A root canal in Istanbul?

Since John had his medical experience in Bangkok and India, it was my turn to test out the Turkish medical system. We headed to the German Hospital to check out my tooth and found a spectacularly sophisticated dental clinic that took me in immediately, examined and X-rayed my tooth (all for $27) and recommended a root canal. So, now it was time to try to figure out what to do (the recommendation was definitely not to have any dental work done in Syria).
Another long walk in the heat to Citibank to get cash and we found a great place for doner kebaps.
We then taxied to Fatih Camii (foundations are Byzantine). We got there while a funeral was in progress. Then we walked to the Church of the Pantecrator and discovered the source of our blue and white Turkish plates. So, we headed on our plate search to find our Turkish plates (only could find 2).
Then we took our first walk to Blachernae and had a confusing stroll trying to match the map in the book to the sites in front of us.
Dinner was at a small restaurant close to the hotel. While we were drinking wine and eating our pizza at their outdoor tables, the owners were ordered by the police to direct all of their patrons drinking outside to move inside the restaurants. Since we were in the middle of dinner the “official” allowed us to finish our meal. We spent a long time talking to the owner of the restaurant who said that it’s a recent problem due to the increasing Islamic fundamentalist movement. A small group of vocal and powerful people are “offended” by people sitting outside and drinking alcohol and they’re trying to shut them down. Just what these people don’t need…another reason to scare the tourists away. It left us feeling pretty depressed- these poor people.