Day 21

We have to get up early every morning get to breakfast, which consists of cereal with warm milk and bread, and get onto the buses on time. Our tour guides name is Fatih, Fah-tee. He is really interesting. He is way better than Huntsman bus guide, but we feel like he just makes up most things. He is super random too, he will get on the mic and say things like “all blonds kill brunettes” or “hello hobbits or aliens.” But he is really nice and makes sure that I get vegetarian things at most of our meals. We toured the Blue Mosque and the former sultan’s Palace. We were there for a really long time. We were all dragging by two, because we hadn’t had lunch and breakfast had been at six. But before we went to lunch we went to the Basilica Cistern, I wasn’t very happy because I was soo hungry. But the Cistern ended up being my favorite part of the day, it was pretty amazing. It was huge and was held up by columns that had been collected from all over the world. We finally got lunch after that, then we got to go to the Grand Baazar. It is something like sixty streets wide with four thousand shops. We were only allowed 45 minutes. So Melissa and I went though it really fast and bought a few things. We find the rule of three thing quite irritating at times, but we were always near other groups of kids. After our mad shopping we went on a cruise around the Bosphorus, almost to the Black Sea. And then to Dinner on the water. Dinner was an adventure because the appetizers consisted of fish eggs and anchovies. And the main meal was a complete fish. I was given my mushed veggies and rice luckily. We are allowed out until 10:30 every night and there is a big night life around our Cartoon hotel. We walked down a street of stores, but our group was too big and everyone wanted to do something different. And each group of girls is required to have boys. So Melissa and I just walked around and then met up with Andrew, Jeff, Courtney and Asia and went to a cute little desserts café. It had the best desserts, a whole menu to choose from. Melissa and I got an ice cream Sunday with banana ice cream, nuts, carmel, wafers and whip cream. We also shared a piece of cake. It was mainly chocolate cake with some white batter, macadamia nuts, almonds, chocolate ganache, and even better there was an éclair baked into it. It was soo delicious. Then back to the hotel, I talked with Melissa and Nick for a while then went to bed.