We just arrived tonight. We had dinner almost immediately after dropping off our bags in the hotel. I was very excited for dinner - even the food on the airplane was good, so I had high expectations for actual Turkish food from a real restaurant.
We ate at a place called Haci Abdullah, which Maja chose for its traditional Turkish menu. Turkish food is mainly meat-based, but there were several vegetarian options, all of which were delicious. They were mostly made of eggplant, spinach, artichoke and potatoes. We were given pomegranate juice to drink, which is definitely one of my new favorite drinks. It wasn't too tart, either.
My friend Mickey is studying in Istanbul for the semester. I got in too late tonight, but I'm hoping we get to meet up before I leave for Ephesus and Bodrum.
Our hotel is great. It's called Hotel Anemon and it's right in the middle of everything. It's going to be difficult to get lost on our way back to the hotel at night; it's right next to the Galata Tower, which has a lot of history:
The galata tower was built in 1384, it was the highpoint in the city walls of the Genoese colony called Galata
During the first centuries of Ottoman era the Galata tower was occupied by a detachment of Janissaries, the elite corps of the Turkish Army. In the sisteenth century the tower was used to house prisoners of war, who were usualy consigned as galley slaves in the ottoman arsenal at Kasimpasa on the golden horn.
During the reign of Selim 2nd (1566-1574) the Galata Tower was used as an observation point by the renowed Turkish astronomer Takiuddin, who had his main observatory in Pera. In the following century, during the reign of Mustafa 2nd (1695 - 1703) the seyhulislam Feyzulah efendi tried to set up an astronomical observatory in the tower with with the aid of a Jesuit priest, but the effort was cut short when he was killed in 1703.
The Galata Tower was reconstructed on a number of occasions in the Ottoman period, most notably, after a great fire that destroyed much of Galata in 1794 (during the reign of Selim III) and by Mahmut II in 1832. the tower's conical cap was blown off during a storm in 1875, and it was not replaced in the subsequent restoration. The tower was used as a fire- control station until 1964, when it was closed for restoratiom before being opened in 1967 as a tourist attraction. The conical cap was replaced in this restoration, giving the tower much the same appearance as it had in Genoese times, though retaining the changes in fenestration and other structual aspects done in the Ottoman period.
Source: http://www.galatatower.net/eng/tarih.php?a=1&b=1
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