Gobble Gobble! Part One

I'll give you one clue as to where I was for a week....here it is:

If you guessed Turkey because that is a turkey in the picture then you were sure as heck correct! What is better than seeing a turkey in Turkey? A lot of things. Haha let me tell you about all my adventures there! 

Day 1: Tel Aviv to Istanbul (Sunday)

This day is pretty much described in the title.  We left the JC (Jerusalem Center to you) at a leisurely time of eleven in the morning.  With a group of 95 we had to be at the airport three hours before our flight (plenty of time for some quality pictures).  We stood in a lot of lines, went through customs (always scary), and if Brother Ludlow didn't try and send me the wrong direction by myself I would have classified the airport as fun. (Just kidding, it was a lot of fun). 

Sarah, Sam, and I waiting patiently for our flight!

Taylor, Sam, and I happy to be in Turkey!

After our safe arrival into Turkey, we made our way to the Cartoon Hotel in Istanbul which was a tall hotel on a busy street corner decorated fabulously in all Disney attire.  Imagine this: Donald Duck in your shower, running into Mickey's nose as you walk down the hallway, and turning on Daisy Duck's hat to get some light. It was awesome. My roommate for Turkey was Kara and we had many a laughs! 

We ate a late dinner at some fabulous Turkish restaurant that we walked to from our Hotel.     Too bad we didn't know to appreciate the normal food we ate at that place, because the food for the rest of the week was sure an adventure all on its own.  By the second day, we could predict what we would eat for ever meal. Since Turkey is a "third world" country, we couldn't eat a lot of things that were given to us, even at the restaurants.  You could say that our limited food options got a little annoying.  Breakfast included white bread (wheat if you were lucky), fresh honey off honey comb, and some water from your water bottle. The fruit and vegetables and dairy and meat were all off limits unless cooked. Lunch and dinner were always the same--rice, french fries, mystery meat that was supposedly a meatball (?), sometimes chicken if we were lucky, lentil soup, fresh salads that we couldn't eat, white bread, and watermelon for dessert. Sometimes we had more dessert choices, but in reality they all tasted the same--like fake chocolate.  Everything was soaked in grease. If you pressed on the desserts, they would ooze out some sort of gooey something that didn't taste that good to me. Oh and absolutely no street food from vendors!  Doesn't that sound yummy?! Ha it doesn't sound that bad, but after a week of that we were all very excited to not feel sick and eat some wonderful JC food! Turkey was an experience to remember, and the food was part of that experience!

Dinner! Jeff, Michael-Sean, Tyler, Lacey, Shannon (roomie), me, Aubs (roomie)

Day 2: Istanbul (Monday)

Day two of Turkey started our week of getting up at 6 am and earlier.  It's a good thing we had a lot of time to rest on the bus because we were sure sleepy at times!  This day is when we met our wonderful Turkish tour guide Fatih.  He was a character! One of the definite highlights of the trip was hearing "Come on, hobbits!" yelled at you, on the headset microphone and in person by your Turkish tour guide.  Fatih made Turkey ten million times more enjoyable than it would have normally been.  He loved us so much that he is going to take all the future JC students! Anyways, back to our travels.

First, we visited the Hippodrome.  This was an Egyptian column from way back when.  But it happened to be right outside the Blue Mosque we were planning on visiting.  Upon entering the Blue Mosque, we had to take off our shoes to show respect and keep it clean. At first, I thought that I could never see a grander or more beautiful mosque.  However, the end of the week would prove my thoughts wrong as we visited perhaps the most beautiful of all...(the suspense is killing you, right?)

This is the hippodrome. It's ancient! From Egypt!

The Blue Mosque

Awkward kitty photo #1. There are as many stray cats in the near east as hairs on my head, arms, and legs. Maybe even more.

Taylor O., Taylor B., Devin and I inside the Blue Mosque.

 We went to the Tapkapi Museum which is really this huge palace of a past sultan.  It was the most beautiful and ornate set of buildings I have ever seen!  Bright mosaics covered every wall, arched doorways and windows surrounded you with views of the bay, and gold ornamentation was everywhere to be found.  There were multiple gates and acres of land to walk through before you even got to the sultan's quarters! Throughout the museum were displays of clothing and other artifacts that they have kept, perhaps the most impressive being the 86 carat diamond. (Can you imagine?! It was huge!!) At the museum, we also visited the huge Harem--where the sultan's concubines all lived together.  It was kind of disturbing to see that and it made us all really thankful we live in modern times.  The Tapkapi Museum was grand in every aspect.

 

The palace view...

The beautiful mosaic tiles that covered almost every surface of the palace! I am obsessed with these now.

Lindsay and I just sittin' in the harem! We won cutest picture of the day award. :)

After the museum, we walked around in the Basilica Cistern.  A cistern is a giant underground hole, basically, carved out of rocks that the ancients would collect rain water in to last them throughout the year for agricultural and living purposes.  The Basilica Cistern is HUGE. And even though it is all underground, it is ornate as well. 

Caleb, Sam, and I at the creepy upside-down Medusa head in the farthest corner of the cistern. 

That afternoon we had the opportunity to go to THE Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.  This was amazing! It is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world.  It encompasses more than 58 covered streets, 4,000 shops, and between 250,000 and half a million visitors daily! It was a little overwhelming but so much fun.  Kara and I bought some Turkish delight and other souvenirs!

Following our shopping excursion, we went on a couple hours long boat ride on the Bosphorus Straight (one of  my favorite things in all of Turkey!).  We had a huge boat all to ourselves and were really able to enjoy the beauty of Turkey.  One one side of the straight was the Asian side, and on the other side was the European part of Turkey.  Then we went to dinner at a restaurant where I tried sardines! They are super salty...but not too bad besides that! And maybe our dinner was a whole fish? Ha it was yummy! Afterwards we headed back to our hotel and went out for ice cream (pistachio gelato never gets old!) and window shopping on the streets. What a great start to our Turkey trip!

Sam. Me. Water. 

Yay for boat rides! Yay for Devin and I being BFF's!

Lacey, Ben, Caleb, and I windblown but fabulously happy, as always. :)

Yummy :).

Day 3: Istanbul to Troy (Tuesday)

Day 3 included a lot of traveling for us.  Good thing I don't get car sick! We bussed it up all morning and after lunch on the water's edge we loaded up onto a ferry to travel across the Dardanelles, which is another straight.  This is where we made our switch from Europe to Asia!  If Turkey taught me one thing, it is that I love boat rides. Troy happened to be just inland, so we stopped there next of course!  It's hard to imagine Troy (and all of the other ruined cities for that matter) in their grandeur, but we still had fun exploring and learning about Troy and its people.  

THE Trojan horse. Find my head!

Troy tunnel...with frogs.

Brielle, Kaleb, Samsung, and Robin.

Hello ancient pillars that Brad Pitt probably lounged on also.

When we pulled up to our beach-side resort, the Ida Kale Resort Otel, we could not contain our joy as we dumped our belongings in our room and hurried out to swim.  One of the great things about Turkey was how they Turkish spelled things--phonetically.  For example, taxi was "taksi."  We had a private dock that went far out into the clear blue water where we could watch one of the most beautiful sunsets seen by mankind.  But it gets better...Fatih arranged for us to get some fire wood and a sound system, so maybe we all spent the entire night having a dance party around a huge bonfire on a soft beach in Turkey...maybe we didn't. But I'll tell you that we did. To end the night, we all piled up on a giant stack of outdoor bean bags to look at the stars.  My life is a fairy tale.