Istanbul (Day 4) ... Jan 31, 2009

Saturday was our last chance to actually go and make our purchases at the Grand Bazaar, so we headed there Saturday morning. We took the long way around and stopped off first at the Suleymaniye Mosque, the second largest mosque in the city. Completed in 1557 this was conceived by Sultan Suleiman I (Suleiman the Magnificent) to basically honor himself. He is buried along with his "favorite" wife, Roxelana in a Mausoleum on the site. The bad news is that the mausoleum was closed and most of the interior of the mosque is being remodeled. We did however go inside and explore what we could, but it wasn't much. We had to remove our shoes, as is custom, and this time Heather and Whitney had to put on a head covering (like when we visited the mosque in Sarajevo, Bosnia last Summer).
We left the mosque and made our way to the bazaar. We first stopped for some hot chocolate and juice at one of the cafes in the Bazaar. We finally let one of the merchants entice us to enter his carpet shop. We were not convinced in the first shop, but the second is where we found the carpet that we ultimately purchased. After a bit of negotiation (admittedly, not enough, considering what I would learn by the end of the day at the Bazaar!) we settled on a price and he bundled up the carpet into a small enough package, we were able to fit it under the stroller. We wandered through the shops during which Whitney found a purse and a wallet, Heather found some embroidered pillow case covers, and we bought the girls some "Jasmine" type dress ups (which they now don't like because they are too "scratchy"). I learned that you have to take Phoebe Buffay's approach to negotiating. "I'll give you ONE DOLLAR for that!". That's the starting point, otherwise you pay too much (OK, not quite that bad, but still…) But we had a good time wandering the many streets of the market (which afterward we found out we missed a whole section of the copper!)
We went back to the hotel to swim for the last time, got the girls ready for bed, put Ryan to bed, and then Heather and I left Whitney with the kids while we went to dinner at the Four Seasons alone. It was nice to head out by ourselves for a few hours and dinner was great and Whitney did great with the girls.