Day 12 - The Aya Sofya Fake Out

We wake early, eat a banana and have some Nescafe (it's growing on me at this point, though it's still a game of trickery that my mind doesn't even pretend to fall for anymore) and head down to the water to ferry over to Eminonu. Today is THE day. The whole reason I've always dreamed of visiting Istanbul. We are going to see the Aya Sofya. 

As we get closer to the Aya Sofya we realize we should eat lunch now, since we know we will probably take hours inside the basilica/mosque/museum. We stop at a little eatery that seems cute and empty so we can eat quickly and in peace. The owner is a sweet old man who welcomes us and continues his conversation with a friend. We order some kind of bread/pastry dough & cheese thing which is probably horrible for you, but it is yummy. (My rule when traveling: eat whatever you want. No reason to hold back. You will miss out on things that you will never get a chance to taste again. And that is a shame. A sin. At least for me, because I LOVE food and don't understand people who don't.)

While we eat, Christine gets a text message from Hande that there are protests being held outside the Aya Sofya and recommending that we don't visit it today. [Brief historical lesson: the Aya Sofya was originally built as a basilica in 360AD. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who subsequently ordered the building to be converted into a mosque.  It remained a mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public for four years and was re-opened in 1935 as a museum. Today it is still a museum.] So the protestors, we learn later from Hande, are Muslims who wish for the Aya Sofya to return to a functioning mosque. So we walk toward Aya Sofya, just to check it out and agree that today is sadly not the day for the Aya Sofya. Instead, we walk over to the Blue Mosque, which is still an actively used mosque, but that allows non-muslim visitors inside. But, it was way over-crowded so we decide to do that another day also. 

Masses of people outside the Aya Sofya

Masses of people at the Blue Mosque

We are supposed to be meeting Arda at his gallery in Taksim later this evening so we decide to just go ahead and make our way over there since Taksim was on our list of things to see anyways. Little did we know how complicated it was to actually get to Taksim. We catch a metro over to that area and decide to walk up to Taksim Square. Key word up. We make our usual afternoon stop in a cafe for some coffee and opt for some strawberries and chocolate fondue. Then we march on up towards Taksim Square, with no certainty of how to actually get there. This part of Istanbul is unbelievably hilly. Think San Francisco. But it was a beautiful hike.

When we finally reach Taksim Square, we are rewarded with......masses of people. I mean come. On. We walk down the street of shops and restaurants for about an hour. By dinner time we are exhausted and starving. We stop in Simit Saray, which is a "fast food" Panera-type chain restaurant there and we sit and eat. And enjoy a 10 cent soft-serve cone. 

After texting back and forth with Hande and Arda about meeting up, we decide we are too exhausted and to make our way back to the apartment. We are certain there is a ferry that goes from Taksim to Kadikoy, so we walk down to the water and along the water searching for said ferry. Eventually we find it, and by the time we get to Kadikoy it is raining and we are miserable. Tired and not wanting to walk in the cold rain for 20 minutes uphill to Moda. So we catch a cab. 

Best cab ride ever. The driver spoke no English really and seemed insistent on playing every song on his cd of American music (including Hotel California). Every time we'd get into a song, he'd change it. It was hysterical and a good way to end the day on a positive note. We crash hard. Tomorrow is Aya Sofia. For real this time :)