What time are we going to Asia?

We had breakfast and decided to go to the Suleyman the Magnificent Mosque. Rick Steve’s recommended that we see it, so we started the hike up the hill. Suleyman the Magnificent was one of the great sultans of Istanbul, and the mosque was obviously built in his honor. The mosque holds the remains of Suleyman and his wife Roxelana who was probably my favorite person from that time period. After Suleyman died, his heirs were pretty incompetent, so she started the “reign of the ladies” where the women were pretty much doing everything except for leading the army into war. My girl! It was quite the walk, and we were all sweating to death. We had to walk through a local area which didn’t really help, but this nice man led us to the mosque which was really great of him. I don’t think we would have made it there without him. We finally got there, and Megan and I had to pee really bad. So, we paid 1 lira, and we had the choice between a squatting bathroom and a toilet. Quite the choice, but we both went for the actual toilet.

The mosque was really cool, but there was one thing I really didn’t like about it. There was a woman’s section way in the back of the mosque. How annoying is that? I took a picture with the sign, but it annoyed the hell out of me. I will never understand a culture where woman are looked as lesser than men. I mean, I know some people in the U.S. still feel that way, but it isn’t posted in plain sight.

When we were walking into the mosque, there was a guy trying to sell stuff outside, and he was trying to guess where we were from. He guessed that I was from Holland, and he was the third person who has said that to me while we were here. I guess I am not the stereotypical American. He said I was to strong of a woman to be an American which I guess is a compliment. The stereotypical American is sorority girl which I really am not at all.

We walked back to the ship, grabbed our computers, and headed to Asia. Since it was our last day in Istanbul, we started the day in Europe, had lunch in Asia, and were headed to Africa by the end of the day. How cool is that? The reason we could have lunch in Asia is because the city of Istanbul is separated by the Bosporus Strait. So, we were allowed to go over to Asia. Pretty cool huh? We took a ferry over, and it was a real struggle trying to figure out how to buy a ticket. Luckily, a local helped us again. People are pretty nice here except for the ones that “hate” Americans. We went to this really nice restaurant in Asia, but there was no one there because it was Ramadan. They had internet too, so we literally had the whole place to ourselves. It was really nice. Our waiter was super nice too, and since we sat there for a good four hours, he brought us two free teas. What a nice guy! We headed back to the ship after that which ended our time in Istanbul. I really had a great time here because it was so different from any other place I have ever been. Yah, I got stared at a lot, but it was nice to get outside my comfort zone and learn something new!