Relaxation and Exploration

Hello all!
Hope all is well. It's about 6 on Sunday here, I just finished my pilav, and we are getting ready for another busy week, our last in Istanbul before our excursion. It's been a great weekend, very relaxing, which is what we all needed after two very hectic weeks. Yesterday we mostly stayed in, reading and napping. Kristina made a delicious falafel dinner, which we ate while watching Turkey lose to Portugal 2-0. As most of you probably know, soccer is not my thing; still, when in Istanbul, do as the Istanbullus do (or as you think they do, because we didn't see anyone with jerseys or anything soccer-related on walking around after the game).
After a leisurely morning, Kevin, Zoe, Kristina, and I decided to explore our neighborhood in a different direction. So far, our wanderings have been either south into Sultanahmet or north onto Istiklal Caddesi and its environs. Today we went east-ish, exploring the area between the Bosporus and Istiklal. We weren't disappointed; it's basically impossible to be in this city, but still.
About five minutes in, we stumbled upon an insignificant looking mosque. We were shocked to learn that it was built in the 1550s by the great Sinan. I'm almost ashamed how much we still have to see just in our immediate surroundings. The mosque was completely empty, and very beautiful. The most striking thing about it was the incredibly vivid stained glass:
We continued along the Bosporus toward a certain mosque, an imposing structure we always notice when we take the ferry back from Asia but have never visited. Turns out it was built in 1825, comparatively late ('old' here has such a different meaning in the states as it does here!), so it was very interesting to compare it to everything else we've seen. As you can perhaps tell, its facade is very influenced by Renaissance Italian architecture (certainly Palladio):
The interior was painted, lacking the thousands of tiles that other mosques have. It was an entirely different kind of beauty, very ornate, and somewhat reminiscent of Dolmabahce, which was built about 20 years after this mosque:

As we left, it began to rain, so we climbed a hill up to a little cafe and drank tea overlooking Sultanahmet. Quick topography lesson; I know I don't do a very good job of explaining where all these sites and neighborhoods are, sorry.
This is the view from the cafe:
And to put it a little more in perspective:

One thing that was really incredible about the neighborhoods we walked through was the amount of political graffiti, all against the current government. Most was fairly simple ('AKP'yi Istemiyoruz!'- We don't want AKP!), but some were a little more creative. WARNING- not for the eyes of children or proponents of political Islam:

'Tayyip' is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan; this is one of the more uncommon criticisms of the Islamist-oriented leader of the AK party. DEHAP, on the right, was a pro-Kurdish party disbanded in 2005, so I guess this is pretty old.
We also saw dozens of old ruins and literally hundreds of kittens, but you already know what those looks like, don't you? We eventually made it back to our flat, where we got dinner and started writing our blog entries. Thanks for reading, and I'll talk to you soon!