Turkey Day 2: Istanbul

Day 2 in Istanbul was supposed to include a tour of Hagia Sophia, which is an extremely old and extremely famous church-turned-mosque-turned museum. But it was closed, so we had to postpone that tour. But here we are in front of it - our whole group (minus me, since I was taking the picture): L to R: Amy Baker (math teacher), Mandy Bernadac (Bernadac's wife), Yavuz Arslan (assistant director), Olivier Bernadac (math teacher), Luke Lofland (art teacher), Daniel Allen (middle school special education teacher), Daniel Harting (English teacher), Katy Himsel (assistant dean), Kelly Weber (high school special education teacher), and Mehmet Camalan (I have no idea. Just kidding. I think he's like the special activities coordinator or something).

We did go on a tour of Topkapi Palace, which was used as the palace for the Ottoman sultans from 1465-1856. I choose to believe that Jasmine's father once resided here. It was a huge complex with lots of different buildings and gorgeous landscaping.

That's our tour guide with the white umbrella. We had lots of tour guides on this trip. Well, three actually. But I've never had a tour guide before because I'm too cheap to pay for them, so this was a new experience for me. While a lot of the information she shared was interesting, there was just too much of it. I felt held back, like I couldn't explore the place at my own pace. I really didn't hear a lot of what she said, although she did say everything was "so important" when I think she meant "very important." This may seem like a small, silly distinction to point out, but there is a distinction and when you hear it no fewer than 100 times in a day, it sticks with you.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the rooms that we entered through this door. I'm not exactly sure why, but there were lots of ancient artifacts, including a sword of David, a saucepan of Abraham, and a turban of Joseph. THE David, Abraham, and Joseph. Also, the STAFF OF MOSES. Like the one from the Red Sea (maybe). Apparently, our tour guide told us all about this before we went inside but I had already checked out, you see, so I wasn't listening. So we got inside and I saw the staff of Moses and literally stopped and stared for a solid minute. I have no idea if it's legit or how it even came to be in Turkey, but I was blown away.

From one of the patios, there was a great view of The Bosphorus, which is the waterway that divides Europe and Asia. There are two suspension bridges that cross the Bosphorus, and I don't remember why but they became known amongst our group as my bridges. I think I said something about liking bridges (which I'd never realized before), so I thereafter owned them all.

After the palace, we walked over to the Basilica Cistern, which is an underground facility for storing and filtering water (or something, I really wasn't listening very well). But across the street there was this pretty house!

Fish in the water along the bottom of the cistern.

The cistern was dark and damp and cold, but very cool. I felt a little bit like I was in Indiana Jones or a vampire movie. Both cool. It was built in the 6th century, under the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (I have to cite wikipedia, here. No way I remembered that on my own).

Many of the pillars were ornately carved (Wikipedia says 7,000 slaves helped build this place. They did a good job). I believe the pillar on the left had a hole you could stick your thumb in for good luck. On the right is a carving of Medusa's head, which they supposedly put upside down to negate the stony effects of her gaze.

After lunch, we went to the Blue Mosque, by way of this obelisk.

The Blue Mosque was built from 1609-1616 and is special because it's huge (though most of the mosques I saw were huge), it has six minarets (the most of any mosque, I believe), and it's decorated with tons of blue tiles inside. It's still a working mosque so we had to remove our shoes, and the women had to cover their heads.

Here's a public water fountain.

That afternoon we went to the Grand Bazaar, a huge indoor marketplace. I was very grateful to have a Turkish person with me to 1) help me haggle and 2) help me find my out of the maze. (Also check out that guy's pink/white/purple ensemble. Killin' it.)

I bought tons of scarves here, as well as a lamp like the ones pictured below. Well, the ones below are hanging ones with multiple bulbs. I couldn't afford those, so mine is a small, self-standing one, but I love it. There were several of these kinds of stores throughout the bazaar and they were gorgeous.

That night we went down to the shoreline of the Sea of Marmara, and watched the planes come in for a landing right over our heads (those are the two lights to the left of the picture right above the horizon) and watched the sun go down.