Palaces, Museums, and Baklava!

9/21/11

Day two here in Istanbul!  It's so crazy to think I've only been here for two days, it feels like forever!  I think I fell in love with the city today.  It has a very New York-ish feel to it.  All day today we just walked around the city and went to the tourist attractions which was really interesting.  We started by seeing the Old castle of Constantine and then headed down to the main attractions.

The Cathedral of St Sophia, The Topkapi Palace, The Archaeological Museum of Istanbul, The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and The Blue Mosque.  The first place we really toured was the Topkapi Palace.  It is very unique in its construction compared to many other palaces I have visited in Europe.  Instead of it being just one large grand building it's lots of smaller buildings.  So each room technically is it's own building.  There were many things to see like the clothes they wore and the crown jewels.  One jewel they had there was an 86 karat dimond with 46 1 karat diamonds surrounding it...imagine THAT on your finger!!  The Sultan (their word for king) also had a HUGE bed for his wives and concubines which made us laugh a little...it was bigger than 2 king size beds!

Jerry and I

Madeline, Maddie, Me

Shelby, Shanel, Me, Maddie, Madeline, Dianna

Maddie, Me, Madeline, Carolina

Emily, Me, Maddie

Next we headed to the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul.  It was just rather large museum.

Me and Christina

Me and Maddie

Alexander the Great's tomb

Then we headed to the Blue Mosque which was very very unique.  It is still a practicing Mosque so they require proper attire to enter.  The girls had to have elbow length sleeves and full length pants or dresses with a scarf covering their heads.  It was very interesting and fun.  The Mosque is the only one of its kind to have 6 pillars on the outside which were called minarets.  The Mosque in Mecca used to have 6 but got very angry at the architect when he constructed this Mosque with 6 and then to make the Mosque in Mecca unique they added a 7th minaret.  Most Mosques around the world only have 2 or 4 minarets as well so the Blue Mosque is very large.  The reason it is nicknamed the Blue Mosque is because of the interior which has very blue tiles all throughout.  After the Mosque we headed out for lunch.

Madeline, Me, Shanel

Maddie and Me

It was an interesting one today...a cheese pie with artichokes, a beef in an oil bases sauce with vegetables, and some baklava of course!  After lunch we headed to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality which is basically and underground water system.  If the rainy season it would bring in lots of water and they would store it until the dry seasons and then let the later flow to bring water to the palaces and city.

Medusa's head (sideways so if you look at it you wouldn't turn into stone because myth has it if you look into her eyes you will turn to stone)

While we were underground their was a photographer which would take your picture dressed in Turkish clothing so me, Mike, Shanel, Dianna, and Madeline all took a few pictures together.  It was very fun!

Dianna, Madeline, Mike, Shanel, Me

Dianna, Madeline, Mike, Shanel, Me

Afterwards we headed to the St. Sophia Cathedral.  This Cathedral is one of the largest in the world...and the most expensive building every constructed (25 BILLION!!)  The Cathedral was later turned into a Mosque and then into a museum.  It was very unique and incredible Cathedral.

After a long day, and a lot of walking we headed back to the hotel for dinner, meatballs (turkish style), which followed by a visit from the branch president of the church here in Istanbul.  Which is the man who translated The Book of Mormon from English to Turkish!! It was very fun getting the chance to hear his story.  After a long day you cant imagine how excited i was to head back to my room and sleep!