Photos! (Finally hehe)

Well my blog is finally cooperating and has let me upload photos of the Istanbul trip. Believe it or not this is only a small sampling of the photos I got to take. Istanbul is much to beautiful to be captured in a few photographs, but I tried. :P Enjoy!

Monica

Dried fruits in a corner market

The Blue Mosque and its six minarets. The only Mosque in the world to have six minarets.

 This one felt like being on the left side of the page. This is the fountain in front of the Hagia Sophia.

The gardens between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia

A closer look at the Blue Mosque

Shoes off people. We got to carry them around inside the Blue Mosque.

Inside the Blue Mosque

The wire are for the light fixtures which used to be candle holders before electricity was invented. The worshipers of Islam needed candle light to read the Koran so they hung these and then just left them in.

They have beautiful stained glass windows.

This used to be a fountain, but it's not anymore. It stands right in front of the gate to Topkapı Palace.

Yes people that is real gold... and yes there's a lot of it.

Another old fountain.

This is inside the harem where the women of the Sultan lived.

Mother-of-Pearl cabinet doors

This is the first thing you see when you enter the Hagia Sophia. Breathtaking

This one is upstairs. 

And the view from the balcony. It is the MOST beautiful building I have ever been in. 

The light fixture is the same age as the building. 

This was added later for the Sultans.

Our group in front of the Palace

The underground cisterns

An old palace building from the sea.

The Euro-Asia bridge :D

An old fort from the sea.

The Maiden's Tower. One of the famous landmarks in Istanbul.

Once more: the bridge

Istanbul!!

Hey all! So my blog is not letting me upload the photos from my Istanbul trip which stinks. I'll see if I can fix it but I guess for now I can give you a brief overview of what we did.

The weekend of December 15^th and 16^th, Rotary took us to the city of Istanbul. I have to say it’s the best place I’ve been to so far. I LOVED the city. I was excited to go because Istanbul is so full of history and its history stretches back for centuries. We started our trip by visiting the Blue Mosque.  It was much bigger than I had expected. It was beautiful, but because it is still in use, we didn’t get to see as much as we could have.

The next place we went to was Topkapi Palace.  The palace grounds were huge! I tried to imagine myself living there but I couldn’t. In the palace we got to see a room with the different types of weapons used by the Ottomans from the 14^th century to the 20^th century. I found it really interesting because all these weapons had been used and they were so different from the weapons you’d see the French or English use at that time. We also went through a room with the precious jewels, headdresses, flasks and thrones used by the many Sultans. This was my favorite place because everything was really beautiful and the gold and jewels were crafted so well. We also got to go through a part of the Harem at the palace. We saw only 10% of it and I hadn’t expected it to be so big. We probably spent 30 minutes in the 10% we saw.

The next place we saw was the Hagia Sophia. Of all the sights we saw on this trip, the Hagia Sophia was the place I loved the most and could have spent hours in. We didn’t have much time there because it was getting dark so that kind of stunk. It is big and beautiful and what I liked the most were the mosaics that have been preserved for ages. You could also see the 6 important symbols of Islam from when the building was a mosque.

The next stop was the underground cisterns. This is where the city drinking water used to be kept. They don’t use it now but they still have water there and fish for the tourists. I didn’t personally like it because there wasn’t much to see and it was dark.

Our last stop the first day was the Grand Bazaar. Unfortunately, we had very little time to spend in the bazaar, so we didn’t get to really look around. I was able to buy a pair of good boots there though. We then spent the night in a hotel that was really close to all the places we went to.

The next morning, we started by going to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. I never imagined that there were so many spices in the world. We saw not only spices, but also saw and got to try Turkish Delight...no it is not a myth, it exists. I loved it a lot and bought some to give to my family.

The next thing we got to do was go on the tour of the Bosphorus. Sadly the day was rainy and foggy, so we couldn’t see things as well; but the tour was still nice. It was really exciting to sail between Asia and Europe. We sailed under both Euro-Asia suspension bridges and also the bridge connecting old and new Europe. We were able to see many of the historical sites from the boat as well as the newer business centers.

I could go on and on about it but I think this gives you and idea of our trip. I hope I can load photos soon becuase the places were absolutly breathtaking. I'm so happy I came to Turkey!!

Monica

 



 

Photos From New Year's!

 

 

The staircase in my host family's summer house. We spent the New Year at my family's summer house, so I got to spiff it up for the holidays.

My host sister decided to read

I got to decorate our table for our fancy dinner!

Lights!

From left to right: a friend of the family, me, and my host mom

My host sister and I

I'm next to one of those old oil urns. Look! It's almost as big as me haha

The windmills of Turkey. It's almost like I could go over those hills and be in America; it looked so similer.

So there's my New Year in a nutshell :)
Monica

Happy New Year!

Hello all who still check this blog even though I've been less then faithful about updating it. So here's my New Year's Resolution: Blog More! I really will try to every other day, even if it's just photos of what I've been up to. 

So right now it is 15 minutes until the end of my first day in 2013. It's crazy to think that we're in a new year already. I think that 2012 was such an amazing year that 2013 has a lot to live up to if it's going to be as good as this past year. 

I spent New Year's Eve and New Year's day in Alaçatı at my host family's summer house. We had a really good dinner New Year's Eve, which included cake and sparklers :D, and then hit the streets where there were a ton of DJ's blaring music. When we finally waded though the masses of people on the streets, we ended up at a hotel owned by a friend of the family and spent an hour or so just dancing to the music on the street. It's actually not super cold here, so being out on the street wasn't bad at all. I have to say it's one of the best New Year's I've had..and we stayed out until 3am! This morning we spent an hour walking around the place where the parties had been last night. It is a really beautiful and quaint, resort-like town. The houses are all stone and the streets are cobblestone so you feel like you're in a different place altogether. I'm back at home now and so it's back to the regular routine of life....because I really didn't get a holiday for the holidays. I'll explain that later; right now I wish you all a Happy New Year and may God bless you all!!

Monica