"You are 100% Turkish!"

I'm back from my trip to Istanbul! We had four full days there which was absolutely perfect--we got to see and do everything that we wanted without being rushed, but it was long enough that we were all ecstatic when we finally got back to Israel.

I put up tons of pictures--I needed two flickr accounts for all of them. So the first group of pictures is here and the second set is here.

The first day we were there we spent the day exploring Taksim Square, which is sort of like the metropolitan downtown of Istanbul, and we went shopping at the Grand Bazaar. Everywhere we went the vendors would talk to us and try to make us buy things. They were all convinced I was Turkish and thought Jen and Mel were Spanish which was pretty funny. The vendors are really pushy... literally everywhere we walked there was someone trying to get us to go to their restaurant or into their store. It got pretty exhausting after a while, especially because I made the mistake of looking at and answering them way too many times.

The next day we did some of the big sightseeing... the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Basilica Cistern. The Hagia Sophia was really interesting because it had the elements of both a church and a mosque, but I was more impressed by the other two. First of all the outside of the Blue Mosque is just amazing. Every time we walked past it (which was several times a day) it was just flooring... it's so huge and beautiful and they definitely don't have anything like that in America, or even Israel. The inside of the Blue Mosque was so ornate and beautiful, I tried taking pictures but they really don't do it justice. Also the Basilica Cistern was AWESOME. It's this huge underground water source with hundreds of pillars holding it up. It was so cool and mystical and seriously huge.

That night we went out in Taksim Square, which is a really cool, fun area at night. There are sidestreets with dozens of bars and clubs to go to. We ended up in a small cafe listening to two Turkish guys play the guitar. It was really cool--we were the only tourists there and the music was really great.

The next day we took a tour of the Bosphorous Sea on a ferry, which was pretty cool. It was raining so we had to stay inside but the views were great. Even though I didn't visit a large part of Istanbul, I got to see the coasts. The best part was that we were literally just floating in between two continents. That night some of us went to a "Turkish Mystic Dance show," which we renamed the "Steal My Money Show." It was literally the most boring hour of the entire trip, and quite possibly my whole life. We were totally scammed--I guess that's what we get for being dumb tourists haha.

On our last day we went to the Topkapi Palace, which was huge and awesome. It was the sultan's palace in the Ottoman Empire and it was filled with relics from that time--clothing, jewelry, and more shiny jewels than you can imagine. It was really cool... and let me tell you, being a sultan would be pretty nice. The palace was beautiful.

That night we treated ourselves to a nice restaurant, which was amazing after the last two months of eating nothing but pita and hummus (not that I don't love pita and hummus). The restaurant was called Istanbul 360 and the walls were glass, giving you a 360 degree view of Istanbul. My pictures came out really blurry, but we got a really great view of the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. The food wasn't Turkish, but I didn't really mind... I love eating different foods but there was nothing in the Turkish food I tried that was all that exciting. It wasn't quite Middle Eastern, and it also wasn't Asian, it was just a lot of sort-of-spiced meat and a LOT of bread. But then again, most of my meals cost about $7 so I'm not the best judge.

Overall the trip was amazing. It was really cool to experience another country (although by now I'm used to not being able to understand what people are saying), and Istanbul was way cooler than I expected. I was prepared for a dirty, kind of scary place, but the downtown area was modern and metropolitan, and the area of our hostel was really historical and beautiful.

Merhaba!