Asher: Istanbul day 4
Trip Start
Mar 12, 2008
1
18
59
Trip End
Mar 31, 2008
Today we did a lot of things that I did not know about. First we went to the Saleiman Mosque. It kind of creeped me out because of all the graves. But they were good at putting people in graves, though. For a man they put a little cap on the head. For a women they put a little crown with long hair. To see if it was an adult or a child you had to look at how tall the grave was. The sad thing was that there were a lot of small graves. For Roxelena and many other important people, their graves were minitiure buildings. Sometimes you wander if the bigger graves are for the more important people. While we were there something strange happened: we met other people from Cincinnati. Next we went to what looked like a good restaurant for dinner. Here is the conversation between my dad and the waiter: Do you have a bellydancer here tonight? (dad). Yes, you could bellydance here if you would like. (waiter). So, you don't have one? (dad). No. (waiter). So, after that we walked a little to the harbor for a boat to Asia. If you ever go to Turkey on a nice sunny day, take a boat to Asia. You can get great photographs, and it has a great dining area in the bottom of the ferry. Right when we got to Asia we saw a golden statue of Ataturk. Ataturk was the founder of modern Turkey in around 1935. Then we went to a resaurant and got a great sandwich lunch for 7YTL ($1= 1.20 YTL). That was that on Asia and now it was time to take the boat back to Europe. After that we took a tram to the Cisterne. The Cisterne was built by Justinian in 562. It was built so that the ancient Romans could get their water. Over the centuries, it was forgotten about, and only rediscovered when modern people could lower buckets through holes in their basments to get water, and occasionally fish! We had to leave and get a snack because my sisters were hungry after that. So we went to the sixth story of a six story restaurant. Once again, if you go to Turkey on a nice sunny day, go to the top of that restaurant for pictures, not food. A bottle of water costs about $12! On the other hand it was great for photographs. It was right between the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sophia. It also had a good view of many other mosques such as the New Mosque. After a tea and a beer for my parents, they decided that it was time to go home to rest, and then get ready for a great dinner (but not after we all got ice cream).
