How Bazaar

To round out January Anne and Mark took a trip to Istanbul, Turkey.  Istanbul is about 300 miles from Blago, and it is one of the cities Anne and Mark had intended to visit last semester.  Somehow work, circumstance, or the lure of another destination prevented Anne and Mark from making the trip in the fall of 2010.  However now, early in the spring semester, the workload is light and it is time to make the trip to Istanbul.

Seriously, Anne, it is right behind.  Seriously, look

Istanbul (formerly known as Byzantium - "Constantinople" if you're nasty) is a monster-sized city.  They claim it to be the fifth or sixth largest city in the world (depending on the method of counting people).  The city of Istanbul has more people than the entire nation of Bulgaria.  Long story short: it's a big mamma jamma.

Trolard Pilinski University represents in Turkey (t-shirt courtesy of Sara Meuller productions)

Anne and Mark flew into Istanbul and landed at an airport on the Asian side (Istanbul spans the Bosphorus Strait with part of the city considered to be Europe while the remainder is in Asia).  This was both Anne's and Mark's first time in Asia.  Once in Asia, Anne and Mark immediately began their efforts to return to Europe (their hotel was on the European side).  They took a bus across town and then a ferry across the Strait.  Mark would note that this was much more enjoyable than the boat rides he took sustained in Venice.  In Istanbul, Anne and Mark enjoyed a fresh-squeezed orange juice sold to them by a waiter on the ferry.  In Venice, a 150-year-old Italian Hobbit lady tried to head-butt and push Mark off of the boat.  It's no contest, folks, Istanbul boats dominate in the category of "Fewer Old Woman Assault and Battery Incidents."

As mentioned, Anne and Mark enjoyed a nice refreshing orange juice on the brief boat ride.  Anne and Mark paid two Turkish lira, but the guy probably would have sold it to them for 1 and a half if they had tried to negotiate.  That is because everything that is for sale in Istanbul is open for negotiation.  If you ask for a price in Istanbul, when you get in return is a first offer.  A "jumping off" point for negotiation.  Not the actual price that the salesperson expects you to pay, and certainly not the least he or she will accept.  Once Anne and Mark understood these basic ground rules, they headed for the Grand Bazaar to do some hagglin'.

The Grand Bazaar is a huge covered sales floor with thousands of vendors set up selling all sorts of merchandise.  It is kind of like the Mall of America, except no Camp Snoopy, no parking lot and fewer Starbucks.  Oh, and one other difference - aggressive sales people.  They do whatever they can to catch the attention of the passing shoppers.  More than once Mark was startled by the salespeople sneaking up on him from out of nowhere.  More than once both Anne and Mark foolishly responded to what sounded like banter, only to be drawn into a sales pitch (I believe this is the old-school sales equivalent of the "time-share" sales pitch strategy).

Anne and Mark realized that every product, every souvenir was sold by at least 10 or 20 vendors, so they decided to reward those that were not pushy and ignore the "in your face" methods.  Not to say that Anne and Mark did not appreciate the efforts of the salesmen.  One of the most memorable parts of the trip was a salesman seeing Anne and Mark walk by and yelling out "I love you."  Ok, that's funny.  But just as Anne and Mark slowed to see what he was talking about, he followed that up with "You are always in my heart."  Sorry buddy, you're trying too hard - now it just seems desperate.

But eventually Anne and Mark found an introverted vendor who had some souvenir t-shirts that were intriguing.  So Anne decided to give the haggling a try.

Anne reacts with shock (horror?) to the vendor's initial price suggestion.

The vendor's initial offer was way too high, Anne's counter offer was ridiculously low.  The dance of the banter was on.  35.  No, 10.  How about 30?  How about 11?  11 is too low, I make good price for you, how about 25?  I'll give you 15, but that's my final offer and if you don't take it, I'll go to the next guy and offer him the same deal.  Sold.  Point: Trolard Pillinski.

Mark also intended to try his hand at haggling, but ended up just walking up to the vender selling belly dancer outfits and asking if he would let Mark try them on before he bought.  No deal could be negotiated.

Not what I usually wear, but when in Rome, right?

After dominating haggle-fest 2011, Anne and Mark wandered back to their hotel.  While they were on their walk, the call for prayer was made at all of the mosques in the area.  This was a cacophony of sounds as this part of the city had a mosque every couple of blocks.  Some of these mosques are huge, with equally huge soundsystems.  All of the calls to prayer being blasted at the same time drowned one another out, and Anne and Mark would have been hard pressed to determine where any one of them was calling from.  In any event, after the prayer call, the streets emptied a bit and the return to the hotel was quick and easy.  Anne and Mark stopped only briefly to fight off vendors, smell the food and snap a few photos.

Cemeteries behind a mosque and adjacent to a major thoroughfare.