My new favorite place to be is the Grand Bazaar.  It’s in the old part of town, so I’ve been riding with Onur halfway on his way to work and then taking the tram the rest of the way.  I can spend hours there and am pretty good with negotiating with the vendors.  In fact, I’ve made myself a lot of friends there by trying to speak the language.  It’s quite funny to see their initial reaction when a very American looking girl starts speaking Turkish.  But I successfully negotiated my way from an original price of 780 lira for some items down to 225 lira.  That might possibly be my best negotiation to date at the GB.

So I’ve got my set of friends at the bazaar now, so if anyone needs any carpets, porcelain, plates/bowls, copper goods, lamps, jewelry, wraps, pillow cases, throws or other home goods, just let me know!  I’m building up my network of good vendors there that give me what I think it the “real price” so that when you all come to visit, I can take you to my guys.

I didn’t do a good job taking pictures on these trips so far because I’m trying to look like a native instead of a tourist, but I’ll be going back next week again and will make it a mission to post pictures.  In the meantime, here is me in one of the lamp vendor’s shop and then a picture of all of the fishermen (hundreds of them) on the Galata Bridge, which connects the old city to the new city.