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Day 9 - Marriage proposals in Istanbul
We had an action packed sight seeing day planned to see some of the main attractions. We decided on three main attractions and didn't really care too much for the rest. The three we wanted to see were: the blue mosque, the spice market and the grand bazaar.
Within two seconds of stepping out of the door Ooti had Turkish men proposing to her on the street. Luckily when you ignore them they just go away. We headed to the blue mosque first and had our head scarves ready. Ooti was so excited to wear hers and as soon as she put it on she looked very Turkish. Lots of random turkish people said if we had them as a guide we could skip the queue but the queue really wasn't that long and was moving fast anyway. Ooti and I had never been into a mosque before so it was interesting. We had to take our shoes off and the men going into the prayer room had washing stations to wash their feet. The mosque itself was beautiful a lot of work must have gone into it. After the mosque we headed to the spice market where we had some yummy baklava - apparently the kind we had was called Turkish Viagra! We saw all the cheeses, spices and lantern shops. Surprisingly the market didn't seem that busy and the shop owners weren't too pushy. Their usual line was let me help you spend your money. We thought after the spice market the grand bazaar would be similar and we weren't going to go. Luckily we did! It was the best market we have ever been too! They had everything there: handbags, jewellery, shoes and scarves. It was the classiest and best quality market we have seen. No one harasses you either and again there were hardly any tourists there. I bought a scarf, but nothing else as we are going to save ourselves for when we get back to Istanbul on our last day in Turkey as you know both Jayne and I are over our 15kg weight limit. Before we left the bazaar we stopped for some dirty street kebabs - they were actually delicious though. We then walked home from the grand bazaar and Jayne got declarations of love all the way home. Some random old guy that wasn't even trying to sell anything and was pushing a big trolley said to Jayne "welcome to turkey have a great time" it was very cute as he obviously didn't know much English. Ooti was excited as someone told her she looked Turkish and everyone thought I was French or Italian. While I didn't get declarations of love or marriage proposals my biggest compliment of the day was when one guy asked if Ooti and I were sisters and we said yes and he said let me guess who is older and he pointed to Ooti! She was so mad it was funny!
We got home early afternoon so we managed to fit in some good reading time. Jayne didn't want to come to the terrace and decided to stay in the room. On our way to the terrace the guy at the hotel front desk asked where "missy" was and I said she was tired and in the room. Ooti thought we should message
Jayne to let her know the hotel man was asking about her and not to let anyone into the room that wasn't us. Apparently not long after some dude with a key tried to get into our room to take some "luggage"down to the reception. Freaky!
Also Vanessa wanted me to post this but it makes me look like an idiot (terma style). She was saying a whole bunch of Turkish and asked me what she was saying - she said benim adim Vanessa and asked me what that meant and I said "thank you". Obviously she was saying my name is...
Off to Gallipoli tomorrow.
Later
Amanda
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