A Rare Trip to Sultanahmet

I took Hyde to Tourist Central where I gained an appreciation for touristy looking shops which are actually quite impressive and interesting. The best example is a porcelain shop we went into where the manager (and maker of most of the wares) took us on a private tour of the place after I spoke a little Turkish with him. He seemed surprised and impressed and told me that he would sell us things at "the Turkish price". I was not able to confirm this, but we will likely return at some point to further investigate.
Ayasofya was closed but Hyde got to go into Sultanahmet. I would have gone, but the sign said not to enter if you are wearing shorts. I didn't mind touring the outside of it because of course I've been inside before. I enjoyed observing tourist-Turk interactions in the court yard. A dutch woman asking for directions, an Asian couple asking someone to take their picture, a young Turkish guy striking up conversations with only the attractive female tourists his age. Çapkın! He would say hello and ask where they were from. Some of them ignored him, some answered gleefully "I'm from Romania!", as they walked on by. I noticed then that the man had a friend on the opposite side of the courtyard with whom he frequently exchanged glances. At first I was very wary of the guy and I listened to his short conversations to see where he left them. Though his motives were doubtlessly impure, I was relieved to observe him to be quite casual; he was non-aggressive, patient, and friendly overall. I'm sure some of the women he meets really go for a local who takes an interest. Anyway, his behavior distracted and entertained me while Hyde toured the inside of the mosque. At this point, I will change the subject slightly by listing some of the highlights of the day.

- Turks taking a great interest in Hyde's blue hair. He even got a couple of positive remarks about it from strangers. That's a lot more than I can get!

- Introducing Hyde to new foods. Today he tried mantı (mini raviolis), ayran (yogurt drink), Türk kahvesi (Turkish coffee). When I have him try something new, I think this is probably the first time in his life that he has ever consumed this thing. I am always soliciting his reviews and opinions about the foods, and the experiences of eating them in the places we go.

- Meeting up briefly with Ece in Üsküdar. Hyde likes that her name is also his major at WPI (ECE: Electrical and Computer Engineering), though pronunciation-wise they're nowhere close.

- Eating an İftar meal (breaking the Ramadan fast) at a place for such things. We found a small cafe-like place with traditional place settings and Ramadan foods. We were quite hungry, but we waited like everyone else for the prayer to sound from the surrounding mosques. Starting with a date (of course), we quickly ate our soup, kavurma, rice, bread, and then kadayıf for dessert. By the way, I always confuse that stuff with künefe.

- Thinking all day about how unbelievable it is that I am hanging out with Hyde in İstanbul.

- Getting ready for the arrival of Sonia, soon to be the third member of our tearing-up-İstanbul team. We were a crew of two, now we will be a crew of few. Not too few!

As always, more pictures and personal accounts from Hyde, at: http://corvik.blogspot.com/