MYSTERIES

Hello all,
The past day and a half or so has been, well, mysterious. These are the questions that have consumed my past 24 hours:
-how do you haggle?
-is there a ruined palace right next to our apartment?
-does Red Bull actually give you wings?
So, the first. Sometime after I posted yesterday, David, Kevin, and I went to Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, the Kapalıçarşı, to explore and maybe pick up some clothes (Turkish men wear clothes that are basically skin tight- I didn't want that small, just clothes that don't look XXL comparatively). I made the first purchase: 6 pairs of socks for 5 lira. I didn't even realize until afterwards that I didn't haggle. Was I supposed to? If so, how does one initiate haggling? "Hey, let's haggle!"? "Are these prices artificially inflated because I am a foreigner and, as such, am likely to pay you upwards of five times this item's actual price?"? But I thought it was a good deal (and I still do), so I wasn't too concerned. When we got to one of the main clothing streets though, the haggling began in earnest, led mostly by David. But I discovered something: haggling only works if you know about what you're trying to buy. I would ask the price of some shirt (to judge from that street, Istanbullus only wear Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna, and Lacoste), get a price, and then freeze. I don't know what they cost in the US, let alone Turkey! I basically got more and more confused, and eventually gave up on the idea of actually purchasing something. Something else about buying things from vendors here: everytime I think about doing so, I get the sinking feeling that if they accept my price, I must be getting ripped off. David ended up buying a shirt, but only after an hour+ of haggling (including being verbally assaulted by one angry vendor) and comparing prices in various parts of the bazaar. I guess that's what it takes.

In the bazaar itself, I found some places more my style, including a tiny hole in the wall coin store. The place was barely enough to accommodate me, the vendor, and the coins at the same time. I ended up buying two 19th cent. German coins for 8 lira. Not entirely sure how good of a deal it was, but it was a very cool experience, and I'd like to go back to look at the rest.

Walking back to our flat, Kevin and I decided to explore the vicinity of our flat a bit more. What we discovered was yesterday's second mystery. A lot about half a block from our building appears to be some kind of ruin, but we have no idea of what. You tell me:

Here are the two bases of a now collapsed brick arch. I feel like this kind of masonry is not completely modern; Byzantine or even late Ottoman seems a stretch, but twentieth century doesn't make sense either.

What are these arches even doing here??

This was particularly strange. In the immediate foreground is a piece of extremely polished granite, set into the ground, not just resting atop it. Again, I just don't know what to make of it. I just can't wait to explore more of this city.

Last night, most of us just stayed in; Friday night was about as much Turkish clubbing as we could take in one weekend, for now anyways. Another mini mystery though: there were tons of fireworks throughout the city, particularly on the Asian side. Here's one pretty cool picture of one:
Topkapı Palace and fireworks from the Asian side, beyond the Bosporus.

ALSO- I had lamb intestine for dinner. !!! It's called kokoreç, and while it didn't taste too exotic, it was very, very good, very, very cheap (2 lira), and very, very close (about a 45 second walk from the front door)- not bad for dinner, eh?

Today's big event was Red Bull's Flugtag (there are commercials for it all the time on TV- click on the link for more), which luckily came to Istanbul during our time here. It was on the Asian side, so we left at about 10, but didn't get there until 12 because of all the traffic- Turks love Flugtag! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but some of the 'flying machines' included a giant Turkish tea glass; a flying carpet; a pirate ship; Florence Nightengale; an F-117 Nighthawk; a wind-up mouse; a paper airplane; a simit seller/tram car/Trojan Horse; and a DJ booth (which the MC kept referring to as 'Chicka chika boom boom'?). Enjoy:

(Florence Nightengale. They pushed a person on a stretcher in after her; maybe I'm just old fashioned, but it did seem a big non-PC)
(You should really click on these, because it's worth it to see the large, high resolution versions of them)
Ready for a nap after such a long day. Talk to you again soon!