Istanbul...

Another round of pictures -- hopefully I can post the rest over the weekend! These are from Istanbul, and they're in no particular order (I had so many to choose from, it was hard to keep them organized...):

We saw dolphins on our way into the city! They were jumping in the wake left by the cruise ship...

Welcome to Istanbul, where it's only a matter of time until you feel the gleasure... (my dad and Cindy also got pictures of a restaurant menu that had "fired eggs" and "green papers" on the menu... I shouldn't laugh, though -- their English is WAY better than my Turkish... :))

The traffic in Istanbul is crazy... so on our way to the Hagia Sophia/Blue Mosque (Ayasofya/Sultanahmet) area, we sat in front of this sign for a while. We could've just followed the sign and walked the rest of the way... it would've been faster...

Um, translation, anyone?

Hagia Sophia from afar...

The Blue Mosque at night, seen from our cruise ship room balcony... I have no idea what the words mean... I even did a Google search and came up with nothing... so again -- translation, anyone??

This is my, "I'm in Asia!!" smile. Our tour took us over the Bosphorus into the Asian side of the city, and it was my first time on the Asian continent...

A view of the bridge we drove over to get to the Asian side...

The Blue Mosque...

Minaret... (we learned, by the way, that the call to prayer is now a recording broadcast over the loudspeakers -- someone just pushes a button five times a day. Well that's no fun at all -- I expect REAL people to run to the top of minarets all over the city five times a day... none of this "recording" nonsense...)

Random picture Rick snapped of me when I wasn't expecting it...

I love this shot...

Inside the Blue Mosque... it was beautiful, but it was SO hot and stuffy. I'd worn long pants and brought a long-sleeved cardigan so I could cover up, and the combination of heat, too much clothing, and not very much for breakfast was making me feel rather woozy. So I was anxious to get back outside before I passed out... but I still managed to get some decent pictures:

Actually, Rick may have taken some of these... I was too dizzy and food-deprived to remember. :) Incidentally, we were in Turkey during Ramadan, so I thought perhaps some shops and restaurants would be closed, and not everyone would be eating during the day. But nope -- EVERYTHING was open, and EVERYONE was eating. Not that I can blame them -- I was wondering, as the room spun and I began to black out in the mosque (I MAY be slightly exaggerating), how anyone could fast all day in that kind of heat. I had, at least, had a small breakfast and was taking sips from my mom's water bottle. I suppose the people who WERE fasting were holed up in dark, cool houses... that would be the smart thing to do. (That would also explain why everyone I saw outside was eating and drinking...)

Where are we again? Oh yeah -- Turkey! (Turkish flags were all over the place when we were there -- they were about to celebrate a holiday similar to our July 4th. So, just like we always bring out a plethora of American flags in July, they adorned everything with Turkish flags for their holiday.)

I saw these lamps in a shop and thought they were rather pretty...

Walking through the Grand Bazzar, where the shopkeepers were very pushy. I did eventually buy a set of purple ceramic bowls, but I was so flustered by the ever-present shopkeeper that I forgot to haggle. My friend Cindy managed to talk down everyone's prices on everything she bought, and I was like, "awwww... I forgot to do that!" I'm sure the shopkeeper was thinking about how great it is when stupid Americans visit his shop and pay more than they should... sigh... Oh well -- they ARE great purple bowls... :)