Bhairam?

Listening to: The Kinks. Eating: apples Drinking: Chaı

In turkey they call Eid-ul-Fitr… Bhairam. I celebrated by going to the Ulu-Jami in Bursa. A mosque is called a Jami. And the big one is the Ulu-Jami. Louisa and I took a bus to towards the city and arrived at the mosque. One of the reasons I wanted to come to turkey was to visit all mosques I’ve always read about. So after a week and a half of being here, I was finally entering one. I entered it and was immediately taken away by how big and spacious it was. And it seemed really homey. This is a quality I always look for in mosques. This one was beautifully decorated with Arabic script all over the walls. The floor was covered by small namaz rugs. It was pretty amazing. I took at least 10 minutes just walking around taking it all in. Then I prayed and walked around some more. A Turkish lady was giving a tour to some tourists but in Turkish. But this mosque seemed like a relatively friendly place.

This mosque is also centered in the middle of a big shopping area. There stores everywhere and a huge fountain in the middle. It’s a great bazaar area with plenty of places to sit and relax. Fortunately it was a really pretty day. We walked around the mosque and looked at all the Islamic art, scarves, jewelry they were selling. I bought an Allah necklace. The man selling it priced it way to high. So I set it down and said no. Then I picked out another one and he went down in price and then I went down further in price and he agreed! I bargained! Yeah!

We bought some gyros and sat in the middle of the square and people watched. It was awesome. I could do this all day every day.