Day 2

Well today has proven to be just as adventurous as yesterday. I spend the majority of my day being completely lost. (Or as I more commonly call it... temporarily displaced...) Amanda and I spent the day trying to find the Hagia Sofia (pronounced Eye-uh SEW fee uh) We looked for it for about 2 hours which was extremely frustrating because we could literally see the building from the street. Most of the cities that we have been in so far have been designed by the Romans. They make very straight and very organized streets. I never appreciated the Romans as much as I do now. The streets in Istanbul are insanely confusing. Everything is uphill and on angles leading north then west then east then everywhere else! It is almost impossible to "go straight up the hill" to get to really cool buildings unless you can fly. Anyways... after about 2 hours of searching, we finally get to this monument only to find that it is not the Hagia Sofia... it is another building that looks very similar to it. In hopelessness Amanda and I stumbled upon this little cafe where we enjoyed some Turkish coffee and pastries. This was enough to encourage us to keep going and find this building! (Oh and while we were eating we rescued a drowning bird from a bird bath... but that is a different story... We have a video of it though!) We wandered about 5 more miles to another part of the city and finally gave up and took a taxi to this building. The wandering was worth the wait. It reminded me of the movie Aladdin. We saw the Saltan's tombs and a lot of other neat stuff. When it came time to leave, we decided to just head towards the water because obviously... our ship is on the water. We got to the water and our ship was no where in sight. In fact, all of the places that we could see were things that we recognized as we were sailing into our port not things that are around our port. We decided to walk into a store and ask someone where we are on a map. He showed us... we were on the furthest side of the outlet of land on the European side of Turkey. We needed to go to the clear opposite side of land, cross the bridge and get to the Asiatic side. Of course you can leave it to me that when I get lost, I not only get the wrong street... I get the wrong CONTINENT! Nonetheless, we made our way back to the ship on foot and arrived about 2 hours later. It was a great way to see the city, but I am simply exhausted and ready to pass out. Tonight Amanda and I are staying on the Asiatic side of Turkey and we are going to climb a random hill to watch the sunset. We're hoping for a good one! I really do like Turkey... I just need a better map! I would also like to point out that when you are in a foreign country and you are looking for a bathroom... it is extremely helpful to know what the word bathroom looks like in written language. One day you might find yourself standing in front of 3 doors. The first door you might choose might be filled with 20 men on their smoking break. The second door you might choose might be a storage closet for a bakery and the third door might be your bathroom. haha. THEN it is extremely helpful to know if you are a bac or a bacan... but that is a different story. haha.