Istanbul….oh Istanbul….I love you, Istanbul!!
We woke up to a big breakfast Saturday morning. Damla and her parents had a wedding to attend
that afternoon so we spent a lazy morning, hanging out with the family. Around 1 or 2 we all left the house, Suha and
I headed downhill on foot toward the wharf.
There were tons of cute shops and restaurants but we were on a
mission. Suha had an agenda and I was
blissfully in the dark. We watched a kid
catch a fish while waiting for our first ferry.
Took that ferry to another wharf and switched to another ferry that went
to the European side. He said we could
have taken a minibus but he knew I loved water and seeing the city from the sea
was much more exciting than sitting in traffic!
He is right J We landed and disembarked into the largest
sea of people I have only ever seen once on a Rome subway platform! It was all we could do to keep together. We dove in and literally swam our way through
to the spice market where I was overwhelmed by the sights and smells and
stopped a couple of times just because I couldn't handle all the stimulus
coming in all at once; being jostled from every angle, lights and sparkles,
spice scents, yells from the patrons clamoring for your business. Suha wanted to hurry and we did as much as we
could. Once out of the initial hall the
side streets went on and on for miles, shop keeper upon shop keeper, all with
the same wares. I bought a pair of traditional
Turkish silk slippers to go with my traditional Turkish bridesmaid dress for
Carrie’s wedding. YAY!! We finally made it to a main street that had
a street car and boarded for the trip up the hill to Mavi Cami!!
There was a line to get into the cami because they had to
make sure all the tourists were dressed appropriately, I was of course so we
went in and “Allah Allah!” It is
BEAUTIFUL!!! Cok cok guzel!! You can’t help but walk around with your eyes
staring up at the ceiling…(every one is doing this and bumping into each other…) There are prayers going on while all the
tourists are taking pictures and gawking.
You can’t help but gawk.
Seriously. How does anyone pray
here. You can’t even stop
staring!!! I could have sat there and
stared for an hour, but we had to move on.
Suha had more tricks up his sleeve so we exited and made our way through
a beautiful garden to the AyaSofya (sound like eye of Sophia) – HagaSofia. We went the wrong way and ended up at the
exit. Asking where the entrance was she
said it was on the opposite side AND we had ten minutes to get in before they
closed!! I've never seen Suha run before
but we made it in!! I am SO glad we
did!! It was a Roman Catholic Cathedral
that was turned into a Mosque and is now a museum with relics from both pasted
one on top of the other. Some were out
of reach so untouched by the change.
Other parts were partially destroyed to take out the religious meaning,
even others were integrated into a new design to become part of the new users
design. Half the time you can’t tell
which came first the cathedral or the mosque.
It was a beautiful juxtaposition of history and cultures coming together
morphing and changing with the times. I
wish we had more time but it is being renovated and some of the old relics are
being restored and will be re-positioned on the walls at a later date so that is
just one more reason to come back!!
We were the last people out of the doors and walked out into
the park as it was getting dusky. Suha
really wanted to be back on the boat before dark. But he took the time to buy me some fresh hot
chestnuts from a cart to munch on on the way back. We hopped on the train and were on the boat by
dark and floated across the straight to the city lights. It really was surreal. The bosphorus bridge was all lit up and
changed colors every 45 seconds or so.
We made our way back to the first ferry port and Suha started looking
for a bus. There was a line of course
and it wasn't moving because the cars on the road weren't moving. We called Damla and they were stuck in
traffic too back at Golden Horn, where we had just came from. Suha started looking for a taxi or other
solution when I piped up, why don’t we just take the ferry we took here this
morning? He said, “OH! Are you smart or what?? I am so used to taking mini bus from when I
lived here!” We laughed and ran to the
gate just in time to walk on a ferry (they come once every hour!) – it was
providential!!
We arrived home just after Damla and her family, we all sat
down to dinner and then crashed. It had
been a long day for all of us.
BUT IT WAS AWESOME!!!
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