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Well, so far we've been having a great time in Istanbul. People are much friendlier than in Greece, and the sights are incredible.
I guess there's not a whole lot to say. So far we've visited the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya (Church of Divine Wisdom), which are both really spectacular, in their own way. The Blue Mosque is incredibly beautiful. The Aya Sofya seems a little dingy, but it's incredible to think that the building is 1500 years old and would have been quite unlike any of its contemporaries. It's under restoration, so part of the interior is blocked off by scaffolding.
The most frustrating thing that's happened here was yesterday afternoon, when, for no apparent reason, water throughout a sizable chunk of the city centre stopped running. Our hotel was included in the outage, which lasted from around noon until sometime after we'd gone to bed around midnight. It lead to the new experience of using bottled water to flush a toilet, which was necessary to keep our bathroom usable. Luckily the store across the street did have giant 10L jugs for sale which did the trick. We were happy to wake up this morning and find the water running again, since we both definitely needed showers. It's not all that hot here - high twenties - but it's very sticky.
So that's about it. We had big plans for today, but unfortunately my breakfast this morning must have had peanuts or something in it, so I'm not feeling so great, and we haven't gotten anything done yet. More later.
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