Diane's Delight Fright

Diane is regrouping.  Her big indulgence here in Istanbul was going to be to go to a Turkish Bath for the whole experience: bath, steam, shower and an hour-long massage.  They are inexpensive and world famous.  Top of her agenda arriving here was to get to the Grand Bazaar or other such place to buy the appropriate wrap and a kese.  It is not the idea of being massaged buck naked that bothers her; it is her discovery that a "kese" has the texture of what we would call a “pot scrubber”.  This is not your warm river stones and scented candles massage.  The intention of a Turkish Massage is to exfoliate the entire body of all dead skin.  I envision a bright pink Diane.  Like I say, she is having second thoughts.

Me?  I ain’t never had a massage and don’t intend on starting now.

We had a lazy day.  What the heck, we still have 7 weeks.  Started our day at the top of our hotel with the usual breakfast of 5 cups of coffee. 

I knew Istanbul is an ancient city, but I was not prepared.  For example, there is an obelisk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk_of_Theodosius) pillaged from ancient Egypt that stands in one of the squares in old Istanbul.  It was brought to Istanbul and erected on its current site in 390 AD!  So it was already 1,400 years old when it was brought to Istanbul , where it has since stood for the last 1,600 years.  It is hard for me to get my little brain around these big numbers.

Across the street from the Blue Mosque (more or less) is the Hagia Sophia Church/Mosque/Museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia).  It started out as a church in the 500 AD or so, was converted to a mosque in 1400 or so and then was converted to a museum in the 1930s.  It’s a mixture of Islamic patterns and scripts and Christian iconography.  It is big and was the biggest dome in the world for something like 1,000 years.

After Hagia Sophia, we went to the Basilica Cistern which is huge and was built in 532 AD.  There are walkways all through it, so pretty cool to see.

We sat down for a Turkish coffee immediately thereafter, which, given the caffeine and sugar fired me up pretty good.  We wandered the street, successfully foraged for food (pita bread in a style more like pizza than bread).  I loaded a little Turkish Delight on top of that, just to pack it down.

The rest of the day is not noteworthy;  we went back to the hotel where I promptly feel  asleep in a chair.  Diane surfed the ‘net, while I went for a walk to figure out the logistics for a Bosporus cruise tomorrow.  We dined across from the Blue Mosque; me: Chicken kabobs / Diane: Spaghetti Bolognaise.