Greeting All,

Well today I decided to get us all really immersed into some quality Istanbul culture and took us all down to the Grand Bazaar.  I mean I sure thought I knew a thing or two about haggling from watching reality TV like Pawn Stars but the merchants down at the bazaar took haggling to a whole new level.  Between grabbing tourists attention by yelling in 12 different languages or writing frantically to do the conversions on some awesome merchandise to see if it’s the best deal around, there was never a dull moment.  And we definitely spent all day here because this place was huge!  There were over 5,500 merchants peddling their goods to anyone who would pay.  It was so much fun trying to find the best deal.  There were so many gorgeous carpets and tapestries everywhere, I mean I know I really felt far far away from Mall of America for sure.  There were 65 different allies to explore and each one had something different.  

exterior view

interior view

As far as food goes, there was certainly an abundance of places to choose from. We decided to go to a place called Julia’s Kitchen for breakfast. Then for lunch we wandered into the courtyard of the Ic Cebeci Hani and enjoyed some magically delicious kabobs and tea and took in some very energetic card games played by the locals.  For dinner, we dined at Kosk, which specializes in making some very authentic Turkish cuisine, Istanbul home-cooking at its best.  All in all throughout the day we managed to spend $212 USD on food and about $176 USD on goods we bough around the bazaar.  And since it was located only 3 km from our hostel, we decided to save some spending money and walk there and back.  So our grand total of money spent for the day was only $388 USD!!!!

Happy Travels,

Zach Mehlenbacher