Learning the old and new life here

Today we had a really knowledgeable guide who knew about 7 or 8 languages take 10 people from our group on a boat cruise on the Bosphorus in the morning. We cruised up the European side and down the Asian side. The European side is the older side - more small castles, older homes and a fortress. The Asian side has "newer" homes. A home on the water is anywhere from $10-$50 million.
In the afternoon we went to the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia (means divine wisdom) and the Topkapi Palace. Constantine's son had the Hagia Sophia built and after the conquest it was turned into a mosque. They wanted a bigger structure so the Blue Mosque across from it was constructed. It is called the Blue Mosque because of all the blue tiles covering the walls and ceilings and for many centuries the columns were painted blue until they decided it was too colorful - like a church- and they stripped all the blue paint. When they turned the church into a mosque they took the cross down and erected 4 towers on top. Many of the Sultans wives were taken from Europe as slaves and when they became wives they wanted the Christian art preserved so they simply covered it up instead of destroying. At the Topkapi palace we spent most of our time at the harem which was added on and has over 300 rooms. The women brought in could have been from all status' in Europe' but started at the lowest level at the harem in the beginning. The Sultans mother picked a few to be invited to parties and they may have been invited to stay with the Sultan afterwards. Once they had children they would become wives. They put black male eunuchs in charge of the harem and had their penis' cut off so they couldn't impregnate them. Many of them died from this but if they lived, once in a while they started to produce sperm and a black baby would be born. This is why they used black men, so they would be identifiable and they would kill the mother and baby. The women in the harem were sterilized and retired at age 30 and would be released and get their own places and be supported by the palace.
Things got really interesting on the way back to our hotel. There were only 4 of us including our guide who tried to get a cab and was denied because he is Turkish. They have an organized scam going on where they charge more for ignorant tourists. So Mark asked the next cabbie and he let us in and when our guide got in trouble started. The other cabbie stopped our car and said it was his turn and our driver said he refused us so he was taking us. The guide and the driver started talking very loudly in Turkish and the driver said the other cabbies were following and going to beat him up so we quickly got out. Apparently it is run by the mafia and the police are in on it. Our guide taught us how to use the metro and rode back with us, so now we are going to use that and not leave our hotel. So he taught us ancient history and current culture in one day!