On Saturday morning, our hotel served us breakfast. (Again, I think this hotel only had a handful of rooms, and we never saw any other guests around.) The lady at the front desk asked if we wanted coffee or tea. To which we responded none. We asked if we could just have water. She reluctantly agreed. Then Hyrum asked if he could have orange juice. She came back a few minutes later (having obviously run to the store around the corner) and gave us all bottled water, and she gave Hyrum his own carton of orange juice. Every morning that we stayed there, she made sure to give juice just to Hyrum. If he hadn't come down yet, the rest of us didn't even see the carton. We all felt a bit like he was getting special service, but he was happy.
We spent the morning exploring the two famous mosques: the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. We had beautiful weather while we were there: sunny, warm, with clear blue skies. Couldn't have asked for better. Inside the blue mosque (built in the 17th century) they make you cover pretty much everything-- head, shoulders, arms, and legs. The tile work was less blue than I was expecting (given its name) but it was still stunning. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
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| The whole Turkey group! |
Just next door to the Blue Mosque is Hagia Sofia, which started as a Christian church in 537 AD and was later converted to a mosque when Ottomans took over the city in 1453. It's now just a museum, not a house of worship for anybody. The most impressive part of the building is the central dome, which was the most famous dome in the world for 1000 years, until the time of the Renaissance. (Apparently it's been rebuilt a few times though? At least thats what Matt said.) The interior art was a mix of Islam and Christianity, and noticeably older than the Blue Mosque.
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| While we were up exploring the second floor, Dad stayed downstairs. Can you find him?? |
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| Can anyone explain this? And did Matt not get the memo that the first picture was apparently supposed to look like were were riding Splash Mountain? |
Our next adventure took us to the Bosphorus Strait, near Galata Bridge. On the bridge you can see dozens of fisherman casting their poles into the water, although it appears they caught nothing more than minnows. Quite an interesting site. We wanted to find a boat ride along the strait, and while we were waiting to buy tickets, a few of us decided to run find lunch before the boat left. Literally, we ran. Picture a pregnant lady, in the hot sun, running at mid-day to find doner sandwiches. And we had to go on one of those pedestrian bridges-- all the way up, and all the way down just to avoid the freeway. Then we ran all the way back, with 6 sandwiches, coke, and turkish delight in tow. Fortunately, it was worth it!
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| fisherman on the bridge. |
We ended up with plenty of time before the ferry left, and entertained ourselves by taking pictures of the men's head coverings. (They were trying to not get burned.) We also drank plenty of 50-cent water bottles. Can't go wrong with drinks at that price (especially considering drinks in Switzerland would be closer to $5!)
The 3-hour ferry ride took us up the strait, and back, giving us great views of the coasts (both Europe and Asia.) Not many ferries tour you through two continents.
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| This is right near the soccer stadium. The northern part of Istanbul had much nicer looking hotels than the "new city". |
After the boat ride, we walked over to the spice market where we got sick off so much dried fruit. Who knew dried strawberries were so sweet and so delicious?! Walking home, the twisted streets almost got the best of us, but we found our way through the labyrinth with only a
few unnecessary walks up hills (if you haven't noticed, I'm particularly sensitive these days to going UP... if possible, I avoid it :)
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| in front of spice market |
We did make it home, and this was sometime after dinner:
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