istanbul

Was at Istanbul two weekends ago. I was really surprised at how modern Istanbul was. It was clean, orderly, and best of all, the people were friendly! Very few people hassled us, and even fewer people tried to cheat (of course, you have cabbies who would take money from you whenever possible).

My friend said: "well, there is no sense of adventure here at all."

Pretty cool place to go visit though. You can definitely see how history marked Constantinople as the place where Christianity met Islam. Some pretty cool sites though. I have never been inside of a mosque before. When I went to Saudi Arabia, I wasn't allowed in since I am not a Muslim. There are some pretty grand stuff over there. Best of all, you could go it. I do enjoy how liberal Islam is there.

That brings up another topic. Neither my friend nor I could figure out what the rule is on the female dress code is among Islamic women. Of course, there were the few classic all-black dresses. However, most Muslim women there dressed somewhere between colored skirts covered by a khaki trench coat and fashionable jeans with nice blouse and matching shoes (plus headscarf, of course). You might think it's not big deal to wear something that covers your entire body and then wrapping yourself in a tight trench coast. Just keep in mind that it was 38 degrees (around 110 in fehrenheit)!

Anyhow, it was a nice weekend and I have the pictures to prove it!