"Hello. Hi! Excuse me miss. I love you! You are my sunshine."

Istanbul is magic. I really don't know any other way to describe it. Our hostel, Bahaus Guesthouse, is in the Sultanhemet district of Istanbul and only steps away from the Blue Mosque, the Underground Cistern, Hagia Sophia, etc. We arrived yesterday afternoon after an uneventful flight and a unscheduled detour through Taksime (pedestrian center of New Town) and immediately lay down for a quick nap. We had set our alarm for an hour but were woken around 5 o'clock not by its buzzing, but by the call to prayer. The call to prayer (adhan) happens five times everyday (calculated according to the movement of the sun) and is recited in Arabic from the minaret of mosque by a muezzin, who is chosen for the task based on his recitation skills and character. The adhan is broadcast over loud speakers and can be heard everywhere in the city. It is an amazing, beautiful thing to hear, especially when standing in between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. Hearing the prayer as it is recited (sung is more like it) by the muezzins on the spires of each mosque is like hearing the most beautiful call and response chant. The sound echoes all over the city and everything seems to sort of stops until it's over.

Once Elissa and I woke from our nap we dragged ourselves upstairs to the hostel's rooftop bar (best in the city!) for some kabab and apple tea. If you ever end up in Turkey, make sure to visit someplace (or stay someplace) with a rooftop bar or patio. They seem fairly common and they are wonderful! When Elissa and I walked up the stairs to the patio we were thrilled to see the entire roof was filled with oversized pillows, cushions, water pipes, and backgammon boards, and had a fabulous 360 degree view of the Bosphorous and the rest of the city.

After or kabab dinner (served with ketchup and mayonnaise? maybe it's because we're from the U.S....) we decided that under no condition could we fall asleep at 6:30pm (even though we really wanted to...) so we headed to the bathhouse. We had been told by many people that a visit to the hammam is something we HAD to experience while in Turkey and we figured that after 12 hours of traveling, getting a good scrub and massage wasn't such a bad idea. We got directions from our hostel and took off.

The streets in Istanbul are heavy with the scent or sisha and burning coals. The air is sweet and aromatic and exactly what you would imagine it to smell like. Even when walking through the most touristy areas of the city you don't feel like you're in a huge metropolis. Istanbul has this amazingly open and airy feel about it which, for a city of 17 million (!) people, is astounding.

Once on the street we immediately got lost and had to stop for directions. Fortunately (actually unfortunately alot of the time) people on the street, well actually men on the street, are very friendly and are more than happy to help give you directions (especially if you buy something from them afterwards). In fact, "Are you lost?"along with "Hello miss. Can I talk to you?", "Are you looking for me?", " I am here!" , "I love you!", "You are my sunshine!", and various lyrics from American songs are the most common things heard on the streets. This is actually the only thing I DON'T like about Istanbul so far. Ultimately, it's harmless and more of an annoyance than anything. Elissa is nice about it and smiles and says hello back, I just ignore and keep on walking.

Çemberlitaş Hamani had been recommended by our hostel as the best place for our baths. It's a historical bath house that was comissioned by the wife of Sultan Selim II in 1584. Elissa and I had read up on the baths so we would know what to expect, but we still didn't really know what we were getting into. The bathhouse is segregated by sex. Men have one side of the bathhouse and women have the other. Once there you can elect to have one of three treatments: self-service, traditional or deluxe. Elissa and I both chose the traditional option and were then sent upstairs to change. For those of you who are a little on the bashful side, you may want to know that the baths are public and, while you may choose to wear a swim suit or underwear, most people go nude. Once we had our peptemal wrapped tightly around us we were directed through two sets of heavy wooden doors and into the "hot room." The room is lit by round and star shaped skylights that are set in a high domed ceiling and an enormous circular slab of marble sits in the middle of the room.

Since neither Elissa nor I really knew the protocol for this place we just tried to oberve what everyone else was doing. Eventually we figured out that the only thing to do was to set our little towel down on the concrete slab and sweat. So we did. Every so often someone got up and walked over to one of the small marble sinks that lined the perimeter of the chamber and poured bowls of water over themselves. So we did that too. After awhile Elissa and I felt like we were done with the sweating and wondered when the actually "bath" part of the experience would take place. The room had suddenly become very crowded with a lot of naked women so we got up to leave the chamber in search of our scrub and massage.

"No! No!" one of the women shouted at us. "Sit!"

Then we figured it out. These women, these naked women were going to wash us. So we sat. And the women started washing. First they scrub you down with a "silk mitten", which is kind of like a loofah I suppose. Once you've been exfoliated (and patches of your skin have nearly been ripped off) you are soaped up, given a massage, and your hair is washed. It kind of reminded me of being bathed by my parents when I was too little to do it for myself (except that they were always clothed...). "Turn!", the woman who washed me would say when she was ready to wash the other side. "Sit", she growled when she was ready to scrub my my neck and behind my ears. "No!", she would shout when I turned the wrong way, or got up too soon, or thought that the bath was over. When we were finished we dressed and headed back to the hostel, fresh and clean and ready to really start our adventure!