Day #2 — The Blue Mosque and rugs of every hue

CHICAGO! That's how the young guy greeted us on the sidewalk outside his family's rug shop. He recognized us from the night before, when we'd promised we'd come back. He and his cousin brought us hot sweet tea, sat us down on a comfortable couch, and proceeded to spend 40 minutes with us explaining the different kinds of rugs and kilim, teaching us how to identify quality. No obligation. It's hard to imagine not going back there.

WISCONSIN! And that's how a restaurant proprietor greeted us on the street a few minutes ago as we passed his place. We'd eaten there two nights ago, the night we arrived, and he remembered. Sarah and I remark about this quality of remembering. It feels good to be recognized and remembered. Here in Turkey, this sometimes is obviously just a successful business mechanism. But often it's more than that — it seems genuine, a reaching out to a fellow human being. It's warm. It's friendly. It's PLAYFUL!

This morning, as we strolled along, a young man behind a window in a patisserie held up a plate of glazed fruit for us to admire. I smiled and blew a kiss to the plate of fruit. The young man blew a kiss back to me! Oh, my, that's fun.

Drawn in by this woman in the window, Sarah and I came into the shop for baklava and Turkish coffee. One of this woman's co-workers brandished a baking stick at the proprietor, and everyone broke out laughing. When they saw us laughing, too, it was a fine moment, indeed.

The sun came out this morning! Oh!

Minarets against blue sky!

We did a good bit of lollygagging today, including a thoroughly enjoyable hour or so in the Arasta Bazaar. By the time we approached the Blue Mosque, the sky was once again overcast.

And yet, by the time we walked around to the tourist entrance on the other side of the mosque, the sun had come out again! 

All visitors who are not Turkish go in through a separate entrance, where we are given scarves to cover up if we are indecent. I was given a blue cotton cloth to cover my head.  

The young woman in front of me, wearing a short skirt with opaque tights — modest enough from my point of view —  was given a large piece of cloth to wear as an overskirt. Here she is, her hip, cool look completely transformed:

All of this was worth it. The beauty inside was light and delicate, the striped arches a faint reminder of the Mezquita in Cordoba.

We noticed the women's area first, women and children way back against a wall, women sitting and praying, some tending to small children. 

We tourists were separated from the praying women by a railing. I wanted to but did not photograph these women. And we were separated from the praying men by another railing to our right. The men have access to the main area of the mosque under the central dome and the semi-domes. 

Sarah noticed a sign saying something like, "Welcome to visitors of any faith. You are welcome to come in and hear about Islam." Never in a million years would I have gone in alone, but with Sarah, all things seem possible. In we went, into a small room with two or three men in it. Yikes! But the man at the head of the room — Who was he? Was he the Imam? He did say he was one of the Muezzins who sing out the call to prayer — warmly received us, and gave us some 15 or 20 minutes of his time, answering some of our questions about Islam. We left the mosque, speaking aloud to one another all the many questions we'd been thinking in this man's presence but which we chose not to ask.