Greetings from the Good Ship Cristal

Greetings from the Good Ship Cristal
We are now somewhere between Istanbul and Mykonos.  It is Monday morning.  A brief re-cap of our previous days adventures in tourist-land.
Saturday a.m. – we had a Turkish breakfast at a streetside café in Istanbul and still cannot get over all the traffic, the many taksi’s and buses loaded with people (not tourists – many buses appeared to carry men only – hmmm).  We knew we had to be back at the hotel by 14:00 hrs to take the shuttle to the terminal for boarding so Beverly and I headed off to the Grand Bizarre and Mary and Judy to the Spice Farm.  Beverly and I decided to walk to our destination while the other two elected to try the tram.
As I mentioned earlier,  there are mosques literally on every corner.  We pssed four on our way.  We made it to the Grand Bizarre and believe me, it was bizarre!  You enter through a large stone gateway and get the impression you are going underground.  If you can picture a street packed with shops on both sides you are almost there.  Now picture this street to be all gold, silver and jewelry shops for what seems like at least .50 mi.  While walking down this street you find that there are cross streets and parallel streets that intersect and each sells a different commodity – leather goods, silk, cashmere, rugs (oh rugs and rugs and rugs) etc. etc.  And the place was packed!  No, we did not buy anything.
We met up with the other contingency at 1:30 and got our shuttle at 2:00.  We were dropped off at Terminal 1 (should have been Terminal 3).  Thereafter began our tip into tourist purgatory.  It is not worth recanting now.  Best told over a good glass of cabernet (many), scotch, bourbon or your choice of inebriants.
Eventually (thanks to some very kind individuals) we made it to where we were supposed to be and boarded.  We are on the 4th level and have a room with a ocean view (the room has some space – not like sleeping in a closet) but no balcony.  We had a nice dinner on board (the ship was in port over night).  The next day (Sunday) was, in my opinion, everything that I expected from Istanbul.  We elected to take the tram to Hagia Sophia (the church of the Holy Wisdom) and, sorry ladies, it was not named for a woman.  As a matter of fact it was originally built in the 6th century as a Christian church and converted to a mosque in the 15th century.  The tall, slim minarets (originally used to call people to prayer were added AFTER converted to a mosque.  We were waiting in line (like all others) when we started talking to a couple in front of us and they had just been approached by a nice young man saying he would get us in ahead of all others and give a guided tour for 30 TL each total (entrance fee 20 TL, guide 10 TL).  This turned out to be the bargain of the day!  We have many photos and a ton of history to relate to you about this.  Remind us to tell you about the two important ladies in Islam and the two different windows (one facing toward Jerusalem and one facing toward Mecca).  This was spectacular.
Oh – I forgot something.  On the way we walked through what seemed like an open art fair.  Low and behold we came across a classic car show with all kinds of American classic cars being shown.  Amazing.
After this, we headed over to The Basilica Cistern.  This enormous underground cistern was built by the Byzantine Emperor during his reign (527-565).  This was used as the main water supply for many years.  I is 140 m long, and 70 m wide, there are 336 columns with a height of 9 m.  Of course, the cistern is most famous for the two Medusa heads that are used for the base of two of the columns.  One head is facing down and th other sideways.  Myth has it that these are from the Roman period and were “borrowed”and taken to the cistern during construction (pictures to follow).  This, along with the Hagia Sophia are definitely “must sees” if you visit Istanbul.