Turkey: Day 2.

We woke up early (which by the end of the trip, I had actually gotten used to and even still). We headed to the Blue Mosque which is called that because of its thousands of hand-painted tiles that decorate the interior. It was pretty massive. We basically walked in, took a couple of pictures and then walked out. It was a short little jaunt.

After The Blue Mosque, we headed to Topkapi Palace which was where the Sultans lived and it is a massive place. The grounds are huge and there are lots of little buildings throughout. We learned from Uncle Ricky/Stevie lots about it as we went through. We saw the huge famous diamond and lots of other jewels. We were there for forever.

Next up was the Basilica Cistern which was hands down one of the coolest (literally and figuratively) things that we saw. It was a MASSIVE underground cistern that was built like a church. It was so cool. Haha I don’t know how else to describe it.

(I feel like the man on the left gives the picture good scale.)

After that, they finally fed us lunch at 2. A good 8 hours after we had eaten breakfast. Even Brother Harper was complaining about starvation at the Palace. Haha

(After lunch, Nicole was leaving the hotel that we ate at and she saw the Whitlocks. How presh. (I was already in my bus because we were ahead of the game/schedule)).

Once we left lunch, we headed to the Grand Bazaar. It was HUGE. I think they said it was like 60 streets with a big number of shops. Haha I would say a number but I know I would be wrong so just know that there are TONS of shops. It was a little overwhelming. We didn’t end up buying anything; we just took it all in.

After a little confusion about where to meet the buses, a professor getting lost and witnessing a fight between a taxi driver and some other person, we headed to our boat ride! We took a cruise down the Bosphorous which was awesome. I love boats and it was perfect. The temperature was amazing, the sun was setting and the city was gorgeous. Istanbul feels like the Eurpoean/Asian San Francisco. I loved briefly being home. :) Such a cute city.

After the boat, we at dinner at this fish restaurant which was…. Interesting. They gave us a whole fish. Like eyeball and all. And! I ate like half of it because it wasn’t all that fishy tasting. They also had anchovies on the table with our salads and people ate those. Apparently they taste like eating the Pacific Ocean. Haha just really salty. Bleh. Overall though, it was a pretty good dinner. And it was a fun table.

After that, it was bedtime for Bonzo (which apparently is a real thing! My mom used to say that to us all the time and we thought she was making something up: not so! I’ve heard 2 other people here say it and we’ve googled it… it’s a movie!). I went back to the hotel and showered and then facebooked/relaxed for the rest of the night. :)