Gramma got angry with me! Balat and Fatih in Istanbul

Nihal and her husband have been out of town for a few days. The day before yesterday "gramma" came to watch the kids. It was the maid's day off, I was going out that evening and we couldn't find the key to the house, so Gramma stayed up until 11:00 - she usually goes to bed at 10:00 so she was nice about it. But yesterday the maid was here and I left for what was supposed to be only a "goodbye dinner" with two friends. But I told the maid I didn't know when I'd return. In these cases I just knock on her window (Lila's) and she lets me in. Well, the dinner came with lots of wine, and then more wine "on the house" at the restaurant, and then we decided to go to Taksim, and we went to several clubs, and had lots of fun, but I got back home about 3AM and knocked on the maids window and who comes to the door? GRAMMA! She doesn't speak English but she was furious! She held up three fingers and shook them at me. THREE THREE! I felt like I had broken curfew BIGTIME and I was BUSTED. By my Turkish mom! This morning Lila filled me in on what happened while I was gone last night. I wasn't home by 10, then 11, then midnight and she told Lila to sleep in the girl's room and Gramma stayed up until I got home. Lila said Gramma was pacing back and forth, back and forth. This is what it must be like for a single Turkish woman who lives at home with her parents (usually the case in Turkey). I posted pics below of Utabe (German) and me and Charly (Australian) and me when the night was young :-)
I met a guy last night who grew up in a cave house in Cappadocia, Turkey. Here are what some look like: http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/go/CentralAnatolia/Cappadocia/goreme/cave_house_tours.html
It would be so cool to see them!

My photos are going to be all out of order but I'm going to download some pictures I took in the Fatih neighborhood of Istanbul. It's very conservative, here is where many women do wear black from head to toe with only eyes showing. Some locals told me afterwards that the people there do not like foreigners and to never go there alone. I was with Igor so I was safe. We sort of just wandered into the neighborhood from another neighborhood called Balat, where we had gone to see the Chora Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chora_Church (an amazing place, highly recommended!) and Ahidra Synagogue. (By the way, don't anyone waste your time going to see this synagogue! The woman running things was one of the rudest people I've ever come across and the synagogue wasn't all that great anyhow.) Some people in these places still use horse and carts. I got yelled at once for taking a photo...the photo of the men sitting outside the mosque talking. As soon as I took the photo, a man in a shop ran out and yelled at me. I had a curious urge to videotape him yelling at me but of course I didn't :-) The thought just sort of ran through my head, "What a great video!"!!

I just checked my ticket to see what time my departure is on Thursday and it couldn't be worse - 5:35AM :-( I get to Memphis at around 8AM the same day. I'm going to have really bad jetlag.