Life's a short trip...

Another week in Istanbul, another set of stories. I seem to be checking things off the Must See in Istanbul List pretty quickly. This week I went to the The Underground Cistern. It was built in the 6th century. It is support by some 300 columns and it's nine miles long. Its dark, dingy and it smells. But then I looked again and thought, these columns have been here seen the 6th CENTURY? Really? There have been many devasting earthquakes throughout Istanbul even as recently as 1992. Many of these historic symbols have been alter by them, but not the Cistern. I find that to be quite amazing. Think about it's underground, it was probably shaken the most. Yet 300 hundred columns have lasted. Pretty Cool.


I also successfully haggled at the Grand Bazaar this week. I decided it's time to start thinking about gifts and souvenirs. It seems the Grand bazaar is the place for me as I was able to get some Turkish flutes, slippers, and elma cay for under 20 lira.

The big trip this weekend was the bus trip to Edirne. Edirne is a well known city right on the border of Greece. I honestly I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't really know why we're going to Edirne, but it sounded fun so off I went. We went to bus station by school bought our bus tickets, hopped on a service bus that went to the largest bus stop I had ever seen and from there hopped on the bus that would take us to Edirne. Three hours later, we were there.

Edirne is known for three things - soaped shaped like fruits, Mosques, and liver. The soaps were pretty corny.  As always the Mosques were beautiful.  There was one in particular, one really cool one. We had walked rather far from the city and were in a not so great area.  There was a little Mosque that I thought we should walk into. It was a little after 6, so I wasn't sure if I could enter so I asked the man outside. The little old man couldn't have been more excited.  "Are you american?" "Evet (yes)" I answered. He showed us the Mosque, took us into the woman's section, gave a history of the Mosque and the town, and gave us a tour of the garden, which had tomb's of Sultan's children. It was another wonderful moment  once again displaying how nice Turkish people can be.

I tried the liver for dinner, but I'm still not feeling. Even though it is prepared differently, it just not my thing. Edirne had a really cool archeology museum with artifacts from Turkey and Greece.  Also the many of Mosques had Arabic writing something not seen in Istanbul. It was interesting. The bus ride back was again three hours, but Turkish bus rides are pretty epic. They are super cheap and really nice. They give you cay (tea), water or soda, cookies or crackers, and on the bus back we each had an individual screen and choices of movies. If the bus ride from VT to Boston was like that, I might actual take it every once in a while. all in all great day trip.

I'm off to Cappadocia this weekend, the next post should be interesting.