Photo Op

I arrived in Istanbul yesterday, and met up with two girlfriends from my Toronto days. Today we hit the Blue Mosque, which is indeed a beautiful place. I wore the same outfit I had worn through Jerusalem's Old City, i.e. my "Western woman who respects your religious traditions and is therefore dressed very modestly" outfit. This look got me mistaken for a Mennonite in Jerusalem, so you get the idea. I was well pleased that at the entrance to the Blue Mosque, where the fashion police were wrapping tourists in shawls and sarongs, they just waved me through. Once inside, I milled about like everyone else, until a Muslim Turkish family approached me and asked "Photo?" I nodded and reached for their camera, thinking that they wanted me to take their family picture, but as it turns out, they wanted to have their picture taken with me. They gathered around, giggling, and we all smiled for the camera. I have no idea what made me such a photogenic figure, but I am terribly amused that I will now live on in this family's photo album. A couple of minutes later I realized that I had missed the golden opportunity to then demand that they take the same photo with my camera. I'll be quicker next time.

After they left, I told my friends what had happened, and when they were done laughing their heads off, they tried to figure out what had made me a more compelling tourist attraction than, say, The Blue Mosque. They kept saying "it must me your shoes" (see earlier post). I had to keep reminding them that I was barefoot, because, you know, it's The Blue Mosque. By the way, they have a really fabulous carpet (no, really?):

Then we speculated that they may have been fascinated with my hat, which is itself a conversation starter. Maybe they were just stunned to see a Western tourist who was dressed properly, and felt they needed to document it for posterity.