Saturday, July 16, 2011 - Istanbul, Turkey

I'm going to let the pictures and captions do the talking tonight.  Running a little late on my bedtime and still need to do some laundry in the sink so it is dry by Monday to pack to go to Egypt.

This is the inside of Rustempasa Mosque

The rug was designed into small personal prayer rug areas. 

Loved this sunflower on one of the arch on the outside of the mosque.

Yes!  Made it to the famous Spice Bazaar!

The Spice Bazaar is about 1/10th the size of the grand bazaar and way less busy.  More my kind of style.

So many to chose from!  I so need to take an international cooking class.

Turkish Monopoly!

This wasright next to the steps of the mosque that we were supposed to meet the group at.  Yes - these people are selling food for the pigeons and there were hundreds of them swooping around us.  Not my favorite place.

Today we spent an hour and a half on a private boat on the Bosporhous. 

Topaki Palace on the far left, Aya Sofya in the middle, and the six towers of the Blue Mosque on the far right.  Very cool to see all three places from this view!

Aya Softa - love this place and am so glad I got a good picture of the massive size and grandeur

This is where we are going tomorrow - the last palace of the Sultan's and where Ataturk lived and later died.

Me with my back to the Asian side of Istanbul

A fortess built by Mehment the Conqueror from the 1450s when he was coming in to conquer Constaninoble.  Another fortess was built on the other side of the Bosporhos.  The Ottomans actually put a large chain across the waterway so Constantinoble's forces couldn't use the waterway.

Our boat

And...then...Stephanie, Beth H, and I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 in ISTANBUL!

Stephanie and I were just a little excited!  Can you tell!

Let's just say it wasn't necessary for us to get to the "cinema" 30 minutes early!  You purcahse an assigned seat (but we moved anyway) and there was no "don't use your cell phone rule and the movie stopped smack in the big end scene. Come to find out, it was a 10-minute break - but we didn't know what was going on.  The movie was in English with Turkish subtitles.

Stephanie enjoying her day or two-day old popcorn that had no butter.  Beth H looking on with much laughter!

Stephanie, her popcorn, and her cup of salt which was a vain attempt to make the popcorn "eat-able."

Tomorrow is our last day of touring with our tour guide.  Need to do that laundry still...and by then maybe the fireworks going off somewhere in town willbe done! :-)