Istanbul, Part Two

September 11th: The second day in Istanbul was more/less uneventful, unless, of course, you include the tour of the Royal Harem. But, let's rewind a bit - breakfast was almost identical to the day before, with the view being lovelier than yesterday. Tucker, Mom and I then traveled over to the Palace (we beat the crowd to it this time!), where we walked through both the weapons room and the Harem. Apparently my lessons about the women in a harem were completely off the wall! From what I can remember, a Harem was, to put it bluntly, filled with skanky, trashy women. Of course, I was corrected by Mom (though I'm still having my doubts). These women were supposed to be the smartest, most-gifted, cleverest and all-around best females in their villages.

Me Not Being A Harem Woman

Just think of Ruth from the Bible - she wasn't dirty, now was she? Anyway, the Harem was awesome and I feel like my perspective has changed slightly with regard to the people living there. Did you know, for instance, that the only men allowed to live with the women were the local eunuchs? I bet they regretted their decision to become eunuchs if they knew they'd be living in the same quarters as the best women in the world. Mom joked that I would have been one of them, but, in my opinion, living with a bunch of women would do me in.
Our next stop was to the Royal Treasury - apparently, Turkey was on friendly terms with a good number of countries (Pakistan, Iran, Russia, to name a few). India had made peace offerings with them (diamonds, I believe) for example. Turquoise littered the museum's glass cases. Also, there was another part to the Treasury (and, boy, was it a treasure!). They had collected rare artifacts over the years of famous prophets - Moses' staff, pieces of Mohammad's beard (and his tooth, funny enough). One guy in the crowd tried to take a picture of the staff and, if the security hadn't taken him out, I would have. How dare he ruin such an important artifact that, once it disappears, won't be appreciated by future generations?! Calming down...there was also an exhibit on the history of the Qua'ran (and the Kaaba). A Muslim (priest?) was reading/singing ballads from the Qua'ran throughout the exhibit. Even though I viewed it as disrespectful, I did end up letting my curiosity get the best of me and I filmed, say, 30-45 seconds of his performance. My bad?...Eh, he'll be famous one day from my footage.
After visiting the palace, we left 1) for food and 2) for a bathroom (which is surprisingly hard to find in a city). Pizza and pasta is fairly inexpensive here, so we decided to take it. It's better than nothing, am I right? For some reason or another, we (we meaning I) always end up attracting cats...Tucker would probably accuse me of either simply being a cat pheromone or carrying catnip around with me. In all honesty, he's probably right 3/4 of the time. Hey, at least I admitted it.
For what I can remember (because it was such a long day), we went back to the room for an hour or two, then we went back out to see the Whirling Dervishes. They were amazing (though, from what I observed, the "top Dervish", head chief if you will, forgot his black overcoat that night by accident). Oops!

Whirling Dervishes

After the performance, Mom and I dropped Tucker off at the hotel and headed to the airport to pick up the OTHER three suitcases that we'd stashed for as long as possible without having to deal with them two weeks prior to this date. Mom and I headed out there on the tram, which allowed me to learn more about the Turkish transportation system. The guy who was giving out the tokens for the tram, however, tried to cheat us out of money - luckily, Mom caught him in the act. He figured that she couldn't do math - bad plan on his part! The trip was long and rather uneventful, though it was a slight problem getting back to the hotel. We ended up getting lost and having a couple of guys ask us if we, being the "weak women", needed help. Ummm...NO. One guy was actually quite persistent - he followed us all the way down the street asking if we needed assistance and I eventually had to tell him rather rudely that, no, we could manage perfectly well without him. Needless to say, he didn't take that news well. When we arrived at the hotel, the bellhop simply stared at us, giving us that "Did they seriously bring that with them" sort of look. He tried picking up ONE of the bags that we'd taken from the airport. WHOOOSH. He was bent over, looking at the ground. He looked back up and told us, "You are VERY strong!". That comment still makes me smile to this day. :)