Tajid's Tour of Istanbul

Normally, Jeremy and I are pretty opposed to guided tours as we love to discover things on our own. But when Tajid asked us if we wanted him to show us his church, we happily followed this little cutie pie through the residential area of Balat. Before finding Tajid, we tried to follow a questionable map through some of the traditional Greek and Jewish neighborhoods with mixed success. 

We found a great bakery with the best Simits (circly bagel like bread) we'd had, and we'd had quite a few by this point. We asked for the cheese that accompanied some of our other Simits and the lady here, unaccustomed to dealing with tourists, held up a different bread form and said assertively, "This is cheese." No. We shook our heads. "This is cheese?" with a loaf of bread this time. Mmmm, no. 

We saw plenty of the traditional merchant houses, crumbling ruins under restoration, Byzantine era basilicas, ubiquitous cats, but were happiest with the Tajid led section of the tour. I can't be sure that I'm spelling his name correctly. When I asked him how he spelled it, he said yes. We rewarded him for his troubles with four Lira and a pack of gummi bears.