Good weather in Istanbul is quite "BAZAAR" indeed.

 Seeing a blue sky has jumpstarted the past two days for our motley crew of eager explorers... which is now pretty much in european majority and we don't hate it. Yesterday we hit up Taksim and entered some glorious, new, coffee shops. They were called "Starbucks"...never heard of it before... but for some reason their smallest size was a tall. 

We then took the tram to the Grand Bazaar to do some knickknack shopping with full intentions of negotiating prices to at least half price like that of Canal Street shopping in NYC. I decided to take 10TL out of my pocket as the highest price that I would pay for a nifty genie lamp and I succeeded in making the buy from an original 20TL price. SCORE!  

 Traveling as a big group through the maze-like configuration of the bazaar was a struggle to say the least but luckily we all made it out alive! #ya. The supposed-to-be simple way home became the hick-up of our day. On our way home to Hisarustu, we hopped on the wrong bus and ended up an hour north of our campus next to the fishiest of fish markets. Mmmmhmmm... nothing like nice rotten sardines to ruin my appetite for the next 24 hrs. After figuring out our mistake, we finally leapt on to the correct bus and Iris had the pleasure of sitting next to this tired woman on the bus (see pic to the right). She was a good sport about it though! and through much deliberation, did not disturb the woman napping next to her. Later on in the night, we attended a very american beer bong tournament where nearly every american lost...I am very embarrassed by this and am still getting over the loss as I write this sentence. Although, Durant and I lost to very respectable opponents from Australia and Greece. Post-pong our trusty roommate Selçuk brought us to a greasy spoon restaurant for some late night munchy food. This nice meal turned into a Rosetta Stone Turkish lesson with phrases such as "I am drunk" and "What is the wifi password?" Two sentences with entirely new levels of importance once you are abroad. 



Today I was so blessed that my roommates were willing to come to the not-so-fun international police station with me to obtain a necessary document for my residence permit. I quickly obtained what I was in search of then suddenly we were graced with the presence of an Iggy Azalea lookalike. So...therefore.. If it wasn't for my incompetency in saving necessary documents, we would not have seen the Iggy impersonator decked out in a velvet jumpsuit. (baby blue for the win)

Since we were in the neighborhood (casual), we decided to hit up the Sultanahmet neighborhood, which is home to the highly acclaimed Blue Mosque (inside is pictured above), and Hagia Sophia Mosque (outside is pictured below). Both mosques are incredible and even in the Blue Mosque we were given the pleasure of carrying our shoes in thin plastic bags....Therefore, the entire inside smelled like stinky feet, but that was in the back of the mind while we took in the amazing mosaics and 17th century stain-glass windows. 

We did not go into the Hagia Sophia today just so we could save that sight for another time! We were advised to dedicate 5-7 hours to the massive mosque. Truly amazing that something so beautiful was constructed in year 537 ad. 

After our sight seeing enriched afternoon, we decided to make some grub with our new friends Chris and Lorenzo, who are both on exchange here as well. It always seems like I am blogging about meeting people over food..oh well...get over it. After opening one bottle of wine... we decided to open another... and one more... to accompany our watching of Quentin Tarentino's infamous Kill Bill. Crazy how you can be attending a building so foreign to you one minute and then just hours later, watching a movie that makes you feel like you are at home (I'm not saying that Kill Bill is what I think about on the daily.. but you get my drift..). Tomorrow we embark on our 12 hour bus ride journey to Cappadocia for the weekend!!!!! We are so excited and you will see some super crazy blog pics once we get back to civilization. To keep you entertained for the time being, here is a picture of the lovely Karolina taking a little wine induced nap during a Kill Bill murder scene. Our little angel. Peace love apple sauce -ko