a hookah)" Him-"I have that here" Me-*shrug* Him-"Why you break my heart? Why you break my heart?" Me-*averting gaze and walking away quickly because I have nothing left to say*
Overall super fun experience and I wish that we got to stay longer. But we had to leave because we had a ferry to catch.
We took the ferry to cross the Bosphorus, which is the body of water that separates the Old City (where our hotel is) and the New City. The view from the ferry was amazing. You could see both sides and a old palace that lined the river.
We had lunch in the New City (I am going to make a separate blog post about all the Turkish food so I will hold off on talking about our lunch) I will say that we decided to order the unofficial national drink of Turkey to share between the 5 of us (Ben was having lunch with his dad). It is called Raki and it is made by mixing a white powder with water. You drink it the same way you drink the coffee, one sip Raki, one sip water, etc. Let me tell you I thought that it was really discussing. I could only do one sip. It tastes like black licorice and it is very strong.
After lunch we got back on the bus and headed toward a church that was turned into a monastery that was turned into a mosque that was turned into a museum. It's called St. Chora. The inside is completely covered with gold mosaics, frescoes, and marble (fun fact: grey marble is really abundant in Turkey, therefore it is a relatively cheap material so it is used in a lot of buildings). St. Chora was really beautiful. When the tour was over our guide gave us some free time to wander around. But the building is small and he had taken us into every room so Linh, Kara, and I wander around the shops that are in that area. When we finished wandering we just sat down on some steps by the church. This is where I meet who the students on the trip will henceforth refer to as my Turkish boyfriend. We are just sitting and talking and Linh says "Ellie that guy is checking you out" so I turn and he is definitely looking at me. I turn back to the conversation and Linh keeps telling me that he is looking at me. So, we keep sitting (what else are we going to do). Suddenly these two little boys walk over to us and one has a violin and he starts playing for us. Linh says "OH MY GOD I just saw that guy talking to these boys and he pointed at you. He sent them to play for you!" So I look back over at the guy, sure enough he is smiling, still looking at me and looking very proud of his plan. That's pretty much all that happened with that.
We left and took the bus back to the hotel (there are bridges that connect the Old City to the New City just in case you were wondering how that worked if we took a ferry over). We drop off our bags from the Egyptian Bazaar in our rooms and head over to the Grand Bazaar.
The Grand Bazaar is walking distance from our hotel (it's literally like 3 1/2 blocks). The Grand Bazaar is like the Spice Bazaar's older brother on steroids. It is huge and they sell everything from jackets and purses to trinkets to food. Our guide warns us before we go in that the Turkish people have a saying "Nothing is real in the Grand Bazaar." I think there is something like over 4,000 shops in the Grand Bazaar. You have to haggle here. Plus if one guy doesn't give you the price you want there are plenty more shops with the same stuff. Downside, this place is like a maze if you walk away from one shop, you will probably never find it again. Here are some of the things that shop owners said to the six of us as we walked by: "Hey Spice Girls"(no I have no idea why) "Please angel come back""Let me help you spend your money today""Best price almost nothing at all." Here is what you will here once you have chosen to look in a store:"Morning price just for you"(Yeah we got to the Bazaar at about 1 or 2 in the afternoon)"Because you are a student and I know you have no money *names a price*""What do you want to pay . . . No I can not do that" "Because then I make no money" "Just because I want to make you happy *names price*" (if you wanted to make me happy you would give the price I asked for) "Just for you. Don't tell anyone I gave you this price" "Its just 5(10) lira more its like 2/3(7) American dollars" "Your friends can give you money . . . you have nice friends they will help you." It is truly an experience. I didn't buy anything because there wasn't anything that I wanted.
And that was Thursday.
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