Day 2: Turkish Driving School and Sea Bass

Day 2 Sunday 03-04-07
2:30 a.m. EST
It's 9:30 a.m. here, and after a morning breakfast at our hotel, Hotel Troya, we depart in our buses towards the other side of the city of Istanbul. The weather is rainy and chilly, the polar opposite of the spring break weather we were hoping for. Most of us didn't adequately prepare with a jacket or umbrella, so huddling together to use body heat seemed to be our saving grace. Our first stop was the Hagia Sophia museum, one of many mosques in the city. The interior was breathtaking with high, round ceilings and amazing tiling and stained-glass windows. On one end of the mosque was a mihrab, to serve as a reminder of the direction of Mecca. As we were upstairs, a group of school children and their teacher stopped to speak with us. They were all Turkish and seemed completely ecstatic to be meeting and speaking with Americans. Some of them were anxious to share with us their aspirations of becoming an engineer, a teacher and a doctor. After posing for a few photos and even exchanging e-mails, we proceeded to our next stop.

We went just right across the street to the Sultanahmet Camii mosque, or The Blue Mosque as it is referred to in Western culture. We each had to enter with our shoes off when we walked into the huge room of the mosque. We weren't in there for too long before discovering we'd get the honor of witnessing the call to prayer, one out of five times a day. The girls in our group had to wear head coverings while we watched, since it was the custom. When it was over, we chatted with a few gentlemen and exchanged e-mails before splitting up into five taxis back to the hotel. On a side note, the only traffic laws that Turkish drivers obey are stop lights. In our transportation travels around this city the few days we've been here, we've had a brush with death 412 times. Of course I'm not actually serious, but I do think the Turkish government could save money … and paint … by not putting dotted lines on the roads. I don't think the dotted line lesson was taught in Turkish Driving School.



1:15 p.m.
After an afternoon of napping, shopping, watching American Idol in Turkish subtitles and getting Burger King and ice cream, we head for dinner around 8:15 p.m. to a seafood restaurant. Some of us took the safer route and had chicken kebobs and fries, while the majority ate grilled sea bass. The sea bass was still complete with fins, scales, bones and the head, of which we had fun playing with and making fish faces. You're never too old to make a fish face. Dinner was delicious, and we walked back to the hotel for group time of sharing about our day … and more sleep.