Savannah is a (I mean in) Turkey

Today (February 17) is our first day in Turkey! This morning we set out to go sightseeing, when we met a guy named Salam, a university student who this summer plans to take his final exams to become a professional tour guide. He offered to take us to the places we wanted to go, so he could practice his English, so we agreed. My first impression on Istanbul is that it is a very beautiful old city with lots of shops and bazaars. Salam told us that there are about 5,000 mosques in Turkey! First we went over and under the two layers of Galata Bridge.  On either side of the bridge there are lines of fishermen with large fishing rods catching teeny tiny fish! On the lower level, there are restaurants and you can see the line hanging down and if you’re lucky you can see someone catch a fish.

View from Galata Tower, Istanbul

After the bridge we went to the Galata Tower, where we went to the top and had a great view of Istanbul including the part that is on the Asian side. For lunch we had really good chicken shwarma. Then we headed to the Suleman mosque. The Suleman mosque was beautiful for its simplicity. There are a lot of tiles, but they are not all over the ceiling and dome and they are not as decorative. The mosque can take up to 10,000 people, and sometimes on Friday is does. Our last stop was the spice market. The spice market had just about everything, like the Souks in Morocco.  Stuff like scarves, t-shirts, lamps, pottery, chess boards, etc. They also had lots of Turkish delight. After that, (at our request) Salam took us to the carpet shop that his uncle owns, where mom and dad looked at some carpets.

Tukish Delight

We are really excited because Auntie Lynn and Uncle Graham get here tonight! Today we went with Salam again and we went to first the Chora Museum, which was a Roman Catholic Church, than a mosque, and now it is a church again. It has a lot of mosaics, but the cool part is that they used pieces that are so teeny tiny that they look like paintings! After that we saw the old city walls that were built by Romans.

Mosaic from Chora Museum

The next stop was the Basilica Cistern that was an underground water storage system also built by the Romans. Now there is barely any water, and its open to the public, and they put some pretty big fish in there. There are also two huge Medusa heads, which they think the Romans took from the Greek.

Cistern in Istanbul

After the cistern, Salam took us back to the carpet shop where they very kindly ordered lunch for us. The lunch was really good because it was what the Turkish people actually eat, not the tourist stuff. The platter they ordered had lettuce, chicken, chicken wings, lamb, rice, meatballs, kofta, bread, beef, and Turkish pizza (like soft pita bread with tomato sauce and peppers). After lunch, we looked at some more carpets, and we finally bought one! It is a really pretty one for our new house.

Savannah & Jackson with our new carpet

After we finished at the carpet shop, we went home and Uncle Graham and Auntie Lynn came! It is really nice to see them. After a little bit, we went back out and got lost in the bazaar for a few hours. The bazaar reminds me of an indoor souk minus the carts, horses, cars, bikes, and donkeys. They sell jewelry, carpets, t-shirts, scarves, really pretty mosaic lamps, chess boards, candy, (mostly Turkish delight) pottery, spices, evil eyes to ward off evil, and much more. For dinner we went to one of the restaurants by the bazaar, where they had this really good bread that when it is baked, blows up like a bubble and gets really crispy on the bottom.

Auntie Lynn & Uncle Graham FINALLY arrive!!!

After dinner, Mom and I went to a Turkish folk dancing show! They had folk dances from different regions all over Turkey. The dances were really amazing and the costumes were beautiful. At the show I met a ten year old girl named Mishna, and we sat together. She lives in Istanbul, and she is learning English in school, so I couldn’t always completely understand her. The show was definitely one of the best parts of Turkey for me and my mom agreed.

Savannah & Mishna at Turkish Dance Night

On our first full day with Auntie Lynn and Uncle Graham we went to the Hagia Sophia/ (in Turkish) Ayas Sofya and the Blue Mosque. The Ayas Sofya was once a Greek Orthodox Church, then it was a mosque, and now it is a museum. It is really old and has a lot of mosaics. The mosaic pieces were just like the ones at Chora, teeny tiny pieces. There are also a lot of paintings. The Blue Mosque was beautiful. It is known for having 22,000 blue tiles in it, and it is covered in paintings. Both of them were beautiful.

Jackson & Savannah outside the Blue Mosque

After the mosques, mom went to the mosaic museum and the rest of us went to a street by the mosque which had a lot of shops on it, and then back. Later, my mom said it was a really nice museum.

The next day we went to the Topkapi Palace. The Topkapi Palace is a beautiful palace where many generations of sultans (hereditary kings of Turkey - but not anymore) lived, and there is also a harem there. A harem is where the many, many (sometimes hundreds!) girlfriends of the sultan lived. Both the palace and the harem were very beautiful. My two favorite parts were the sultan’s costumes, and a room with lots of treasures. The costumes were all of the different dresses from the many sultans over the years. When you start on one side and work your way around the room, you can see how the dresses get fancier and fancier. The treasures were so amazing! Some of them were gifts from foreign countries, some were stolen in the war, and some of them were made for them. They had a few rooms full. They had all sorts of everyday items (to people back then) like canteens, couches, jewelry boxes, decorations for the hair, swords, amour, candle holders, jugs, cutlery, plates and bowls, etc, but everything was encrusted with huge jewels! Giant diamonds, emeralds, rubies, crystals, and every other valuable stones you can think of! Almost everything was made of gold or sometimes silver. Two of the best things were a box full of emeralds, and a 76 carrot emerald!

Paul, Lynn, Graham, Savannah & Jackson outside Topkopi

On our last full day L, we went to a place where all of the Sultans children and other close relatives were buried. There were a few rooms, very ornate inside and out, and in the middle of the rooms were about 9 – 10 coffins. 

We then went to an Archeological museum. At the museum, they had the usual Ancient Egyptian, Rome and Greek mythology, etc. My favorite parts were the life – size Trojan horse that Jackson and I were allowed to climb in, and the mummy in the Ancient Egyptian section.

Savannah & Jackson in the Trojan Hourse at the Archeological Museum, Istanbul

The last thing we did was go to the bazaar, where we just wandered around again. On the way home, we bought some Turkish delight and baklava for the apartment that night. The baklava was made with pistachio,  but they also made walnut and hazelnut, so my mom got to have a piece.  The Turkish delight was rosewater and orange. They were both really good!!

Hazelnut Baklava

I loved Istanbul, and it was AWESOME to see Auntie Lynn and Uncle Graham. I would definitely do it over again!