Istanbul day 2 - Sunday in the Blue Mosque

This morning we slept in until 11am. No alarms! We walked toward the water and I picked up a fresh pomegranate juice on the way. 

18tl, or $6, for 8oz. I guess fresh juice is a splurge anywhere in the world.  (Update: I got ripped off! A pomegranate juice in Sultanahmet was 6tl!!) The roads are windy so we wandered a bit before arriving in Kerakoy. The restaurant we wanted to try opens later on Sundays so we went to a kebab place on the water. We walked by about four very slammed restaurants and I got to see what people were ordering - basically, lots of olives and cheese plates and also menemet (the eggs I had for dinner last night).  We instead split a kebab platter ("pistachio kebab"), a salad and yogurt. Delicious and refreshing breakfast!  

We took the tramcars to Beyazit to the Grand Bazaar area. It's closed on Sunday but there were local families hanging out and shopping at the places that were open. Of course, lots of grilled street corn and fish sandwiches being sold everywhere. 

We almost bought leather sandals and some tea but didn't. Then we walked to Sultenahmet Square, walked to the Blue Mosque, and admired all the beautiful tile work. It took 7.5 years to build it. The Sultan (Ahmet) was only 14 when he became sultan, and they said he worked as a laborer  when it was being built to show his dedication. Then he died when he was 28(!!).  His tomb is under renovation but the map of the 32 descendants buried with him made me very curious to see it someday. 

We tried to make reservations for a fish restaurant that's supposed to be good but they didn't answer the phone, so we walked over to it after sitting in the grass in front of the Ayasofya and an African guy took our reservation. (I know, but we read that it is really authentic.) 

We wandered in the hot hot sun looking for a coffie place. We almost picked a jazz cafe but I saw this beautiful tucked away garden and it was peaceful and cool. I had a lavender sage tea and birds flittered in the garden. We ignored our waiter for about 20 minutes and then we started chatting with him about how he hates website reviews and prefers to have walk-ins as customers. When we left an hour later, I said asked just to be sure, "so we should definitely not leave any reviews on trip advisor?" :-) of course, we should, he said. 

We walked back towards the Ayasofya to check out the hamam, or Turkish baths. Yes, they have been there since 1556, but I just wasn't feeling it. We bought a cheese toast (grilled cheese) and lemon sorbet and started to walk to Taksim. On the way, a guy with a Sarasota tee on asked if we were from the states. He said he was from Turkey, now living in Sarasota. He is allegedly (yes, allegedly) home on business, as he is allegedly an importer of Turkish carpets and kilim rugs to US textile distributors. We agreed to visit his 16th century childhood home, right up the street, from where the business is run. We went up to the third floor, where we sat for about 5 minutes and he offered to teach us how to spot legit v. Ripoff Turkish rugs. 

First, he said we could get a rug under $1500, which I believe. So I told him we wouldn't need to buy any. Then, he offered to have his guys show us how to pick a rug or two. Alex was on edge this entire time (who were these guys?).  I was, of course, super curious about how to distinguish genuine rugs from frauds. 

The guy lay 7 rugs on the floor and told us each to pick 2 that were hand woven and dyed with natural as opposed to synthetic dyes. Natural dyes can only reflect colors that appear in nature: indigo (what's that?), purple comes from sundried walnut husks (he showed us actual dried husks), yellow comes from saffron, and so on and so forth. so, Alex and I each selected our two. We were both wrong. Natural dyes fade together so that any irregularities in color appear in front and back of the rug. True wool rugs are very durable and can even be burned with a flame (briefly, it was just for demonstration), then wiped right off. Quality rugs with natural dyes should never bleed. One example had pink dye (which they explained is not natural dye because you can't make pink- really?) that bled into the white and into the white tassles. 

I'm enthralled this entire time. Then we leave. And we decide that we should not go to any more private residences for safety reasons. So we came up with code messages for code red escapes. Nothing happened and we saw the inside of a really cool carpet dealers house and we learned about rugs, but just in case. 

After this we had a beer on a "teras" overlooking the Ayasofya. 

 

We walked back to our fish restaurant, ate an entire sea breem, a dozen anchovies wrapped around green olives (holy crap that was amazing), roasted peppers, and a salad with out of this world olive oil. All for 120tl. Outstanding service and great location. 

Then, we went back to the Ayasofya area and saw people setting off wish lanterns - the kind that float off into the air so romantically. I had wanted that for the wedding but it was against the fire code. Here, it was beautiful to watch but there was no denying that it was basically going to end up becoming litter. So we skipped it. 

All day we were surrounded by these stray cats and dogs. I don't know why people feed them but the do. And the cats lay out on the concrete in packs. One is cute; eight is gross. Today we saw dogs for the first time. Not scrappy strays like I saw in Puerto Rico. These are full grown golden retrievers. Definitely homeless. They all have tags on their ears, though, unlike the kitties. Haven't figured that out yet. 

Now we are back at the apartment and watching people dance in a circle on the rooftop terrace of a building in the distance. Must be a wedding. 

Looking forward to a full day tomorrow since we went in the areas of  attractions today but most were closed because its Synday. 

Gulls flocking over the stalls and fisherman at one end of the Galata Bridge. 

Dinner at Ahirkapi Balikcisi. Alex ate the eyeball.