Before I officially start this post, I must first give more details. I live in the apartment with two other girls who are from UMich as well. And we would usually go out together on weekends. I also have a host who brought us around for the 1st weekend.

But today, I went out all by myself!:) One of the girls still had to work. I could have gone out with the other girl, but it was already 10am and she was still not up. I stayed home all Sunday watching shows, and got really bored. Since today is a public holiday (according to wiki, it's a holiday to commemorate the beginning of national liberation movement), I decided that I must go out!

The first place I went to was Istiklal Caddesi. I had already went there twice, but both times I didn't get to walk around leisurely. Actually, the main reason I went there was to get lunch :) As most of you already know, I can't cook, so I was really looking forward to lunch and dessert there.

Istiklal is a street with many stores on both sides and trams in the middle.
It took me a long time to reach Istiklal. I took a bus for 20 minutes to the jetty, waited 20 minutes for the ferry, took the ferry for 25 minutes, and then walk for almost 30 minutes before I reached Istiklal. By the time I got there, I was starving!!

I don't really know the name of the food I ate. The restaurant had all the food on display, and so I pointed out what I wanted.

Inside the restaurant. (I realized restaurants in Istiklal tend to have elaborate wallpapers)
After lunch, I walked down Istiklal, observing the stores. There are usual stores such as Adidas, Nike, Levis, etc. There's also 2 Starbucks. After walking down the entire street, I decided to get dessert! I went to Mado (my host recommended it) and got myself dondurma, also known as Turkish ice cream.

My cherry and vanilla dondurma! Cherry was too sour for me :( but vanilla was great! :)

Actually, I already had dondurma last week, but I forgot to take a picture... I got dondurma from another store on Istiklal, where the people who served dondurma wore traditional costumes and they will try to trick you before finally giving you the ice cream. Dondurma is kind of strange; it is sticky and doesn't seem to melt.

Since I still had time, I decided to visit Istanbul Museum for Modern Art. I walked for 30 minutes before I got there...


The museum has interesting art, but I couldn't take any pictures inside. So I got this picture online...the inside looks something like this...
My host suggested that I should go to one of the many nargile (hookah) cafes beside the museum. I couldn't imagine myself smoking...so I decided to head back home :)

While heading back to the jetty, I noticed these creepy looking buildings...

It took me forever to get home....and I'm aching all over now...but it was great fun exploring on my own :)

Signed off by Priscilla