Turkish tea in the Ottoman cemetery

On the 6th of May I got on the plane that took me directly to Istanbul.
During the flight I kept on reading "The Flea Palace" by Elif Şafak, a book which I bought few days before. I remember well, that one of the chapters was about Turkish housewives being obsessed with cleaning their homes and the other chapter was about cemeteries. The author was trying to explain how different is Istanbul from other cities in this matter. While most of the cities of rich cultural heritage, have huge cemeteries isolated from the rest of the city, Istanbul has lots of cemeteries of different capacity simply everywhere. It was also underlined that as the tombs and graves are everywhere, people got used to their presence. Obviously, I thought that Mrs Şafak was a bit exageratting.

Inside the Tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent

As soon as the plane landed, I collected my luggage and met Sena in the arrivals hall. First, we wanted to xray our stuff coz we confused the airport's entrance with exit. Secondly, we got on the metro, where a friendly guy suggested to exchange the seats with me, so that I could sit next to Sena. It didn't take long until we arrived in Sena's neighbourhood and then at her home. Her Mum was very friendly and welcomed me with various kinds of food that have not tried before, including börek and artichoke. And then the telephone rang. The person calling was Özkan, who was trying to set up the meeting point with us. It turned out we were going to meet next to the çemberlitaş tram stop, in a Turkish tea house located just in the middle of the Ottoman cemetery!!!

The place was nice and cozy, the owner turned out to be a friend of Sena's family. I've seen it before in some of Sena's pictures. After closing, the owner gave us a ride home, which for me, was like a night city tour around Istanbul. I had a chance to see the Sultanahmet Mosque, the old city walls and the Boshphorus shore from a different prespective. I almost forgot, there was 6 of us in the car - the driver, 3 girls in the back and... 2 guys on the front seat!