Finally, I can feel good about my shopping. Enriched even. After all, the Grand Bazaar is six centuries old, and who am I to pass up a historical experience?

The Grand Bazaar has nearly 60 lanes with 4,000 shops selling almost entirely the same items – gaudy gold, factory made pottery, hookahs, leather goods, fake purses and scarves. Rinse and repeat. The Bazaar involves heavy negotiating, and only a sucker would pay full price. (This is called foreshadowing, ladies and gentlemen.)

My first foray into negotations is tepid at best. I manage to negotiate a couple lousy lira off a sheep. (Felt sheep. Although buying the baah baah kind would certainly add merriment to my sister’s house this holiday season.)

I then hone in on the scarves. I confidently ask the price believing my negotation skills on par with a UN treaty broker. He wants $10, and I demand $6. He snorts and walks away. I am ready for this game. I too will walk away. Slowly. Ever so slowly. To my disbelief, he is letting me walk away from the best scarf I have ever known. Doesn’t he know what he had? What we had, the scarf and me.

I am crushed. I am dejected. I am in the biggest pit of despair.

I try my hand again with another scarf. I make the purchase (a frothy pink scarf that will look excellent against grey), but again only knock a few scant lira off the price.

I decide to try my hand with clutches. He asks for $15, I say I’d take $9. This translates into him thinking I’d take NINE clutches. A comedy of errors as he fetches more and more clutches. But it leaves me shaken, so I take it at full price.

At this point my negotation skills are so shaky, If I were an actual hostage negotiator, I’d probably be offering to send over more hostages instead of getting them back.

“Ok, so we’ll give you 10 million dollars AND we’ll throw in an extra 10 Americans. And a tote bag, free of charge!”

I give it one last chance.

“How much?”

“35.”

“I’ll take it for 20,” and this time I’m resolute. I’m running low on lira.

“30. Your eyes are so beautiful. Where do you get them from?”

“Your mother or your father?”

“Ummm…my mother?” This isn’t true in the least. I look like the postman’s child, and my sister repeatedly told me I was.

“Your eyes are so beautiful and will look lovely with the scarf. I’ll give you the scarf for $20.”

Now herein lies the problem. The scarf is hideous, and I finally got around to realizing it. I do not want this scarf. So Mehmet sent around someone to look for it in black and white.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Drinks with a friend!” And by drinks with a friend, I mean sitting by myself in my hotel room, eating Toblerone and trying to get the courage to grab dinner by myself.

“Forget the friend. Call me, and we’ll do dinner or drinks,” he whispers into my ear. And thus, he invades the 10 inches of space I like to reserve for the Holy Spirit.

He then proceeds to hand me his card, which shows the longest pinkie nail I’ve ever seen. Either he is a forgotten member of the Lost Boys or he is shoveling a lot of coke into his nostrils.

I say I’ll call him and leave with my scarf of questionable taste.

And that concludes the Grand Bazaar portion of this trip. Shopping here is similar to gambling in Vegas. The house always wins, and the consolation prizes offer little comfort.