A Call To Prayer

Nothing will awake you from a nap like a call to prayer from a nearby mosque on the first day of Ramadan. I have to admit that once I figured out what the noise was I thought it was pretty cool. The mosque around the corner from my place at home doesn't do the call to prayer so although we have a great representation of a major world religion in SLO, we don't get the full experience.

We arrived in Istanbul only 30 minutes late after a long but very smooth and surprisingly comfortable flight. Those Boeing 777 planes are designed for comfort. I had a middle seat and have nothing to complain about. The tour guide, whose name is Isa (Turkish for Jesus) promptly met us, got us the bus and proceeded to tell us that we can return home and tell our friends that Jesus gave us a tour of Turkey.

Since we were too early to check in to the hotel, Isa routed us to Taksim square. Taksim Square is a destination point for a lot of folks to eat, shop or just people watch. Lots of people to watch. No one knows exactly how many people are in Istanbul but estimates run from 15 million to 18 million. The area wasnt as busy as it normally would have been on a friday which was nice since all 25 people on board were travel weary. After exchanging money we went to a bookstore to purchase a travel guide. I completely forgot to pack ours. Oh well, money we didn't need to spend but it lead to a great purchase: Turkish children's books. We're committed to learning Turkish but we didn't have any books at home. I said to the young girl "Bizim Türkçe öğreniyoruz. Çocuğa kitaplar istiyorum ama kolay kitap ihtiyacımız var. Anladın?" Despite my butchering of her language she politely smiled, went over to a book shelf and dug out a Winnie the Pooh book. Perfect. Great place to start. The cool part of that story? I totally communicated a need for an easy to understand children's book and got what I asked for. Harika!

Time to wake Holly from her nap. Enjoy the view.