Mert (Matt) Tokman is one of the professors on the trip with us, and he lives in America now but he is from Turkey. After tea he gave gave us a brief overview of the history and culture of Turkey. It was actually really interesting to discuss the different groups of people in Turkey (i.e. those that love the U.S., those that are indifferent, and those that hate us), the different lifestyles of those groups, and how the sizes of each have waxed and waned over the past few decades.
After a quick lunch on campus, we drove back into the city for a long afternoon of sightseeing. We started at the Haghia Sophia, which is massive and beautiful. There is tons of history and lot of stories wrapped up in the building because so many different civilizations have taken reign and made modficiations.
Our next stop was the Basilica Cistern. This is a display of Byzantine engineering and was built in the 6th century! It's an underground area with hundreds of marble columns that was designed to hold water. It was only discovered fairly recently, and was drained and cleaned so that people could access it.
Our final sight to see this afternoon was the Grand Bazaar. I loved it. Can't wait to go back on our free day right before we leave for the states so I can buy what I want and not have to carry it all over Turkey. This was my first real experience with haggling, and it was quite interesting. After a couple of shops we got the hang of it and were able to buy a few things for good prices, but it definitely helps to have the buddy system so that someone can come to your rescue. The guys running the stands are extremely pushy and persistent. They are amazed to see Americans, and absolutely in awe to see the 2 black girls in our group. The bazaar has everything from jewelry to rugs to souveniers to clothes and plenty of things in between. After going shopping I'm beginning to like the city even more. . . :)
Dinner tonight was another wondeful, multi-course meal with a great view of the Bosphorous, the city, and a mosque. By now we're fairly acquainted with Turkish cuisine, but we did have something new tonight that was basically like a hushpuppy with a meatball inside instead of bread. It was pretty good.
I got back from dinner around 9, and decided to call it a night even though this is our only weekend in Istanbul. Hopefully there will be plenty of other opportunities (when I'm not exhausted and having a wake up call at 7 in the morning) to mingle with the Turks and check out their social scene.
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