The view was not as entertaining as my fellow passengers. A group of teenage Turkish girls came on and gave the ferry guy a CD to play. From the time we started moving until we stopped it was a Turkish dance party. The girls danced with each other and a group of older men danced away from them. Men and women do not dance together in public here.
I headed back through the Indian Spice market, which is a trip. The smell is indescribable and intoxicating. The enormous piles of colorful spices at so many shops is amazing. They also sell candy nougats with tourist appealing names like Viagra and Aphrodisiac. Of course, they call almost everything with nuts and honey and aphrodisiac. I don’t think they believe it. They have merely learned what sells to tourists. 
In the afternoon I went to the royal palace. Oh to be a Sultan! To have a grand and spectacular palace, all the fine food you can eat (they were all fat), a harem of the prettiest and most talented girls, over-the-top jewels, precious metals, and art, armies to control, countries to conquer, countless minions…. 
The palace in Istanbul is beautiful. Not only for its ornate decoration, but also its lovely expansive grounds and its perch above the Bosporus River, with a view of Europe and Asia. The picture is of a scale model of the palace as it still is now. The harem was okay, not as splendid as I expected. What really got me was the treasury. They liked really big jewels. The golden throne studded with emeralds was cool. As were the rock crystal pitchers used to hold drinking water for the Sultans. Photos were not allowed anywhere near the treasury and they were very serious about it, so I can't show you sorry.
