Turkish Delight-ful

Day 3: 

Update #1: We begin our day again at the wonderful breakfast located upstairs. After this we are headed out to go see a mosque, a palace, and a little market. 

Update #2: Upon arrival at the Blue Mosque we are again found removing our shoes and placing coverings on our head. Unfortunately the inside of the Blue Mosque was under many renovations leaving it difficult to see any of the calligraphy or mosaics on the walls. 

Update #3: On our way out we were stopped by a man who asked us if we were interested in going to the art bazaar. My mom getting pulled in easily agreed, and we were soon following behind a man who we now found out has a shop in the bazaar. Upon arrival at the shop there was really no essape or excuse as they soon started pulling out different things for us to taste. As of right now I have tried over 4 different turkish delights, crystal menthol, some saffron drink, and many different kinds of tea.  

Update #4: Apparently we are suckers for saying no because we were unable to leave the store without buying soemthing. So this trip resulted in a whole box of turkish delights. The man at the store was very entertaining as he continued to ask if we would like to try more things. At one point (me being ready to leave) I responded for my mom saying that we were okay and ready to go. He did not enjoy this as he was essentially loosing more business. He continued by stating “no no you do not get to answer for others.” I laughed and we all started to walk out. Right before we were leaving he made some remark saying that he was single, but it was all too much of a whirlwind to figure out exactly what his point was. I responded by saying I was not and then slowly began to walk away, hoping my family would follow. We are now headed to Topikup palace just down the steeet from here. 

Updat#5: Topikup is a beautiful palace built for the Sultan and his wives, family, and servants. There are 4 main gardens where you can find everything from a personal mosque, kitchens, great dinning halls, servants quarters, rooms for princes and princesses, and finally  the sultans quarters. It is a beautiful place, however, very big! We spent about 3 hours in Topikup alone simply due to the sizes of its gardens and rooms. Imagining living in a place like that seems hard to fathom. I loose my parents in my own how let alone if there were four different garden spaces and over 400 rooms!! No wonder this palace took over 18 years to build! 

Update #6: Finally we are eating! Everyone is pretty exhausted at this point. Which is understandable after walking in a palace that is roughly 6,379,000 to 7,535,000 sq ft big. For lunch we found this cool restaurant on a row of restaurants towards the way home. I got a turkish ravioli which I think my dad wishes he actually got as he ended up eating a lot of it. This was one of my better choices at a restaurant I believe! 

Update #7: On our way back to the room we stopped at the art bazaar. Which was scattered with very similar things we found at the previous bazaar. It was also not limited to, you guessed it, more hassling! This is where we just realized our biggest mistake of the day. The turkish delight we bought earlier was about double the price at this shop. And this one was found just down the street from the other one! Unfortunately for us we had already purchased the other stuff. But we bought some crystal menthol that we were looking at getting at the other store which was also about half the price.

Update #8: We are now back in the room after stopping at the ATM as well as one other place so riley could purchase a necklace. I am exhausted and want to take a nap but my mom is worried that if I nap I won’t sleep tonight. But I think i’ll be okay I have a couple hours before I go to dinner tonight so we will see!

Update #9: I ended up sleeping for about an hour and 1/2. Definitely worth it as I could tell I needed the sleep. Even though my mom was telling me every 5 min that I shouldn’t sleep and get out of bed. But regardless of what she said I slept and it was great! Definitely the highlight of my day (just kidding!) Shortly after I woke we went to dinner. A nice dinner! It was a beautiful restaurant that overlooked the city and more importantly both Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. We watched the sun set as we ate our delicious dinner. Now we are headed back to the room for a good nights sleep before yet another busy day tomorrow!