Favorite Places

Favorite Places

Friday, August 29, 2014

Istanbul

So I'm sitting at my hostel in Turkey - we fly out to Jordan in a few hours so I thought I would try to record some of the AWESOMENESS of Istanbul. So I got here Friday and met up with several classmates who are also on their way to Jordan. Istanbul has been very hot, humid, and crowded which reminds me a lot of my time in China. Here are some highlights...

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. 

 

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