turkey; istanbul II

{Saturday October 26th} 

3:30 am now... Very tired and yet I keep waking up every couple hours. The windows here seem to be very thin as we can hear everything!  Going to try for more sleep now as we have a full day coming!  

Sunrise over the Golden Horn

We got up around 7am this morning and headed up to the 7th floor for breakfast. Above the restaurant there is an open terrace, so we went there to watch the sunrise. It was quite cloudy this morning, so not the best view of the sunrise, but still an amazing view overlooking the city. We can also see the Bosporus behind the hotel.  Breakfast here is interesting but still pretty good. Quite a selection of olives laid out, also cheeses, and tomato and cucumber. There was also a table of breads and pastries, fresh honeycomb, fruit and yogurt, and some hot food.. Eggs, "sausage" aka hotdog, and potatoes.  Quite tasty, and the beautiful view helps too :) 

After breakfast we came back to the room for a shower and to get ready for the day. We will need to find a bank this morning as USD is not as accepted as we had thought, so we should exchange that for Turkish Lira. 

We met our group in the lobby at 9am and met the rest of the the people who flew in late last night. We now number 13, with 6 more having come from Calgary. When Dr. T arrived we all boarded the coach and headed towards the old city, crossing over the golden horn.  

The Blue Mosque

The old city of Istanbul used to be surrounded on three sides by a city wall.  As we were driving we could see sections where the city wall was still standing.  We arrived at the heart of the old city and our first stop was the Blue Mosque. 

Inside the Blue Mosque

We had to take our shoes off and carry them with us, and cover our hair with a shawl before entering.  The Blue mosque has approx. 22,000 tiles on the walls and 260 windows. It was built between 1609 and 1616.  The main dome in the centre has a width 22m. It is quite impressive with the blue tiles and the painted ceiling.  The Blue Mosque has 6 pirouettes, which is the most of all the mosques in Istanbul, and therefore makes it the most important. 

From there, we went to the hippodrome and saw the oblique from 390ad. It's crazy to think of objects being in the same place for such a long period of time. 

Entranceway to St Sophia

Inside St Sophia

Our next stop was the St Sofia Orthodox Church. It was built in the 6th century, converted to a mosque in the 17th century, and finally in 1938 to a museum.  The Saint Sophia represents divine wisdom, and therefore the church was named after the divine wisdom of Jesus Christ.  10,000 men worked to build the church in 5 years.  St Sophia is even larger than the Blue Mosque, with the dome being 33m across.  A lot of the intricate tile mosaics were covered over and painted when it was converted to a mosque, but some have been restored and are quite beautiful. 

After our visit to St Sophia, we went for Lunch at the Matbah Ottoman Empire restaurant. It features dishes typical to the Ottoman Empire era and was quite good. I was not overly hungry so I had a salad. It was delicious, however it was soaked in far too much olive oil. Some of the others had an appetizer sampler which had things like fried goat cheese, oyster mushrooms, stuffed calamari, meatball, cheese pastry with honey, and grape leaf with sour cherry.   It all looked delicious and it was nice to have some more 'traditional' food.  

Inside the Underground Cistern

After lunch we went to the underground cistern built in the 6th century. It was built so that there would be water when the city was be under siege, as the water supply would be the first thing to be cut off or poisoned. 

From the cistern, it was a fifteen minute walk over to the Grand Bazaar. 

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

We choose a place to meet back in an hour and a half, and then we were free to wander on our own. It is very overwhelming with people and stuff everywhere.  Everything from rugs and jewelry to pottery and clothing.  It was quite interesting though, and I purchased a couple small bowls and a matching mug.   I feel like we only got a glimpse of it, as it sprawls on for as far and wide as you can see, but it seemed like every 10th stall was the same anyhow.

Just outside the Grand Bazaar where we met there was a Starbucks, so I grabbed myself a tea; it was a loose leaf tea and it was quite good! 

After that we headed back to the hotel and had an hour and a half to ourselves before we left for dinner. Mom and I decided to grab our swimsuits and go to the Turkish bath and pool. It was very relaxing and I very much enjoyed it.

At 8pm we met in the lobby again to go for our Bosphorus dinner cruise. It was about a 10 minute drive to the boat. Once aboard we had dinner which included a variety of salads, chicken, rice, and some really delicious lamb.  During our cruise there was a magician, some traditional wedding dancers and a belly dancer. There was also a lot of loud music and flashing lights on a rolling boat with an open bar.. 

It was about 11:30 when we got back to port and took our coach back to our hotel again. I was quite glad to find a hot shower and some quiet-ish and hopefully get rid of my headache soon!  

We put our clocks back an hour tonight for daylight savings time, so we are back to 11:30 again even though we were just there an hour ago. All in all, it was a wonderful day, although almost too much to even take in.  Hopefully tonight's sleep is better..  I can hear the music beating away through the thin windows, and the call to prayer sounds quite early. 

J. 

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