More pics of Turkey...

Well...the week continues.  I was at our Bible study at the church last night, and afterwards we all prayed together.  One of the guys prayed for us here at the house, and this morning it feels like things are improving.  There are still a few things that need to be dealt with, but I think that's starting to happen.  It seems some attitudes are better today anyhow.

A couple of people have been asking if I'm going to post anymore pictures from my trip to Turkey...so I figured I would.  I'll kind of scatter them here and there over the next few weeks.  These pictures are from Liz and my first night in Istanbul and then a few from the next couple of days...

A mosque around the corner from our hotel...

Guys washing their feet and hands before going in to pray...

At sunset...

The Istanbul skyline...

There were lots of guys fishing off the bridge we were on. 

I was happy with this picture...it kind of caught the moment...

Another mosque...they're pretty much everywhere...

So...at this point there's a bit of a funny story to share.  Liz and I decided to try and walk to a famous mosque called the Blue Mosque to see it at night.  Of course we had no real idea how to do that...ie. where it was.  Liz had a vague idea, and on that firm foundation, we headed off in the general direction.  And of course it was up the hill from where we were, so we started huffin' and puffin' it up the street.  Suddenly we looked around, and realized that we were no longer in what one would exactly call a safe, touristy area.  The atmosphere had gotten a little dicey. 

Now granted, in the light of day, the area probably wasn't all that bad.  But in the darkness of night?  It felt like there were bad people around every corner.  I did my normal "I live in a third world country where people want to do bad things to gringos" thing and started watching every person within 100 metres to see if anyone was looking at us funny.  And by the way, I define "funny" as even a cursory glance in our direction for more than three and a half seconds.  I was ready for anything...which mostly meant running away and hoping Liz could keep up. 

It's funny how your perspective changes.  All the nice, friendly people from an hour ago?  No where to be seen.  Now they were all potential threats to be wary of.  In my head I knew the odd person we saw wasn't likely to do damage to us...but the rest of me wasn't so sure.  On a dark, twisty street in the middle of nowhere, no part of you wants to listen to the rational part of your brain.

In the end, after our big hike up the mountainous (more or less) streets of Istanbul, we never did find the Blue Mosque.  We were just happy to find our way home.  When we finally saw something we recognized, it was a good moment.  As it turned out, we were no where near the Blue Mosque.  So it was just as well we abandoned our quest.

Finally...a street we recognized...and with streetlights!

The street to our hotel.  Which, by the way, was in the

old part of the city and was still really cheap...

Walking around the next day...

The Blue Mosque by light of day...

A guy selling ice cream.  I don't really get the significance of

the outfit but all the ice cream guys had the same one...

The view up one of the hillsides...

On another of "Ken and Liz's adventure tours of Istanbul" we

walked through some cool neighbourhoods.  We won't

admit that we were lost again...at least this time it was

during the day.  And downhill...

A muslim lady returning home from shopping.  I shot

this picture from the hip, so it's not the best quality.  But

I thought it was interesting...

And finally...a guys selling fresh cucumber juice

out of a cart...

I'll be back soon with more pictures and stories...