Life is easier with Migros!

With no car in here I got used to walking the 15 minutes until the closer supermarket shopping around and carrying the bags back home. It' good sport, but it's also a lot of time waisted on something really boring (I hate shopping!).
But cry no more! There's this great online shop at Migros! Shop on the site, select delivery time, go for a run in the park for the sport, receive the bags at home door and pay the bill to delivery guys!
The bill is 0,75€ more expensive for the home delivery, nice!
I remember that in Portugal, Continente had this service and asked for 10€ for the delivery! Expensive, hem? Hey, I can ask Migros if they deliver in Portugal! Heh, heh!

Tourism

Last week I finally did some tourism, after 6 months here I finally visited Topkapı Palace and Aya Sofia. Being so much time here and not visiting these 2 important historic buildings can be considered a sin!

Topkapı Palace was the palace where Ottoman sultan's lived for many centuries, it's huge palace with many rooms and a big area for the Harem.

Aya Sofia was built by the Byzantine's as an Orthodox Church, then converted into a Mosque by the Ottoman's. Today it's no longer used as a religious house and it's possible to see the christian images (recovered behind the paint) together with the muslim decoration .

I also went to Dolambahçe Palace, the sultan's moved into this palace in the 19th century, it has a really big and impressive party room, with small windows hidding on one of the walls where the women from the Harem could check out the party.

Went to the Sunken Cistern, a big underground water storage, they installed colored lights and they play classical music creati a very nice atmosphere!

Went to Galata Tower, great view and great pictures of the city!

Pera Palas Oteli, that's where Agatha Christie wrote "Orient Express"!

Went to the Grand Bazaar, filled with small shops selling carpets, jewellery, handbags, paintings, books, and everything else!

Finally I went to a belly dance show! This show was made for tourists, and actually the artist I liked more was a turkish singer that could sing in 72 different languages! He sang"Coimbra é uma lição"!!!

Warm weather

Snow is gone, it lasted only one week. Kids in Istanbul had 1 week of school vacations added, they were playing out in the snow while kids in Ankara went to school and were shown on TV saying "It's not fair!".

The weather has been warmer and since yesterday we have sun in Istanbul!

Snow

It started snowing strongly this saturday! And today we woke up with about 10cm of snow!!
This is something very new for me, I have been on snowy places before, but to see a city change completely in 1 day because of the snow is something different!
Suddenly everything is covered in white!
The traffic was bad without snow, moving around the city took a lot of time, but now it's total caos! I haven't been to the european side, but this morning I was watching an inclined street filled with cars that just couldn't go up! Drivers accelerated desperately their unchained weels on the snowy road! Other cars using chains and big buses passed quickly through this poor guys. Later there were so many cars stuck that the road was blocked! Man, this is fun (not for them)!

Been there

The world is still small for me...


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