1. Bosphorus Tour by Night - It was about an hour and a half boat ride up the coast and then we docked at a small port village for dinner. At 10:30 pm we got back on the boat and returned home. We ended up getting back to our hostel at like 2 am. The cruise was SO beautiful and relaxing but could not really be captured by camera...
2. Underground Water Cisterns –
these are all under the city and were used to hold water during the Ottoman
Empire. Water dripped. Eerie music played. Giant fish swam in the tunnels. T’was
awesome.
3. MOSQUES EVERYWHERE! They are so beautiful! It is so amazing to me the effort and time and money and everything that goes in to creating houses of worship. It’s a universal way of praising God, and I definitely felt the spirit at every place of worship. People all over the world try their best to praise a higher power.
Blue Mosque – built in the 1600s and
still used as a mosque. SO MASSIVE.
Suleymaniye Mosque – the most
peaceful mosque we visited and SO BEAUTIFUL.
Hagia Sophia – My favorite and
technically not a mosque. It was built in 537 by Justinian and was initially an
Orthodox cathedral. The Ottomans conquered Constantinople in the 1500s and
converted the cathedral to a mosque. It’s really cool to see both influences –
you see the Arabic names of Muhammad and Allah with a mosaic of Christ in the
middle. The Hagia Sophia isn’t the coolest from the outside but it is
absolutely astounding inside!
4. Prince’s Island – we took a day
off from mosques and bazaars and took a ferry to some islands in the Sea of
Marmara. We got off on Heybeliada and spent the day chilling at the beach and
swimming. It was perfect!
5. Topkapi Palace – This is where the
Ottoman Sultans would live and I can see why! It’s a giant palace complex
overlooking the water with lots of buildings, gardens, and of course, the
harem. We explored the harem for quite a while, which was pretty amazing! Poor
poor girls who had to live there. There are also lots of Ottoman and Islamic
artifacts at the Topkapi Palace – apparently I saw the footprint, hair, and cloak
of Muhammad. SWEET!
6. The People – the world is just
full of beautiful people! I talked to several women on the streets and most of
them are Syrian refugees. The bottom picture is of a woman whose husband was killed in the Syrian war,
and she’s trying to raise 9 children on her own in a foreign country.
7. Hanging out with these people…
Never a dull moment.
