Sorry again for me stinking at blogging, but here's goes my Turkey trip. Let me tell you, Turkey is beautiful. I think we were all a little surprised on how pretty it was. Now I know why it is such a popular tourist place. I thought it was going to look more like Jerusalem in Israel. Israel is gorgeous but is turning a little brown, so it was nice to see a little greenery. It kind of reminded me of the coat in Georgia.... really green and gorgeous along the water. Our trip was down the west coast of Turkey. Oh, and the sunset when we flew in was just gorgeous.
We flew in to Istanbul on the 15th and on the 16th, so began our adventures in Turkey. On the 16th we went around the city of Istanbul. Istanbul is right along the Agean sea so it's this city. While driving around I was amazed of how gorgeous of a place Turkey is. Our first stop was to
Topkapi Palace, which was built by Sultan Mehmet II after the conquest of Istanbul in the 15th century. This palace housed the sultans and their exotic entourage until the mid 19th century. The palace was very beautiful with a lot of gold architecture and interesting artifacts, like treasure, Chinese porcelain, and traditional clothing that the sultans and his family wore. The buildings are a group of structures with different works from successive periods of Ottoman reign. It was also neat to see preserved relics of the Prophet Mohammed.
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Brother and Sister Muhlestein and I in front of the palace! |
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Look at the beautiful architecture! |
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Model of what the Palace used to look like. |
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Canton and I. |
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Muhlestein bus group... Slytherin. |
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Angela, Erica and I. |
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Group outside the walls of the palace. |
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View of the Bosphorus Straight off of one of the palace balconies. |
Next we stopped at the
Blue Mosque, which was gorgeous! It's called the Blue Mosque because of its beautiful Iznik tiles on the inside. It was amazing and interesting to learn about.
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Outside! |
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Beautiful interior. |
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Deidra, Angela & I. |
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Matt and I. |
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BJ, Josiah, Me, Josh & Angela. |
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Girls in our scarves. |
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:) |
Before lunch, we went to the
Basilica Underground Cistern, a place built hundreds of years ago, which was used as an underground water storage unit.
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Cool, huh? |
After lunch, we took a boat ride along the
Bosphorus Straight. All of us really enjoyed the boat ride. It was kind of like being in 2 places at once because land on one side of the straight is a part of Asia and the other is a part of Europe. It was really fun hanging out with everyone. I got a little sea sick, but overall it was a great trip.
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Jeehee, Ashton, Erica, Deidra, Me & Angela. |
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Group enjoying the boat ride. |
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Deids and I. |
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Enjoying the cruise. |
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Wayna and I. |
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Kim Slice and I. |
Dinner was interesting too. It was right off of the Bosphorus Straight so we had an amazing view. It was a fish restaurant. I tried a nasty, super salty sardine and then our main meal was an entire fish- the skin, bones, eye balls and all. I loved the fish but it was funny to see the reactions of my friends who don't like fish at all.
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worst. fish. ever. |
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Our lovely dinner... haha, Angela hated it. |
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Yummmm. |
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It actually tasted pretty good. |
Oh, I forgot to mention that we also went to the
Grand Bazaar, the largest street market in the entire world. It was interesting but we only got a half hour or so to shop around. On the positive side I got a cute scarf that I wear all the time now.
After checking into our hotel, we went into the city with our tour guide, Faati, to get some delicious baklava. It was great getting out and we got to ride the subway in Istanbul. I always love fun little experiences like this. Great day? I THINK SO.
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Obama pan of baklava. |
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Drew, Adam, Canton & I. |
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Just enjoying us some yummy baklava. |