In the end, we finally made it to our dear old hotel. But in the evening we decided to take another stroll around the hood. I was hopelessly hoping to still find some tea glasses, plus I needed to buy sweets for gifts, and just spend the remaining money.
By the way, as I already mentioned, Turks drink a lot of tea, it's strong and local. Turkey produces about 6% of the world's tea, and in terms of consumption, it's consistently in the top spots, on par with Great Britain. For instance, in 2004, tea consumption was 2.4 kg per person. This probably explains why at the spice bazaar, a guy generously scooped me a massive amount of tea with a huge scoop; I barely talked him out of getting carried away. I drink a lot of tea, but I hardly drink more than half a kilo a year, and he wanted to pile on that much of a single variety right away. The tea, truth be told, is not bad, it has a pleasant, non-bitter aroma.
As for our wanderings around the hood, I once again overcame my complexes and successfully loaded up on various sweets. Shchukin didn't want to lug them around, said he'd buy them at duty-free; the others did their own thing: someone's folks don't eat sweets, someone bought a little. I, for my part, am very glad I bought them in the hood: the prices are reasonable, the look and taste of the sweets are awesome, even though many say it's an acquired taste. There are no names, of course, nor are there any photos: everything got eaten. Most of it was actually pretty good. The duty-free selection was big too, but the prices seemed higher, everything is packed in boxes, meaning it has preservatives and is less natural. For instance, over there I accidentally bought instant pomegranate tea — nonsense, of course. In reality, it's just a "Yupi" knockoff in a pretty box.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself — we still have a whole night and half a day before the flight. During my roaming around the hood, I never did find any glasses, so I spent the rest of my money aside from the sweets on a local dish. This time it really turned out exotic — meaning, I did manage to find some fresh experiences after all.
Trams in Istanbul are long