So, last Saturday Michelle and Alyssa and I went to Topkapı Palace in Sultanahmet.  It was a little expensive with no student discount (we find that as Boğaziçi students we usually get one) D: But it was pretty cool.  Massive place.  

Anyway, this is the .. well the yard  I guess, or a wall or whatever.  Anyway, its outside of the place.
The main gates.
Sorry guys, infinitely more thrilling and attractive than the Greek... mm. I tried to restrain myself  though, as far as.. not taking 10 million pictures just of the old slabs of beautiful letters ><

This is the dessert kitchen! Yesss, my favorite place.  These pots were HUGE, the photo doesnt really do it justice.  I could have fit in them... scary.  In any case, I hope my kitchen looks like this someday.

Yeah, dont remember what this was the entrance to.  A really fancy room, actually the fancy room seen below.

Swords! I loved the weapons part actually.  Mostly Persian and Egyptian swords apparently.  Cant remember which these were.  Also lots of armor, axes, halberds, etc etc.. Ooh and..

These Turkish guns were more like works of art than anything.. pictures do no justice, yet again.  They were really quite beautiful, and really really big, taller than me (yes, thats big for a gun).  They had pistols too though.

Some part of the palace.. uhn, yeah.  The courtyard was massive and pretty too :) First court actually, where  you first enter you're in this courtyard.

Nice fountain :) Think this was in the second or third court, third I think.

View of İstanbul from the Palace cafe actually.  If you havent noticed (which you may not have since I take way more pictures of it then I post here, ya know) .. I like views of İstanbul, yes, İstanbul should be viewed lots and lots because its definitely awesomely beautiful.  Plus I love boats alot.. though they are covered by trees here.  Actually there is an amazing amount of boat traffic on the Bosphorus, how lovely.

Tiles and shell-inlayed doors abound in Topkapı Sarayı.. tiles.... tiles..... Tiles!......

TILES! and incredible windows.. and

... highly detailed wall paintings..

Beautiful domes...

and Tiles! and gorgeous windows.  Ok, its getting repetitive, lets move on..

This is actually in the harem section, which is an extra 15 YTL to get to DDD: but everything we've read tells us its worth it so.. here we are.  The court of the favorites, you see.

Uhh, tiles? and lovely detail work on the ceiling.  Any of you who know my artistic style.. can you imagine me trying to make something like this? I'd die... Tiles!

Another view of the yard thing.. after we left.

After Topkapı Sarayı we ate quick, at some Karadeniz-ish place (in reality I wouldnt know, never been to Karadeniz), the one with the waitor/customer kitten dispute of my last post.  We decided to go to the Underground/Basilica Cistern, uh, they call it Yerebatan or something in Turkish, but I dont know how to spell it..  Michelle assured us that it was incredible, and really cool, which is appealing in an İstanbul summer.  She also said you can have çay in there :D Apparently its her favorite place in İstanbul. Neyse, pictures I suppose.

Ohh its so lovely, kinda eerie, quite damp, dark, cool, BIG

Fish abound here, which I love, Alyssa not so much :(  Actually some are really really large, I wonder what kind they are too.  Some of the bigger ones had whiskers and I saw a few looking more like koi :P I wonder if someone dumped those in later.  Anyway, its awesome because apparently everyone had forgotten this thing existed for so long, but it was rediscovered when people started asking why you could catch fish from a hole in your floor in some areas.  That's the story anyway, and the explanation for why there were randomly holes in the ceiling.

So there was this one really strange pillar, most of them were just plain, like in the first picture. I think its a different kind of rock too.. There is also these things here:

Random head, no one knows where it comes from, who brought it here, when, why, how.. and why they had left it on its side.  I guess its not from here originally though.  Its cool, I kinda like the mystery of it all.  

Oh yeah, there were actually two, just at the bottom of some pillars, in the back corner of the cistern. One sideways, one upside down.. hmm.  So interesting.  So there is a place to sit and eat here.. we just had çay.  It was cool and relaxing Well the place was cool, the çay was hot, as it should be.

Sunday we went to an old synagogue that is now a museum.. and to see the Dervishes.  That was nice.  This week we're just busy, trying to study, get homework done, get everything we wanted to do before we leave done.  I need to be shopping for real..  Monday is the last day of class already. Then tests and I'll be leaving so soon, the 14th already.  It's coming so fast, the time just flew by it seems.  Anyway, I should be done? I dont know why I added a question mark there, but it makes sense I think :P