Semana Santa Part 2: Istanbul

The flight to Istanbul from Madrid, as I said before, was at midnight. I was hoping to sleep most of the time, but I ended up sitting next to a very friendly Turkish man who wanted to chat. His name was Ali. I dozed a little, but kept jumping awake so I didn't feel very rested. I arrived in Turkey at about 6am. I wanted to wait until the sun came out to leave the airport, so at 7 I went to the metro to go into the city.
With the sun still rising, everything still looked kind of gray and dead on my way in. Skyscrapers and minarets everywhere. I switched to a tram and got off at the stop right next to the Hagia Sophia! Crazy how close our hostel was to the big sights. Cheers Hostel, if you're curious. I highly recommend it! The people there are so nice, especially Sinan. I met him first, he made me apple tea and offered me a free room to rest in until Anna and Eric came downstairs. I ended up just sitting and petting the hostel's mascot: Zaman the golden retriever. Sweetest dog ever (except Dot, of course).
When Eric and Anna (both year-long American study abroad students in Seville) came down, we decided to hit the big sights nearby. First was the Hagia Sophia. Holy cow, it was incredible.

When we came out of the Hagia Sophia, we walked through the courtyard in between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque just as the call to prayer sounded. It was a magical thing. The two mosques alternated, called back and forth to each other. SO COOL. Next was the Blue Mosque.

This is travel buddy Eric.

Travel buddy Anna.

This is called simit and it's delicious. It's like a sesame bagel. Then he added Nutella mmmmm.

Off to Topkapi Palace. At this point I'm really feeling that sleepless night getting to me.

I don't have many pictures from the palace because I nearly fell asleep in the courtyard while Eric and Anna went to wait in line to see some religious artifacts. As we left, we found the park filled with tulips. Very pretty.

At the end of the day, we had dinner in the hostel because they were having a cookout. We ate in their top-floor bar and chatted with some other travelers. I met so many people from the bay area!

Day two in Istanbul. To Asia!!

We didn't stick around for a long time because there wasn't a lot to do other than look around. We decided to hop back on the ferry to go over to Taksim Square.

This is Istiklal Street. Huge place for shopping. It was insaneeeee.

Stands like this were everywhere. You chose what kind of fruit and then they would juice it right in front of you.

Then on to Galata Tower!! I was very worried about saving money so I didn't go up in the tower... I kind of regret it now because I heard the view was amazing.

Then we walked across the Galata Bridge which was really cool. It was lined with fisherman standing shoulder to shoulder. Sea gulls looking for scraps swarmed overhead.

That night we went to dinner that Anna's professor recommended and I ordered a dish that Mary Hofer Farris recommended! It's called manti and it's pasta with a bit of meat inside with a delicious yogurt sauce. Mmmmmm.

The third day was dedicated to the famous markets of Istanbul: the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market. Very touristy but still fun! Anna helped me bargain when I decided to buy something.

I absolutely love these lamps and wanted to get one but it would have been so hard to get home. I decided to wait until I have a house of my own to buy one.

 Spice Bazaar

We spent a LOT of time in the bazaars. Then to the Underground Cistern. So so cool down there.

It was very hard to shoot in this light. It was nearly pitch black. The camera couldn't even see anything to focus on so I had to do it by hand. Sometimes it didn't work.

These Medusa heads were soooooooo cool and creepy in the dark. We knew they were somewhere nearby but when we made the turn and saw this HUGE face staring at us, it was scary!

For dinner we met up with Anna's friend who was studying abroad in Istanbul. She is such an interesting person! I had the Turkish version of Greek dolma. Basically meat wrapped in chard or some other dark leaf. I didn't like it very much but oh well. Afterwards we went to a hookah bar (how Turkish) and I watched the others play checkers. The owner of the place brought out two tiny tiny kittens for us to cuddle with!! They were so precious.

On our final full day in Istanbul, the country had a widespread power outage. We didn't realize the severity of it until later, but it was a serious problem. Metro and trams shut down and airport was messed up for a while. There was some speculation about a cyber attack from Syria, but I don't think that was ever confirmed. First thing that day was the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. I took some pictures of the book market on the way there.

The mosque was stunning and much more peaceful than the others. We read some material on Islam and sat and just enjoyed the atmosphere for a while. We also talked to a guy working there who was very enthusiastic to share his knowledge of Islam with us. It was a very very interesting experience.

After the mosque, we went to a nearby restaurant that Rick recommended. He said that it was popular among the local students, and we arrived just as the rush of students was leaving. The place was kind of trashed, but the food was so so good. I had what they are known for: their beans. Big white beans in a zippy tomato sauce. And after lunch we went back to the Spice Bazaar to do some more souvenir shopping.

Anna and Eric left very early in the morning on Wednesday to catch their flight back to Seville to see Semana Santa. I had a good chunk of the day to use up so I wandered around the touristy part for a bit before walking through a different part of the city to find the metro station. The metro ride out of the city was drastically different from the one I took into it. The sun was shining, people were out and about, and it really was beautiful.

I am so glad I got the chance to see Turkey. I made some great new friends and learned a lot about a different part of the world. :) Off to Rome!