The walk to the hotel made me knees whimper. :( We stayed on a street full of hostels and restaurants, very touristy. We ate at a nice, traditional restaurant where we were scolded by the waiter for not knowing basic words in Arabic. XP We got our first cheese platter in Istanbul which we would continue to get whenever we had a chance. There was a cat at the restaurant who wouldn't stop coming to the table and begging for food. It got annoying pretty fast. I learned in my short stay in Istanbul that cats are everywhere. Seriously.
 

 

FINALLY, Santa Sophia:
 

 

Me!:


From the outside:




 

 

The Blue Mosque, which was very close to my hostel...but I never had time to go in. Overall I wish I had had more time there to do everything I wanted:
 

Me again, wishing I had sunglasses:



Eep:






 

One feature of the palace I don't have photos of (because photographpy wasn't allowed) is one of the many museums within the palace which supposidely holds possessions of biblical figures. They have the "staff of Moses" and the "sword of David" and all sorts of things like that which all look very synthetic and new, despite its 10th century B.C.dating. XP It was pretty hilarious that someone truly believes that the turban of John is real, especially when it appears to be created last week to the naked eye.

I hated the grand bazaar. Big markets where people try to call you over to their merchandise is nothing new to me, but the merchants would get angry at you if you didn't want to buy their products. I'm sure it was all an act to make you feel guilty and push you into buying something, but it just made me uncomfortable and made me simply walk away. I wish that I could have shipped back a carpet, but I didn't even bother looking at the prices since I had so little money. :-/ I got a very tiny jewelry box, about big enough for a ring or two. I had to haggle which I'm not good at or comfortable with, but fortunately I sort of accidentally haggled by trying to leave because I honestly was not going to pay so much for such a small object.

One of my worst experiences in Istanbul happened soon after these pictures were taken:
 

I had been wanting some pants (the kind that Princess Jasmine wears in Aladdin :P) and I finally saw some I liked in the shop we're in above. The owner of the shop gave me the pants and told me to go upstairs and I try them on. Upstairs was really an attic/storeroom, so I felt slightly intrusive being up there. I was trying various pairs on, and when I was in my underwear the owner came up. I tried to cover myself up a bit and told him that I didn't have pants on, but he came all the way up the stairs anyway. I figured he just didn't undnerstand what I was saying. He came up and held the pants out in front of me to put my legs into. I thought that since he wasn't making me being in my underwear a big deal, I wouldn't either. Once I put the pants on, though, he groped my ass a bit. He snapped the waistband of my underwear. I told him that they were too big, and he walked behind me to look for more, and touched my ass again as he did so. I felt very naked and vulnerable, standing there in my underwear. He urged me to try on my more pants, but I told him no. The whole experience was very strange, because I didn't think something like that would happen to me without me telling the guy off. But instead I was just stunned and didn't do much of anything. I was disappointed in myself. I regretted telling him that Ben and I were not married when he asked (a question we got a lot, which was weird because I still consider myself much too young to be married. I hate growing up!). It took me awhile to get over my guilt. 

Some stuff on da street: