Turkish Delight on a Moonlit Night

It's been a busy time for adventures, and one of these was an excursion to Istanbul (or as the Greeks prefer it to be called: Constantinople), Turkey. Whitney, Claire, and I took this little journey on a very cold, windy,and rainy weekend, but we made the very best of your time there and had a fantastic weekend getaway. Truly, Istanbul is one of the most beautiful cities I've seen, and there is so much to do, see, and eat (my main priority, let's not kid ourselves) there. Definitely add it to your list, travelers.

Since it was ridiculously cold and wintry-mix-y outside, we used the weather as an excuse for some downtime for tea drinking and Turkish Delight-ing, a

nd since the Turks are famed for producing excellent apple tea, we were not hesitant to make this stop. Our post-lunch tea time brought us to a brightly colored building en route to the Egyptian Spice Market. It was a ridiculously charming place that was the cafe portion of a hotel. The food was out of this world, and the apple tea did not disappoint.

Our waiter was very friendly and helpful when we asked for map consultation. Since the place was not very crowded, he chatted with us for a long time, and during the course of one of these chats, he informed us that his hotel included a fine arts museum and that we should definitely check it out before we headed on our merry way. Frankly, we weren't in too much of a museum mood, so we politely said we would think about it all the meanwhile actively avoiding further conversation of it. Our efforts did nothing. This man must have brought up the fine arts museum another four times during our tea. He was insisting that it was really wonderful and that we should see it. We continued to resist.

Eventually, we needed to move on (so much to see!), so we paid our bill, thanked the hotel man, and declared that we were leaving. Insistent as ever, h

e and another gentleman stop us in our tracks, and says, "This is my nephew. He will show you around the fine arts museum." And with that, we were escorted up a stairwell. Apparently there was really no option here.

We passed through a very nice garden terrace, and then the nephew guided us into the fine arts museum. Which was one giant room. Filled with pillows. And old clothes. And shoes. And baby toys. And two girls doing math homework. And an old man nestled in on a pile of colorful cushions. The "fine arts museum" could not have been anything other than this man's attic. Everyone in the room seemed really confused to have us the

re. The man on the pillows said, "Why do you want to see a sick, old, Turkish man?" We awkwardly tried to explain that we didn't but we are happy to meet him and how is he feeling... There was nothing to see, really, so we kind of took a turn around the room while oohing and aahing to humor the nephew since we were apparently supposed to be really interested in whatever was going on th

ere.

We mused about the "museum" for a good long time. We have gone over the situation over and over again, and we cannot figure out why this man wanted us to see his attic and with so much urgency. No conclusion has yet been reached. We took a picture of the self-proclaimed sick, old Turkish man (who, by the way, got his socks changed by his nursemaid while we were in there) since he se

emed to be the main attraction. Some things are just better off remaining unexplained.

Left: The "Fine Arts Museum"

Right: "sick, old, Turkish man"