Turkish Delight

We dined on sumptuous lamb entrées seated on low couches in a quiet, all glass restaurant, where families ate together and young couples chatted for hours, enjoying an apple-flavored water pipe. Baklava was our sweet, like none I've ever had...pastry so light and served warm with honey oozing. Istanbul is very exotic and the call to prayer is still surprising but the city also feels calm, orderly, and tidy after the beautiful chaos of Rome. Istanbul is a city of 15 million people, when the Asian and European sides are counted together. The Blue Mosque is so vast and the carpeted floor so plush (everyone must remove shoes to enter) that I'm sure I stood gazing up at the five domes and 16 apses with my mouth ajar and my mind agog.

P.S. My delicious dinner was the lamb in garlic yoghurt. Does it hurt less when the tab comes in a little treasure chest?