Istanbul

12/29/2011-1/02/2012

12/29/2011
From Sofia, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey, we took another sleeper train. There were six of us in a car, three beds stacked on either side. The top two beds folded down. Until we went to bed, we left the middle ones up. We all got a reasonable night's sleep, especially compared to the night before.

The first thing we did when we got to Istanbul was to buy our tickets back to Bucharest. We were going to go through Sofia on the way back too, but decided that we would rather spend the time in Istanbul. Then, we went to the ATM to get money. Unfortunately, one of the members of our group got her card stuck in the machine so some of us went to get food while the others waited for her. The Turkish food we had was great. I got some Turkish tea and a meat and rice dish. Everything was well seasoned. When we finished eating, we made our way back to the train station.

The host brother of one of the Peace Corps volunteers I was with lives in Turkey. He had agreed to meet us at the train station, so when we got back from eating food, he was there. Our first stop was our hostel in the center of the old part of the city near the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We dropped off our bags and then headed out.

The first place we visited was the Hagia Sophia. We had to wait in line to get in. The whole time we were in Istanbul, there were a lot of people. 

 A view from outside the Hagia Sophia. You can tell that it went from being a church to a mosque.

 Inside the Hagia Sophia. It looks like a orthodox church but has Islamic features.

 In the front of a church is an arch to Gabriel. It is very ornate

 From the upper level you can really get a sense of the size of the building. Notice how small the people are.

 A closer look at the Turkish seals that adorn the walls.

 The dome of the church is very large. I was able to get a better picture from the upper level.

 All around the Hagia Sophia are mosaics. This one is of Mary and baby Jesus.

 Near the one of Mary was another one of Jesus. You can tell that it is orthodox because it is a mosaic and because of the type of circles around their heads.

This shot is a view of the entrance from the top floor. You ca see some of the mosaics on the back wall.

We spent a decent amount of time in the Hagia Sophia. Then we headed to the Cistern. The cistern is a place where water was stored. I don't remember if it is still active. I only took one picture because it was pretty dark inside.

This is picture of a pillar base. The head is upside down and surrounded by water. Water was also dripping from the ceiling. The cistern was interesting, and like in any fountain type thing, there were coins in the water. Our next stop after the cistern was the blue mosque. It was very beautiful inside. We didn't have very long because the afternoon prayer was about to start.

 The blue mosque is called that because of the blue color scheme. The dome follows this scheme.

 View of the many archs in the Mosque. The shot was obscured by some metal work.

The blue mosque is open to the public, but is still an active mosque. You can see people getting ready to pray. We didn't spend long here, partly because it is closed to the public during prayers. We were led from here to the Topkapi Palace.

We enjoyed the blue mosque but then our tour guide brought us to the palace. I took a picture of the entrance but the sun interfered.

Through the entrance was more grounds in front of the palace. I took a picture of one of the walls. I liked how old and medieval it looked.

 The main entrance was very ornate. The yellow symbols on the green backgrounds are the symbols of the ottoman empire. We paid for the entrance fees through the arch.

 I took a picture of the road into the palace. The sun was shining so the picture wasn't very clear.

 Near the end of the palace was the baghdad room. It was very beautiful although I can't remember what they used to do in there.

We walked around the palace for a while. This is just a picture of one of the buildings. The palace was the last place we went before looking for food.

After the palace we went to Taksim square. Taksim square is the main downtown area in Istanbul. It is a little like Times Square in New York. For dinner we found a cafeteria that sold cheap Turkish food. Afterwards, I found a Starbucks and got a coffee mocha. It tasted just like it does in the US. I got my coffee and then we walked down to the Galata tower. Galata tower was used to warn the city about fires. The view from the top is great. We spent some time there and then walk back to the hostel. We spent a little while there and then went to a cafe near by. It was a great, but busy, first day in the city.

12/30/2011: Grand Bazaar and Asia

In the morning we left the hostel with our tour guide. He took us to the grand bazaar. The grand bazaar is the biggest market I have ever seen. The whole thing is covered with arched ceilings. Even if it is cool outside, it is warm in there. It is also very crowded. There are so many stands selling different kinds of things. There are also cafes. I stopped there on other days to get turkish baklava.  After the Grand Bazaar, we walked down some streets to the spice bazaar. There were lot of stands selling all kinds of spices, turkish delights, tea, and dried fruits. We checked it out. All of us planned to come back later. We didn't have a whole lot of time there since we were planning to go to the Asian side of Istanbul that day. So, after the spice bazaar, we took a ferry over to the Asian side. It really didn't look that different, but by going there, I can now say that I have been to every continent with a nation. We also got lunch there.

 We stopped at a place that was selling Turkish fast food. On the left is a typical drink called Aryan. It is kind of like Kefir. On the right is Lahmacun. It is kind of like pizza but without little to no sauce, interesting spices, and meat. It was pretty good. The aryan was drinkable. We also went to a KFC. Afterwards, we went to a mall back on the European side of Istanbul. The person who was leading us around needed to buy something.

 We went to the electronics store first, but this is the center of the mall. It is enormous.

 While we were there we were also able to watch a Chinese performance. It was pretty interesting

Outside of the mall was a pink berry. It was just as good as the ones back in the United States. It was next to a Starbucks. After the mall, we headed back to the main tourist part of town to see if we could go on a Bosporus tour. We couldn't, so we headed back to Taksim to have some fish for dinner. I had a kebab. After that, we headed back to our hostel.

12/31/2011: New Year's Eve

After being guided around for two days, we decided to explore the city on our own. The six of us split off into roughly groups of three. I went with two others to the Archaeology museum. It was pretty much what I expected, but it was interesting nonetheless. I took pictures of some of the things I saw there.


Like most museums, there was an Egyptian section.

There were also statues of different important people from the region.

In the museum they had an exposed mummified skeleton. You could see some hair on the head.

This is a sarcophagus. The decorations on the sides were very interesting.

One of the many floor mosaics on display

This is a byzantine mosaic, I think.

Another statue. I can't remember what area it is from.

Outside of  the main museum was a section of artifacts. I don't really know why they are there.

This head was outside of the main building. It was in the section pictured above. I don't know what it is supposed to represent. After the archaeology museum, the three of us went to find food and then made our way back to the grand bazaar to buy things for ourselves and our families. I collect building figurines from places I travel to so I bought one of those. I also bought something for my host family. The Grand Bazaar is so big we spent two hours there. We then went to the spice bazaar. I bought dried fruit, nuts, Turkish delights, and tea.  We made our way back to the hostel after the Spice Bazaar. We ate dinner there and then went to another hostel to meet up with other volunteers and celebrate New Year's Eve. We could see fireworks behind the Hagia Sophia. It was definitely my best New Year's Eve in a long time. I headed to bed around two in the morning.

1/1/2012: New Year's Day

On New Years Day, I went with some people to a Turkish bath. A taxi took us from our hostel to the Turkish bath place. First you undress in a changing room and they give you a towel. Then, we went to a room with a bunch of marble sinks and a large flat marble platform in the center. They filled the basin with water and we rinsed ourselves for a little while. Then, they called us one by one to the marble platform. They scrubbed us down with a scrubbing glove to exfoliate the skin. We rinsed off after that and then they washed us, and we rinsed again. Then they washed each of our hair one at a time. We then sat in a sauna for 5 minutes and then we came back and rinsed off. The whole thing took about an hour and a half. I felt very clean and had very smooth skin afterwards. It was definitely a great way to start off the New Year.

The Turkish bath was also located in a very different part of town. It was much less touristy than the area we had been in before. The taxi driver that took us back to our hostel spoke very limited English. It was nice to see a more authentically Turkish part of town.

We had Indian food for lunch, and when we got back to the hostel, we relaxed for a little while. I then wandered around a little bit, and made my way to the spice bazaar. I met back at the hostel at 6pm. It was a good, but relaxing day.

1/2/2012: Last Day in Istanbul

By Monday, I had seen most of what I had wanted to see in Istanbul, so I went with a group that was headed somewhere I can't remember. I ended up going to a museum of Islamic sciences and technology. It was a pretty interesting museum. It was divided into different sections. There was one for Astronomy, War, clocks, medicine, Math, physics, and geometry. The museum showed the many different areas of science that Islamic scientists had studied. One of the drawbacks about the museum was that most of what they had was reconstructed, either from an original that was in another museum somewhere, or from descriptions of things from manuscripts. I still enjoyed it though.

Afterwards, I went through the park where the museum was. 

 This is the path outside of the museum.

 There were lions around in the park, but I don't know why.

 There was an interesting fountain in the park. There is Arabic writing on it.

I walked to a place near the water and took a picture of the bridge from Europe to Asia. The water was beautiful. I spent some time in the park and then made my way to the shore. From there, I went on a Bosporus tour. Here are some pictures from it:

The scenery was very beautiful. I wished they had talked about what I was seeing, but it was very relaxing. I took half of the pictures I took in Istanbul while on the tour. Afterwards I went back to the hostel through the spice and Grand Bazaars. At around six we headed upstairs to eat dinner and then made our way to the train station. It was interesting.

 The train that took us to Bucharest was very long. I think part of it went to Sofia though.

 I liked the train station clock. It reminded me of the ones you see in movies.

The restaurant was called the Orient Express. The windows were also really cool.
Here is a picture of our compartment: 

The journey to Bucharest was part one of our journey home. We also had to make our Bucharest-Chisinau train. We almost missed it because our train arrived late. Luckily it left later than it was supposed to. We got to Chisinau the following morning. At four in the afternoon, I caught my bus back to Cotova. It was really nice to get away for a little while. Thanks to everyone who gave me money for the trip.