Otel Surucu Istanbul

... Just like home.Just a bunch of jazz fans in the middle of the
forest in a gorgeous house with beautiful art and real carpets sitting around
eating and talking. Sunday in Istanbul.
Tomorrow morning I move to my new hotel in Taksim. I am already sad about
leaving Sultanhamet but time to get closer to where I will be working.
Tuesday I do a workshop on Oral History and some interviews and then give my
talk called The Khalif of Valby: Dexter ...

... the snack stop next door. Then we all decided to go back to the room and take a nap.

That night as we were walking out to dinner a Turkish man invited us to sit outside his carpet shop and smoke hookah with him. Deanna, still needing to fine tune her sketchdar- for some reason thought this was a sketchy situation. *for those of our loyal fans who are wondering, hookahs are filled with flavored tobacco, usually apple or mint*

One of the carpet shop owner ...

This country has culture , more culture and some more culture.

Everything they do can date back 1000's of years. Drinking tea with as many people as they can, backgamon, their hospitality rivals any other culture in the world, business men to ...

... locals even if you felt guilty that you had had not one but two meals during the daylight hours where Muslims are not even supposed to drink a sip of water. The Ramadan celebrations continued past supper time and well into the night and we were headquartered in the thick of things. Our hotel near the Blue Mosque provided a perfect venue to take part in the festivities which generally consisted of thousands of happy people just wandering around the area ...

... quite pleased with the work. Then I was bored with nothing much to do, so I got Stephanie to come to the Grand Bazaar with me. Wow, now that I was actually there to shop, I could totally feel the heat and stimuli overload! I ended up splurging on some hand-made souvenirs that were probably hand-made by children in Bangladesh. Being the amazingly clumsy person that I am, I managed to drop the hand-made mug while sitting down at a restaurant ...

3/7-6/7 Crossing the border into turkey was definitely the most troublesome we have had. Not because of the border guards, they were quite nice and understanding, but it was because we had no idea what we were doing. After first trying to just drive trough we got redirected to the visa area, where we had to buy a visa. We then had to register our car and after abut 5 stamps we were able to go through. We were greeted with a road in the middle of reconstruction, and ...

... For your pain," she explained, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. "I don't want an injection," I told her. "I wanted to get a doctor to check me out." "You'll have to come back tomorrow for that during daily work hours. Until then, we can give you a shot for your pain." "I'm not letting them give me an injection," I told Karen. She agreed. We didn't thank them, and we walked out of the clinic (were kicked out, really) grumbling ...

... that fills to the brim with people. The drivers are so skilled. They manage to drive, exchange money, shıft, smoke a cıgarette, whız through the hectıc Istanbul streets, and take an occasıonal phone call, the same tıme.) a ferry (the water was extremely choppy but ı managed to not get sea sıck) and a metro/tram(also packed to the brım.) So that kind of gives you an idea of how bıg thıs city ıs. The bıggest ...

... this alter. A call to prayer for the funeral is issued by the mosque. A short stroll to the Cistern, passing by The German Fountain (Alman Cesmesi) at the northern end of old hippodrome ,Sultanahmet Square, across from the Mausoleum of Sultan Ahmed I. It was constructed to commemorate the second anniversary of German Emperor Wilhelm II's visit to Istanbul in 1898. It was built in Germany, then transported piece by piece and assembled in its current site in 1900. The neo ...

... next time). We also visited the Topkapi Palace, an amazing place that has been transformed into a muesum and has incredible views over the whole of Istanbul.... and then of course the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. Istanbul was definately one of the highlights of our trip so far and we can't wait to head back there and to hopefully check out some of the rest of Turkey as well.