A blurb about mosques

I'm thankful to Istanbul for making me comfortable with mosques. For some reason, all the Buddhist temples in Asia were no nig thing, but mosques are more controversial or charged with stigma. I suppose "comfortable" isn't the right word, since most religious things make me uncomfortable, but I went inside several mosques, one durring prayer time, I wore a scarf on my head as if I knew how to do it, and I was equally uneasy as in a Catholic or Jewish or other equivalent place of worship. The Blue Mosque was a let-down because the carpet was red, and sticky with such high traffic. This was the only mosque with cover up clothing on lend, and with an employee blatantly asking the tourists for a donation, in English, on the way out. I much prefered the New Mosque, the smaller and delightfully empty Nuruosmaniye mosque, and the exquisite Suleymaniye mosque. The women have a less nice, rear area separated by a lattice partition where they pray, the men have the whole floor underneith awe inspiring domes and chandaliers suspended by long cables. Kneeling, bending, the main guy does some chanting, sometimes beads are involved. No big mystery.