Boy, it's hard keeping up.

On Friday we took the Dolmus to the ferry, and used that to get to the European side. We wanted to start with Topkapi Palace, but got stuck briefly in a small touristy cafe across the street.

Once inside, we visited the Harem, the Treasurey, and all the remaining open buildings. After a dinner of Pide, we headed back and had a relaxing quiet evening with our wonderful host.

On Saturday, we were lucky enough to get our host for the whole day, since his car was blocked in and he couldn't go to the half-day of work he was supposed to.

We grabbed some friends and got completely lost on our way to a beautiful little lunch spot near the Black Sea. We never did make it up to the castle, but instead headed back for a movie, discussion, and dancing. Unfortunately my camera battery ran out, so I had to focus on just having fun.

The highlight was definitely the club- it started out as a pretty normal dance club, with New York-level cover price, but then around 11:45 it got awesome. A band took the stage playing American cover songs with Istanbullu instruments and beats.

Here are some awards for the covers:

• Best audience participations - La Isla Bonita
• Best moment of realizing what song they were covering - It's Raining Men
• Most surprising band covered - Metallica
• Artist who I thought every song was going to be by because of the intro percussion - Shakira

More soon...

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