Thursday april 15--ISTANBUL

In Istanbul, Turkey!!! We got picked up this morning at 645 am for a 1045 flight. Our flight was a little delayed but we didn't get in much later. We flew turkish air. It was so turkish and ghetto. Everything was in turkish. Breakfast was like salami and all these weird meats- a whole tray of odd things. When we landed we had to buy a visa. Then we had to stand in the passport line for like an hour. There were people from everywhereeeee- so many lanuages. So many muslim religious women covered head to toe with dressings. We observed them for a while. We decided that married women had to cover every part of their face but single women could leave their face alone. It was very interesting. Then we got our bags, tried to figure out the atm situation and a bus from our hotel was waiting for us. Were staying at a pretty nice hotel. There was like a 5 dollar difference between the 3 star and 4 star hotel so were at a 4 star. But this isn't like an american 4 star. Its niceee but it would probably be a 2 maybe a 3 in america. Turkish people don't know enlish so so so well, there's quite a laguage barrier in the hotel and things. We looked into tours and things and ended up booking an all tour tour for tomorrow, friday, 8-5. It goes to the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, grand bizzare, Topkapi Palace, Rustem Pasa Mosque and lunch. We also booked our Turkish baths, one of their specilities, for tonight at 830 since we are all tired. After we booked the tours and got settled, we took a cab to the Modern City, we"re staying the old city, to Taxim square which is this young hip area with all these modern stores, restaurants, bars. It was a lot of fun. We we walked around, explored, tried to get sucked into buyong things and goign to all these restaraurnts by annoying turkish men. We finally found a restaurant for dinner where no one bothered us and screamed at us on the street to go to. It was a huge turkish restaurant with long tables and big chandelliers. They took such good care of us there and loved us. They make this bread in every restaurant- its like pita but thinner and they make it home made in the front. So they kept making us huge ones for the 5 of us and they kept bringing over salads and dips and french fries. It was so good. I ordered chicke kebabs. Everyone else is kosher so they ordered vegetable things. The meat kind of sceved me out because they sell it in show cases on the streets. I don't know if ill be ordering it again. They loved us. Kepyt bringing us turkish tea and all this stuff. Then we walked around some more. They LOVE lamb here- it hangs everywhere and they also do a 11:17:09 PM of fish- its in show cases all over the strips. These gross men scream and shout to you and try and get you to go to their restauarants and shops its so annoying. We found a bakery and split this turkish dessert, it was soo sweet I didn't like it. Then we took a cab back to the hotel where the turkish bath people had a van waiting for us to take us to theturkish bath place. Our hotel has a turkish bath in it, they are all over the place, but we decided to do the one that they recommended- the oldest one in istanbul that's known. So we went there at 830. When we got there they brought us into a little grass hut, which they call a locker. They had plaid bikini tops, plaid shorts, and wooden heal shoes for us to change into. One size fits all. So we changed. Then we walked through a bunch of rooms and ended up in this hot hot hot steaning hot room with al these hot rocks and stonew sinks. It was a giant room and in the 4 corners were the rooms where the men bathe you. So we sat in this room fot like 45 minutes and you basically sweat to death-- everything is burning hot and your just dripping. Then they called us ans we aplit up into rooms where we were all assigned a guy to bathe us. Mine had no teeth and they are all sweating nd gross. They bathe you, pour all these bubbles on you, scrub you and massage you. Its great. Kind of awkward because your basically nakad but soooo cool. And they keep pouring water on you because your sweating. That takes like 20 minutes. Then they wrap you up in towels and you sit in the cold room for like a half hour and regain back your strenghth and drinl water. Then you change and they pour rose water on your face. It was really reallly coool. The rooms were these giant caves with all these old paintings. Its the same turkish baths they used like a illion yers ago. It was really cool and our skin feltt sooooo softtttt. We were soooo tired then and out of energyy so we passed out when we got back