tuesday

More rain today. It seemed a good day for indoor activities, so after breakfast we walked to the Aya Sophia to wandered the grounds of the cathedral/mosque. It's interesting that in its restoration, the Christian mosaics and icons have been only partially uncovered. Restorers have chipped away the plaster to reveal images from its pre-1400's era as a cathedral, but in some areas they seem to have stopped the project. The Arabic additions from the past few centuries don't look very permanent; the largest ones hang on giant discs as if they were erected for a party, and would be taken down after the guests left. The stained-glass windows are eerily empty of figures or faces; the colors that line the borders are an outline to frosted white glass. Jordan tried out some effects with his new Canon Rebel XTi, and then we moved on to the archeological museum within the castle grounds.

It was a strange museum, an odds-and-ends collection of really old artifacts, statues and figurines. It was also empty--maybe because it was low tourist season, maybe because it was sort of a bad museum. We couldn't figure out why Jerome had raved about it, until we realized at the end that we were not touring the royal Ottoman rooms; that was a separate (much larger) building altogether. One of our new roommates was a canadian who just returned from the Middle East, where he hung out in Palestine coffee shops and visiting friends in Jerusalem. I don't think I have the guts to travel in those areas right now. He described watching a coffee-shop date: the girl and the guy were obviously on a romantic outing, but sat across from one another and He drew us a freehand map to the open-air market on the Asian side of the bosphorous. A ferry brought us there in 20 minutes, and at the asian dock we bought a grilled fish sandwich from a stand, baguette holding flaky, freshly caught fish.

We followed the penciled map until we got to a 5-way intersection and had to take a gamble. The street we chose turned into another pedestrian shopping zone, and I made a quick stop in a Mango outlet but left once I'd had enough of the feeding frenzy inside. The clothes were pretty cheap but there weren't too many things that I could actually see myself wearing, so I passed. Jordan waited patiently and then we continued our search for the open-air market. We wove through side streets until we could see a meadow of white tents in the distance, but as we approached it was clear that it was being actively taken apart; rainwater waterfalled from the tarps and cars shared the walkways with shoppers. Farther in, a produce market was still active. This was definitely not a tourists' bazaar; we were the only non-Turks to be found. Sellers stared at Jordan's giant camera lens, and the noise level was 10 times what you'd hear at the Aptos Farmer's Market. One man saw him shooting the camera and grabbed his arm to gesture at his buddies, holding up a finger and jeering, "1 Lira"--take our photo and pay us one Lira. He wouldn't let go of Jordan's arm and he had to jerk it free. Unlike old town Istanbul, this market gave us an undeniable feeling of outsider-ness. On the ferry back, we had Turkish tea in traditional glass with saucer, and took one last pass through the grand bazaar in the old city.