Galata Tower, 5 Lira Pants, and A Hotel Rooftop

Today was the time change. Curse the world. Plus, I was ridiculously tired from staying up late for the last two nights and walking so much yesterday. Well I dragged myself out of bed to find out that instead of having two hours until I had to be in Taksim I had only one. Aka? It was impossible. So I call up Carly, who had also been struck by the time change, and we decided to just be late and make our own way. So we lazily set off for Galata Tower and the Alley of Cheap Clothing in Taksim.

Carly on the stairs half-way up. There's more than you can see...

Galata Tower was gorgeous! It's on a hill. The ferry stops at the bottom. Carly and I, being explorers and in a good mood, decided to walk. We reached the tower (hard to miss) and went inside. No student discount unfortunately, but the view was well worth it. Istanbul, as far as the eye can see!

When we were sure we'd seen all we wanted to, we headed back down and strolled to Taksim. Strolled being used only because the hill wasn't as steep. There we took advantage of the cheap clothing. Tables and tables of shirts and jeans with huge "5 TL" and "10 TL" signs. You have to check to make sure that there are no holes, stains, weird seams in whatever you're buying but it isn't hard to find things.

Doesn't mean they'll be good things... Hannah bought the pants in the end, although I think Blase left the tight shirt behind. Needless to say we were getting some pretty interresting looks from other shoppers. Both Hannah's pants and mine (which were not so vibrant) were 5 lira. That's $3.71 Canadian. Hahaha! Fabulous!

Then, since Carly's family is coming at the end of April, we wandered over to Sultan Ahmet to check out hotels. Try and find a hotel for less than 100 USD a night in a popular tourist district.. However in doing so, a hotel owner invited us up to the roof of his building where we had an amazing view of the Blue Mosque and the Ayasophia. It was the kind of hotel we were afraid to step into for fear of not matching the dress code (which in my Les Mis shirt and jeans I definitely did not), but the man seemed more than happy to show us, and we pretty much went photo crazy on the roof of this ridiculously expensive hotel.
Ayasophia
Blue Mosque

After hunting down a dozen hotels in the area we walked back to Eminonu where we caught a ferry home. And I could collapse from exhaustion. It didn't seem like it at the time, but we walked quite far. Tomorrow is Miniaturk, where I will see everything I've seen here in Turkey at waist height. I can't wait!

Love,
Maeghan