Scenes from Sultanahmet

The day before Kelly and I took an overnight bus to Cappadocia (details about the bus and Turkish truck stops in a later posting) we spent the day in Sultanahmet for the end of the Ramazan festival. Ramazan (Ramadan) ends in a three day bayram (holiday), much like Christmas.

Instead of hitting up the tourist sites we decided to head in lesser known directions. Because of our off the beaten path wanderings we came across some interesting scenes. The first of which is this fortune telling rabbit. For a lira you can this rabbit picks out a fortune (entirely in Turkish) from the board. Ours had something to do with happiness and friends... those were the only words we knew.

We walked for a few minutes out of the touristy area and ran across these kids playing in the street. They loved having their picture taken.

The picture on below is of a lady making chocolate gözleme in the Ramazan market. Similar to crepes, gözleme can be filled with lots of stuff, but who would want anything other than chocolate. On a sidenote, one of the best things about this country is that they love chocolate spread. Nutella is so popular that they have off-brands. Most grocery stores (even the tiny local ones) have a whole aisle of nutella-esque products.


After our foray into the side streets of Sultanahmet, we decided to do some chessy tourist stuff. This included getting our picture taken dressed as Sultans and Sultanas. Within three seconds of stepping into the stand the photographer was all over me. He had decided that I was his "wife" and that I would have to be The Sultana. Much to her surprise and dismay, Cristi found herself in a ratty beard and Kelly was dressed in the "handmaiden's" costume. After having the photo taken, we couldn't get rid of these guys (Turkish men are persistant) and Kelly took this fantastic photo of me and my Sultan walking off into the sunset together.