Well if you can call getting home at 6am and sleeping till 11am "sleeping in" have breakfast with mom and Ilker...gotta admit glad to have met and made friends with a tour guide, and he's got a day off today...luckiest gal ever! He took us to the cistern which was in the movie "To Russia With Love" side note, adding this to the movies to see list...along with Gallipoli. There are coi swimming around. The columns were brought by the Romans, and were "left overs" so they're a bit of a hodgepodge. Some Ionic, some Hellenistic a few Corinthian. Though the tunnels are a labyrinth beneath the city, the majority of them were walled off. Why? because people are nuts, and felt they needed to swim in the area where the movie was made. There are 2 medusa heads used as pillar bases. One is sideways, the other upside down...which has left plenty of room for speculation, from the pillar was too tall (sideways) to medusa normally looks over a building to protect it and this was underground, so she needed to be upside down to do her job...in the end, no one really knows. After the cistern, mom and I head out to the spice market to pick up a few things (rose oil and saffron) then off to the baths! The one we visit is the oldest in Istanbul. (çemberlitas hamami, built in 1584) http://www.cemberlitashamami.com.tr/ It's segregated (men and women) and there are multiple options as far as services go, from self service, traditional to multiple add ons. We went with traditional plus a massage. Mine was pretty basic, mom on the other hand got a lady who scrubbed her footies, face, shoulders...she started before me and finished a full 5 minutes after. Happy birthday to her! Had a turkish tea and relaxed a bit before leaving, this a must do for the full experience of a bath...really feel the modern day spa was born of the baths of ancient times. Something that bemused me, the Turks stopped drinking coffee for the same reason Americans started, politics and money. The sultan decided too much money was going to the import of coffee, since the area was better suited to tea, Turkish tea was born! (Boston tea party, conversion to coffee) We were both pretty tired and have an early flight tomorrow, so grabbed a kebab and headed to bed. Tomorrow, Venice!
Quotes:
"God acts in history: that is, God provides ideas, methods, and experiences intended to bring comprehension to man, an understanding heart, a conscious life."- Jacob Needleman
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