Istanbul was Constantinople....

Istanbul is fantastic! We are staying in a little family run guesthouse in a very hip part of the city. In fact we can see Hagia Sophia from the rooftop. That mosque inspired me to study art history so it was cool to go there. Some funny things 1 Don't show any interest to a carpet salesman because they will NOT let you go and will put serious pressure on you to buy. We had a man named Hussein almost holding us hostage well not really hostage and we finally had to promise him we'd come back the next day and I mean shake on it and what not so that we could get out of there. It was hilarious. I would LOVE a carpet but and they are incredible but I just don't have 3000 extra dollars at the moment. Hussein didn't give rats hiney but working as a team we got out. We hadn't even been in the country an hour when we had that experience so we learned our lesson and know when to just walk away. Ahhh Hussein. 2 There are men on the streets with carts full of cucumbers that they peel and shake salt on and that seems to be the cool thing to get. Its just kind of funny seeing people wandering around munching on a cucumber. Again, cool Thats it for now. Time is up. Love CHRIS

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