Dayna LeMasters...Turkish Tramp

Next stop on Dayna’s European Adventure? Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul, not Constantinople. I highly suggest a visit to anywhere in Turkey. I can honestly say it was by far my favorite part of the trip. Well…until this happened.

Before setting out for our tour of Istanbul we were informed that both men and women must have their knees covered and women must have their shoulders covered in order to enter the mosques. Now, I was fine with this, even though it was 100 degrees out. No problem. I even had the following conversation:

Me: In all honesty do you think this shirt is okay?

Travel Companion: Dayna. It’s fine. I’ve never seen you wear anything that they would think to be inappropriate.

Me: Okay. I think I’m okay. I mean I’m Mormon. I know all about magic underwear. It will be fine. If worse comes to worse I’ll just scream “I’m Mormon! We don’t do naked shoulders.”

Travel Companion: Yeah. You do that and I’ll scream out I’m Jewish…let’s see how far we get in that mosque.

Me: Whatever. I’m feeling good. I’m feeling confident with my choice.

See choice above.

Now before heading to The Blue Mosque, we visited St. Sophia’s…where this conversation happened.

Me: Who is that a portrait of?

Travel Companion 1: Seriously, Dayna? It’s The Virgin Mary and Jesus, even I know that and I’m Jewish.

Travel Companion 2: Oh. My. Gosh. What kind of household did you grow up in?

Me: I feel very confused right now. I don’t know what’s going on. I thought we were in a mosque, not a Catholic church. There are portraits of Jesus with Arabic words in a mosque. WHAT IS GOING ON?

Travel Companion 3: This is why you wear the headphones and radios they give you. The guide is talking about all this.

Me: No. False. This is why you travel with people who wear the headphones and listen to the guide. I’m not doing that, it makes me anxious, and also it’s bad enough I have to wear these little number stickers, I’m not walking around with headphones on.

Travel Companion 3: The British conquered Istanbul and turned these into churches…and some other BS that doesn’t really matter.

Me: See? Perfect. I don’t need headphones.

We then headed to The Blue Mosque...

Travel Companion: You do know that you have to take your shoes off to go inside, right?

Me: Yeah, I know. I'm not going to lie, it's kind of grossing me out. I mean, thousands of people walk through there daily. I really think I might leave with a foot fungus. Also, I've been wearing TOMS all day and I'm slightly concerned about the smell. Oh. Also. I think my feet are swollen, so getting my shoes back on may be an issue. Oh. Also. Do we think it's weird we'll be watching people pray? But yeah, let's do this!

Travel Companion: You truly think of the weirdest things.

Me: I know. I'm not proud of it.

We arrived at The Blue Mosque. I could smell some strangeness immediately. Not wanting people to smell something odd and think it was me, I headed to a secluded corner and removed my shoes. At this point I lost sight of my travel companions.

After removing my shoes I headed for the entrance. This is when it happened. The moment that will forever leave me thinking, "TRAMP!" 

Guard: Miss! Miss! Miss! Excuse me.

Me: Yes?

Guard: No. No. No. You can't go in like that. Absolutely not. Here, put a scarf around your shoulders.

Me: Oh. Um. Right. Yes. Okay.

I wrapped myself in a scarf and headed to the entrance with my head down in shame. That is until I saw that 3/6 of us were stopped for dress code violations. That's when I got the giggles. Not normal, this will stop in a second giggles. No. I got a full on giggle attacks. Look at us...what a bunch of tramps.

The first thing I asked when we left? How many people do you think wore that today? Because, in all honesty, I feel a little itchy.

You'll be glad to know my shoes fit (barely). You'll also be glad to know that soon after that I found a Turkish Starbucks and immediately wrote an email to my family telling them that I am in fact "A Turkish Tramp."