I'm writing so early (6:20 here) this morning because I am an idiot. I was in charge of waking up myself and the two other guys in my flat, at about 9:45 or so, to go meet Sarah at 10:30. Turns out I woke us up four hours early! I'm real popular in the flat right now. Since I have so long, and am at risk of being assassinated by my roommates, I thought I'd bounce up to the terrace to read and blog (am I actually a blogger now??).
Yesterday was pretty exciting. Started off by going to my first Turkish restaurant for lunch with everyone here. I decided to use one of my ten Turkish words, 'Merhaba' (hello), as I walked into the place, a little cafe about 30 seconds from the flat. Not a good idea. The waiter immediately started off in a string of Turkish, none of which I even remotely caught, obviously. I froze and looked at my friends, and chose as my response to the guy smiling, uttering some English profanities, and just being generally awkward for about a minute. Finally, he said something to the effect of 'do you actually speak Turkish?' I don't, and none of us do, so he said 'Then we do it in English'.
After that rocky start, things went really well; delicious food (dolmas (grapeleaves or vegetable skins stuffed with rice or meat), a few kinds of salads, lamb, chicken, some pear/tomato/beef item that was incredible, and some other thing I can't remember. Then we went up to Istiklal Cadessi, one of the main streets in Istanbul. Before we got there, off one of the side streets we saw...
Some Indians playing tiny guitars! In Istanbul. As you can see, the Turks were just as into as we were, so I didn't feel too bad for slipping into tourist mode and taking a couple pictures. Istiklal was interesting, but was mostly just really crowded. The best part were the side streets: steep, filled with shops and cafes, and really colorful.



At about four or so we went back to the flat, where I, having finally figured out zoom on my camera, took some more skyline pictures. Hi-ya, Sophia!


Some people went to bed, but Kevin, Zoe and I decided to walk down to Galata Bridge, the bridge that goes over the Golden Horn, the narrow strip of water that divides the Old City (the neighborhood in which Hagia Sophia and most of the iconic Istanbul landmarks are is called Sultanahmet) from the European neighborhoods to the north. Underneath the bridge, almost the entire way, are seafood restaurants. We walked down as far as we could, coming to a little paved area almost in the center. Sitting there has to be one of my favorite moments (seems like I've been here a couple weeks already). Inexplicably, there were dolphins, jumping out of the water,


something I've never heard of, but the Istanbullus didn't seem to take much notice. At the same time, the call to prayer went out, which I heard for the first time. The Arabic singing reverberated across the water, coming from the minarets on both sides. It's so strange and beautiful. And, as always, the weather was perfect. This is our neighborhood, from across the water:



We live about a block from that tower (Galata Tower, built by the Genoese in the 14th century).; you can kind of see Galata Bridge on the left. Went back after a while, and decided to go to dinner pretty much where we had just been. I managed to actually do pretty well, in terms of Turkish, at the little place we went, ordering kofte and a kola without much difficulty. We went into Sultanahmet after dinner, to see Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque up close. Some pictures:

Hagia Sophia, through the gate into the Blue Mosque area

A hilarious Turkish concert going on in between the two??? The guy with his hands behind his back is pretty indicative of the crowd's attitude.

The Blue Mosque, from the courtyard. They have the moon in Turkey, too.



People coming out of evening prayers, Blue Mosque

OH MY GOD!!!!!!! THE BASE OF THE OBELISK OF THEODOSIUS!!!! I can't tell you how excited I was to see this guy. We spent a good half hour on this piece in my Byzantine class, and it was pretty cool to stumble upon it. My friends were underwhelmed. Theodosius and I were pissed at them.

Then we got really lost in Sultanahmet trying to find the bridge. Apparently no one lives in Sultanahmet except cats. Finally found our way (I remembered bridge, 'koprusu', which helped a bit in asking directions of the one or two people we found; one guy was sitting on the sidewalk, watching synchronized swimming on a mini TV. They really know how to creep here), after not a little bit of freaking out. Got back and went to bed about, oh, five hours ago. To repeat, I am an idiot. However, my roommates put me in charge of waking them up again in about 3 hours. I should probably go get ready to wake them up, for real this time. I will not fail them again.