You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

Thursday dawned cold and rainy.  Because of that and Rachel catching a cold, our schedule ended up meshing with theirs a lot more than we originally expected.  First stop: Topkapi Palace!  As we arrived, a 150-piece Turkish marching band, with accompanying scimitar-wearing honor guard, were coming the other way.  Every single one of them was wearing a giant black fake moustache.

I am not joking about this.

So we let them go by and then headed into the palace.  This was originally built by Sultan Mehmet II, AKA Mehmet the Conquerer, AKA The Guy Who Took Over Constantinople and Renamed It Istanbul.  Most of the palace you can't see, but part of it has been turned into a museum, which holds many treasures, including the Topkapi Dagger, a knife that is covered in gold and jewels and then for some reason has a wristwatch set in the hilt, and then when they realized that was sort of lame they gave the watch a cover made of a giant emerald.  Also in the museum is a massive diamond, I think they said the 7th-largest in the world, which supposedly was found by someone on a garbage heap, and then that person, thinking it was a hunk of common crystal, traded it to someone from the palace for three spoons.  Is that a true story?  As the Coen brothers said, It's true that it's a story.

The Church of Hagia Erine

The Tower of Justice

Part of the Sultan's family's chambers

Ioana apparently doing the Y-M-C-A
in front of the Tower of Justice

Rachel being a Furious Donut?  I don't know what this is.
I am wearing my John McEnroe headband.

Overall I thought the Topkapi Palace was OK.  The other folks liked it better than I did, but it wasn't as beautiful as other places we'd been, wasn't as important in history, and most of the art was overwrought and ostentatious.  Another problem is that Topkapi is apparently quite popular as a destination for both school field trips and guided tours, so the place was just packed with unruly school children and weirdo foreign tourists.  I do not include us in that group, the two previous photographs notwithstanding.

Like me, Gabe is a chick magnet

How Bazaar, How Bazaar

After Topkapi we headed out to a quick lunch, and then off to the Grand Bazaar.  We unfortunately didn't get to see very much of this because we went the wrong way to get there, and then once we arrived we realized that the nearby Spice Market, which we also wanted to see, was closing in like an hour.  So we rushed through a small part of the Grand Bazaar and didn't buy anything (although I wouldn't have anyway).

We made it to the Spice Market in good order, and spent quite a bit of time there.  We walked the length of the whole thing.  It was pretty cool.  The market started back in the 1600's and has been the center of the Istanbul spice trade ever since.  You can get any kind of spices there at pretty decent prices.  Also: Turkish delight!  ALL YOU CAN EAT.  THEY GIVE FREE SAMPLES.

I had fun at the Spice Market.  I love that sort of wheeler-dealer haggle your heart out kind of thing.  I'm sure I got the worst of every exchange, but I'm a rich American dummy and these guys are busting their asses every day to sell spices and Turkish delight, so they definitely deserve to win.

After that long day of trekking the city, we headed out for dinner.  We decided to revisit that restaurant we went to on the first night that was so good, whose name turns out to be Coruscant.  Or at least, something so close to that that they should have just gone ahead and named it that.  As with Night #1, the food was amazing and we all had to be basically rolled out of there.  I had chicken stuffed with spinach, onion, pine nuts, and currants, with bechamel sauce.  Ho-lee Christ was that good.  Io had a lamb thing served on a hot plate that they put over a traditional burner.  Yum!

So all in all I think we can say that Day 3 of Istanbul was a smashing success.

The Blue Mosque, as seen from the roof of our hotel

Today was Day 4 and our last full day here.  The center of our day was a cruise up the Bosphorus (the strategic waterway linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which is basically the entire reason Istanbul exists and why it was so important -- the city sits on the southern end and controls the access point, including the division between Europe and Asia).

We headed out right after breakfast, down to the Galata Bridge (one of the two modern bridges across the Bosphorus) where the ferry leaves from.  The ferry goes all the way up the Bosphorus, stopping at various ports on both sides along the way -- meaning you are literally stopping at a port in Europe, then 10 minutes later one in Asia, then 5 minutes later back in Europe, then back in Asia, like that Simpsons episode where they go to Australia and Homer keeps stepping back and forth across the line of the American Embassy to change countries until one of  the Marine guards punches him in the face.

The ferry itself was really cool.  It's a giant boat with three passenger decks: the lowest is enclosed, the middle has an enclosed section and two open sections (although still with a roof), and the upper section is just open.  There are comfy leather seats, some of them with tables, and you can just sort of wander wherever you want.  According to tour guides the ferry is packed and you have to get there super-early to get a decent seat during the summer, but here in the winter you could go wherever you wanted.  There's a bar and a snack bar, and jacketed waiters circle through the whole boat throughout the trip taking orders for tea and Turkish coffee and whatnot.  It was classy and comfortable.  It was great being able to go to whichever side of the boat had the best view of whatever you were passing, and to go up or down to whatever deck was most comfortable.  I'd go up to the top and hang out with Jason talking about history until it was too cold, and then go down to the warm enclosed sections for some cookies and a warm drink.

The Galata Tower

Along the way we saw tons of mansions, palaces, and old fortresses that stand alongside the water.  It was also a cool way just to see the city of Istanbul, which goes by you on both sides of the water, building upon building, dotted with mosques and their minarets.  

The Fortress of Europe

End of the Bosphorus -- looking out to the Black Sea

After 90 minutes the ferry stops in Anadolu Kavagi, the last town before you hit the Black Sea.  It used to be a fishing town and is now mostly a tourist town.  There's an old Byzantine fortress up on the hill there -- controlling the vital north end of the Bosporus -- but Io and I didn't go because the ferry guys told us there was no way to get up there with a stroller.  Jason and Rachel went and said it was cool.  Just another sacrifice I've made for you, Gabriel.  No need to thank me, this is part of my job as Best Dad in the Universe.

The Dude abides

The ferry stays at Anadolu three hours before heading back, so Io and I walked all around the town, and dropped Gabe on his head to get back at him for costing us a view of the castle.  (Not really.  He dropped himself on his head, although his crying afterwards sure made it sound  like it was our fault.)  Ioana got some fried mussels from one of the many roadside vendors, and once Jason and Rachel rejoined us we all got lunch at one of the seaside cafes lining the shore.

My fish was fine but everyone else's meal sucked, which just goes to show yet again how much smarter I am than everybody else.  Eventually we got back on the ferry for the 90-minute trip back to Istanbul.  Jason and I slept through part of it, but in general the ride was quite nice.

I was really happy with the whole Bosporus cruise thing.  It was one of the two things I absolutely wanted to do here (the other being the Hagia Sophia), and it turned out to be wholly awesome.  The boat itself was cool and the trip was a lot of fun.  Hooray for the Bosporus.

We got back to Istanbul in the early evening and decided to visit Suleiman's Mosque before the end of the day.  Getting there meant 30 minutes of hand-to-hand fighting through Istanbul's marketplaces, but Io knows karate and I was armed with a Mark II Combat Stroller and a baby whose crying can shatter diamonds, so eventually we made it there.

Suleiman's Mosque is beautiful on both the outside and the inside, but I was interested in it mostly because Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent is buried there, and he's a character in the computer game Civilization V.  I've basically hung out with him.

Night was falling and Istanbul gets freaking cold after dark, so I took a quick look inside the mosque and then pestered Io to head back to the hotel.

Gabe continued to win the Global War on Terror by screaming his head off
in the silent sanctity of the mosque.  Take that, terror!

Io and I stopped at a little cafeteria-type place for dinner, and then I watched Gabe and wrote this epic blog post while Io went out into Istanbul and spent all our Turkish money on a really cool ring and a pair of bellydancer pants.  It was only like $30, but still, I don't know why she can't follow my example of spending all our money on delicious Turkish delight.

Tomorrow we have a little more time here and then it's back to Bucharest for us, and on to some city in Turkey I've never heard of for Jason and Rachel.  Maybe there's a giant amazing church built in 500 AD and the Bosporus there, but I kind of doubt it.

Moment of Zen: