On Saturday, we stepped foot in some of the oldest and most celebrated mosques – like the Blue Mosque – in Istanbul. The rules for those mosques are as follows:

• No shoes allowed. You either carry your shoes in from outside or leave them on a rack outside the worshiping area.
• Women should have their heads covered and wear a long skirt; men should wear long pants and not shorts. Occasionally they let these rules slide, but if the officers outside believe you’re dressed inappropriately, they’ll often provide a sheath of cloth to drape over your legs or shoulders.
• You’re not technically supposed to speak aloud inside the mosque if you’re a visitor. They’re not too strict about this, so we didn’t feel too bad about exchanging awed “wows” as we looked around.
• Photographs should not be taken during the prayers, which are supposed to happen five times a day; a couple hours before dawn, sunrise, midday, afternoon, sunset and after the last light of day disappears.
• Visitors are supposed to stay behind the area designated for prayer.

Visiting these mosques was obviously a new and unusual thing for me. And the weirdest thing happened when we visited the first one: Another visitor politely asked if he could photograph me just standing there. I thought it was strange, but I told him that it was fine.

And it happened again later that day. After entering the Blue Mosque, I stopped looking upward at the ceiling when I realized an older woman was looking at me. I instinctively checked to make sure my scarf was in place, and I pulled my sweater close as I murmured a quick “Merhaba.” I blushed, embarrassed and worried that she thought I was dressed inappropriately. But not five minutes later, a man tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me, but my mother-in-law would like to take a picture with you. She likes you very much.” The small woman was smiling at me shyly and I happily agreed.

I realized, then, that she wasn’t judging me for me for being different. On the contrary, I think – or at least I hope – she realized that I was trying to be respectful of her beliefs, even though it was pretty clear I came from a very different place. I’ll never quite understand what it’s like to be her, just like she’ll never quite understand what it’s like to be me. But the least we can do is try.