Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Turkey Adventure

Blue Mosque
Last summer my dad and I visited my cousins who live in Turkey. We had many amazing experiences. We walked the grounds of the Sultan's Palace. We took a boat ride on the Bosporus. We toured ancient Greek ruins. We watched Muslims pray at the Blue Mosque. We admired mosaics at the Hagia Sophia. We ate delicious simit, baklava, and gül börek. But one thing that really stands out in my memory, is when we visited the Grand Bazaar.


The Grand Bazaar is an enormous covered market with thousands of shops, and has been in operation for hundreds of years. My aunt, Aimee, told me that at the Bazaar, people buy and sell things in very much the same way they would have thousands of years ago: by haggling. This means that the buyer and seller get to negotiate a price. This idea excited me. I had only read about haggling in books, and wanted to see it happen in real life.


When we arrived at the Grand Bazaar, I was immediately overwhelmed by its size. We entered the main street and I saw hundreds of tiny shops squashed together along the spacious street. It was difficult to keep up with the rest of my family as we walked through the crowd. I finally grabbed my dad's arm so I could take in everything without getting left behind.


Just walking down the street in the bazaar was an overload to my senses. Every shop overflowed with exotically colorful merchandise. Intricately woven rugs spilled out of carpet shops, silver and amber trinkets glittered in jewelry shops, and hundreds of gleaming stained-glass globes illuminated lantern shops. There was beautifully painted pottery, lavishly decorated clothing, and even the baskets of spices were colorful. Vendors called out their wares to passersby and their voices echoed off the arched ceilings. Occasionally two vendors would be selling the exact same kind of painted plates right across the street from each other, and they would compete loudly for customers. The spicy-sweet aroma of food wafted out of several restaurants we passed. Everything was incredible.


My dad and I split off from our group to go souvenir shopping. We started down the street to look for something for my mom, who is the hardest to shop for. Dad was glad to have me there to help look for her gift and give my opinion. We figured we couldn't go wrong with jewelry, so we entered a shop on a side street that looked promising. 


The owner swooped in on us right as we stepped in. 


"Welcome! What you like to buy? I have very nice necklace here." He motioned to a rack full of gaudy necklaces with huge beads. I looked at dad with wide eyes and shook my head.


"Um, no thank you. We'll look around." My dad said. 


The vendor hovered nearby as we walked around his shop full of frippery. I stopped to look at the bracelets, and saw the perfect thing. I held up a simple bracelet with teardrop stones for dad to see.


"Ah! Excellent choice! 140 lira for bracelet." Said the vendor. I looked at Dad, surprised. That was about 90 US dollars.


"Twenty lira," said Dad.


"One hundred lira. That is more than fair for this bracelet."


"That's far too much for us. Twenty lira."


"Ok, ok. I give you this bracelet for ninety lira. I don't go lower."


"Thirty lira. No more."


"Look, I give you good price. You see, this is real amber. I can't go lower for this bracelet."


"Thank you, but we'll go look somewhere else." Dad turned and started to walk out of the shop. I set the bracelet back on the stand and followed him.


"Wait, wait, this is really good price! Perhaps there is something else you want! Come back!" He continued to call after us, but we had already made our decision and didn't turn back. 


We walked all over the bazaar for hours, often finding ourselves going in circles. Even inside the bazaar, the summer heat was getting to us. At every shop we looked in, there just wasn't anything that looked like Mom's kind of thing. Finally, we drug our tired feet into a silver shop. That's where I found it: a medium-sized, simple-yet-elegant pendant. It was perfect. We bought it at a reasonable price, and even got the vendor to throw in a cord to go with it. 


I was ready to try bartering for myself. I knew exactly what to do. Even though my legs moaned in protest, I lumbered over to a shop I had passed before. As I walked, the vendors called to me, "Miss! Over here, miss!" "Spices!" "Jewelry!" "Come, come see this!" but I ignored them all. I found the shop, picked out some nice bead bracelets I thought my friends would like, and presented them to the vendor.


"How much for these?" I asked.


"Forty lira."


"Fifteen," I said.


"I can do thirty."


"These are just painted beads. Fifteen lira."


The vendor looked slightly uncomfortable.


"Twenty five lira is the best I can do." He said.


I pretended to contemplate this. I knew he had offered a pretty good price.


"Twenty five lira." I handed him the money, and walked away with my prize.

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