Edirne, Bulgaria, and Turkish tests

So, it's time for a news update, probably well past time. And this time I have pictures, since my routine varied slightly. :)
This past weekend I headed to the city of Edirne. (I now have a difficult time calling a place with 120,000 people a "city"... that's significantly less than 1/100 the size of Istanbul.) Anyways, I went up there and had a look around the city a bit. It's a nice little city that seems quite easy to get around and definitely quite friendly. I visited the Selimiye Mosque which was the crowning accomplishment of Mimar Sinan, the greatest of the classical Ottoman architects. It's well worth the visit if you are ever in Edirne randomly. :) I took lots of pictures but am posting these two because they are a bit different than the ones I've normally put up. The one below is the dome of the mosque. But honestly if you didn't know that ahead of time I don't think you could be sure from the picture. It looks very similar to the glazed pottery bowls made here. Perspective is a fascinating thing.*

After visiting the mosque, I took a bus to the Turkish border and actually walked into Bulgaria. The border crossing people don't seem particularly used to people walking through, but they didn't object. I bought lunch in Bulgaria (which added to my collection of Bulgarian coins) and then headed back across the border. I got picked up by a nice man from Edirne who saved me about a mile worth of walking and the expense of paying for a ride back to Edirne. Apparently he felt sorry for the random American who seemed to be hitchhiking into his country. :) I made it back to Istanbul that night after a profitable and interesting day.

Today and Friday were my Turkish level 3 exams. I passed them with my best scores to date. So, that is a blessing. Tomorrow I am planning to try to arrange the last major details for studying at the university. Then on Wednesday, Turkish classes start back up. (University shouldn't start for about 2 more weeks.)

*The dome is over 100 feet in diameter, wider than the dome of the Hagia Sofia. Also of interest, the mosque has the four tallest minarets in the Muslim world.