Without a mat or towel, I get down and dirty on the wooden floor and begin my yoga stretching (I can shower later). As I look up, I see the majestic Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque on the horizon with the pale orange and pink sunrise as a beautiful backdrop. Throughout my 30 minute yoga course, the sun steadily rises higher and the day begins to brighten; this is perfect for my sun salutations! My yoga music consists of seagulls cawing everywhere with the sea only a kilometer away, bringing a warm, refreshing Mediterranean breeze on my face. I think I am going to like it here.
As I finish my morning yoga practice, a fellow hotel guest asks if I can take his picture in front of this dazzling view. I answer yes and learn he is from Iraq originally but currently lives in California. Oh the people you meet when you travel! Meeting people from all different walks of life is one of my favorite parts about traveling. We take a selfie for my "Friends from Around the World" album, enjoy some breakfast and chat, then we say our goodbyes as I join my friends to explore the city.
First we enter the Hagia Sophia, an edifice dating back to 537 AD used for Christian worship but then re-purposed as a mosque after the Turkish conquest in 1453. First-off, this building is HUGE and photos (as most photos of anything, period) do not do it justice. I leap with joy at the plentiful amount of chandeliers there are in here, and my life theme song "Chandelier" by Sia runs through my head throughout our entire visit here. I can't help but be amazed at the giant wooden discs with Arabic displayed all around the walls. This place is nothing short of impressive.
After exploring this historic and very famous mosque, we walk around the courtyard between the Hagia Sophia and make our way towards the Blue Mosque, another world-famous mosque in the Muslim religion that just happens to be right across the way. I turn my head for a moment to take a photo, and turn back to see my friends are nowhere to be found. To make matters worse, none of my friends have cell service without WiFi, so I am on my own to find them (gotta get Sprint or T-Mobile guys, they have free international service included with their plans!) Panicked, I walk up and down the courtyard with overly-friendly men asking me, "do you want to buy some carpet?" and "are you lost?" With thoughts of the movie "Taken" running through my mind, I ignore them and quickly keep walking. After what felt like an eternity but was actually 7 minutes or so, I thankfully spot Nick looking around for me near the fountain. I felt it was only fitting to take a victory pic of being reunited with my traveling fam in front of the gorgeous Hagia Sophia:
We then make our way (again) to the Blue Mosque, where we are required to wear skirts and head wraps to cover ourselves appropriately. This mosque was under construction on the inside, but it was still worth visiting. As this is still an active mosque for religious purposes, we were asked to remove our shoes as we walked around the interior; it was fun to be barefoot in church! I wish that was a common thing in my religion. Women also had their own designated praying area; I don't know if I should rejoice or be repulsed at that feat, but being the optimist I am, I took it as a special compliment.
After exiting the mosque, we ate lunch at the Blue House, a fun restaurant with an amazing view of both the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, and as an added bonus, the sea! It was a prime location with decent food, I must say I enjoyed the view more than the food but that's okay. We continued on to find a very engaging Turkish ice cream vendor who was deliberately teasing the buyer by stealing their ice cream cone after it was in their hand, then smooshing the ice cream scoop into the buyer's face with a long serving stick. Amused, I HAD to try this and put myself victim to his little game. After 4 long minutes of his ice cream withholding routine, I finally got my ice cream. I think it tasted sweeter after earning my scoop from the clutches of the playful ice cream vendor.
Next, we walked around the famous Grand Bazaar. There were shops for miles and miles, with seemingly endless hallways that open up to a whole new network of shops selling everything from clothes, to shoes, to lamps, to jewelry, to spices and Turkish Delight, a gelatin candy sprinkled with powdered sugar (not my favorite). I bought myself a nice pair of handmade Turkish shoes since my flip flops were hurting my feet, not smart to wear those with all the walking we were doing, but oh well.
After I bought my shoes, we checked out this cool jewelry shop. The vendor ended up being super nice and offered us free apple tea, which would become my trip staple drink, it was so delicious. We also found out he was from Afghanistan, so of course I asked him to pose for a selfie so I could add him to my "Friends from Around the World" album.
We bid our farewells to our friend Muret from Afghanistan and continued our journey to the underground cistern. It's amazing that people built this and to see what man is capable of. This served as the city's water source during sieges. I can't help but think of Moria from Lord of the Rings as I view the massive columns all lit up in the dark. There are even people posing as Turkish royalty, it's a good scene all around, even with the cool, damp air.
We then hop into a taxi cab and head over to the giant fortress. We end up missing the tour time by 2 hours as they had closed for the day, which was a bummer, so we walk around the river that separates Europe from Asia within the city. How crazy is that to have a city that sits on two continents?! Correct me if I am wrong but it doesn't seem like that happens every day.
We embark on the hour ride back to our hotel with horrible traffic, and we are all pooped fast asleep in the back seat. After a long day of exploring the city, we grab some delish shawarma and I head up to the roof to enjoy the evening view. Istanbul is a super cool city, rich with history and amazing sites and things to do. I am putting Istanbul on my list of top cities to visit! I highly recommend it.
We retire for the night and prepare for our journey to the next city: Olundeniz, Turkey. Stay tuned for chapter 2!
