Turkey, Turkey, Turkey...............yum

It was Friday morning, 13 November, and I woke to my alarm around 8:15. I rolled out of bed and tripped over my backpack lying on the ground. I stood up, cursed a bit, and then prayed to god that this was not how the entire weekend would be. I got into the shower and proceeded to dress and pack my backpack. I tried to pack a bit light for this trap because I was told that I would be bringing a lot of stuff back. I then met up with Alex and Val in the lobby of the dorm and we grabbed the bus to the airport.

We got to the airport and did the whole airport thing (checked in, went through security, found our gate) and then hung around for a bit. Val then walked over to Alex and me and said, "I just mentally woke up and realized that we are going to Istanbul for a couple days and you know what, I am so excited"

I laughed and then realized how ridiculous I had been for not going through the realization myself.

This past weekend I grabbed my flight with my two friends and made our way to Istanbul, Turkey. We arrived at the airport in Istanbul and found the tram system and proceeded to our hostel. We got lost when we got off the tram and could not find the hostel. A very nice young Turkish man came up to us and called the phone number for our hostel and the hostel owner came and found us and brought us to the hostel. After seeing where the hostel was and seeing that it was unmarked in every way, we wondered how anyone in the world could find the damn hostel, haha.

We made it in to the hostel, proceeded to give Val's boyfriend, who was flying in from London to stay in Istanbul with us for the weekend, directions to get to the hostel. We then all settled in and walked across one of the major bridges in the city where we found a place to eat some dinner. The restaurant was awesome. We then walked through the city a bit at night, exploring and taking some awesome night pictures and then called it an early night so that we could wake the next morning early.

We woke the next morning and immediately made our way up to the Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia).

Side Note: The Ayasofya was originally built as a Christian Church and then seized by the Muslims and turned into a Mosque.


We walked in and saw.....................well..........................ABSOLUTE AMAZEMENT. I cannot even describe in words the beauty that I saw inside the building. It was a mix of Christian and Muslim symbolism with the years not tended stone all around. The building was breathlessly beautiful in every way. We wandered around the first floor and then made our way up the the gallery. I think I took pictures for 4 different couples who wanted a shot in the mosque. It was awesome.

We then made our way across the street to the Blue Mosque. The Blue Mosque was absolutely gorgeous in every way imaginable (on the outside). We originally arrived to the mosque right before prayer was about to begin so we did not get to go inside at that point. We then went off and found something to eat and then came back about 45 minutes later. We removed our shoes and walked inside the building. The building was......lets just say I could have spend an entire day just inside that mosque. We wandered around for a bit and then left to wander around the city a bit more.

We then followed all the signed and made our way to the one and only Grand Bazaar and oh boy was it Grand. We found so many different places we wanted to shop and plenty of places we could spend a lot of money. We did some shopping and made our way through the endless halls, finding new things to see around every corner. We did some more shopping and haggling and ended up spending lots of money, ahah. I will not be back for a while, so I figured I could spend a little bit of money. We finally made it out after about 3.5 hours of shopping and then wandered back to the hostel to rest for about an hour.

We then headed back out to the National Museum Theatre where we had purchased tickets to see and hour long show of Traditional Turkish Folk Dancing. The performance was amazing. I could have sat and watched the performance all night. We had a lot of fun.

We then went out to a restaurant and enjoyed some tea and then proceeded to another restaurant where we ate a few kebabs. We then headed back for the night

The next morning, I woke at about 5:45 to the first prayer.

Side Note: In the religion of Islam, followers of the religion pray at 5 distinct times during the day which is usually led by the Imam (usually the leader of the mosque). The prayer is sung through a P.A. system that runs throughout the entire city (in majority Islam communities) so that all the followers may hear.

So the first prayer was sung over the P.A. system at than time and it woke me up. If there is a new way to wake for the day, that was definitely it.....and I loved it. It was such an awesome way to wake for the day.

Woke and gathered to head out for a short morning of exploration of the city. We made our way up to the Valens Aqueduct near the top of a rather large hill in the city. Unfortunately we could not climb on the aqueduct, but it was still cool to see and take pictures of.

We then headed back to the hostel and said good-bye to Val's boyfriend because his flight left before ours.

We then received a phone call about an hour later saying he had been sent to the wrong airport. We looked at the map and saw that there were two airports in Istanbul (whoops). We then got on the tram and made our way to the airport. We made it through security to get into the airport and found out that Perry (Val's boyfriend) was to fly out of the airport on the Asian side of Istanbul, not the European side (the airport we flew into). Long and short, Perry missed his flight. He found a flight that was to leave for London tomorrow morning and bought the ticket and was going to wait in the airport for the night. We made it into the terminal and grabbed out flight back to Prague.

Istanbul is my first favorite city after Prague. It is such a cool city and suggest that anyone who feels like flying half way around the world to visit. You will not be disappointed.

Until next time....