02 November - Friday
Earl got in touch with his family friend.  The fellow was in Cyprus so no chance to visit.  Took the bus to Kariye Camii (c = j in Turkish) Museum famous for its well preserved frescoes and mosaics. I had visited it back in 1989 and its no longer a secret.  There’s now an admission fee and other tourist facilities. 

St. Paul

Fresco of Christ redeeming the souls from Purgatory

It’s nicer than I remember because now the place is lit up so one can actually see the works of art easier. 

The city walls were nearby but it was raining pretty hard so we didn’t walk around too much.

Found a lokanta that had tripe soup for Earl and then he found out that they had pascha (lamb foot) so he ordered that as well. 
I had harmless stew. 

Earl enjoying his Pascha

Evening was the official stamp show award banquet.

Appetizers at the Awards Banquet

It was interesting watching the photographers at work.  They would take snapshots run to their laptops and printout 5 x 7 photographs to try to sell them for $8 each.

03 November - Saturday
Earl let me select the day’s outing.  I wanted to visit the Basilica Cistern (another 1989 site) and the archaeological museum.  Earl had visited the underground cistern back in 1997 but all he remembered was that there were fish. 

Cistern Fish. One of the ways this archaelogical treasure was discovered was that people were fishing from their basements.

The archaeological museum was absolutely fabulous. 

Glazed frieze from Ishtar Gate, Babylonia

Treasures from the Necropolis in Sidon (Modern Day Lebanon).

Battle of Alexander the Great. Spears and Weapons were lost. Traces of original paint can be seen.

Reconstruction of what sculpture might have originally looked like with paint

Closeup from "Weeping Women" tomb

Earl called these the sexy sphinxes.

We went to a local Isembe (tripe soup) restaurant for dinner so Earl could indulge once again.  Also ordered manti (dumplings) which came covered in yogurt, paprika and mint.

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