Today, I walked around one of my new favorite cities ever. Istanbul, Turkey. World, did you know what a great secret turkey is? Why have you been keeping this from me? What with all your Byzantine history and Roman ruins. Muslim culture, great baklava, nicest people ever... Why did no one tell me?
We went to the hippodrome. ( i can never decide if i want to pronounce this hiPODromee or HIppodromm) and then to the blues mosque. The blue mosque isn't officially called the blue mosque, that's just what it is known as by the tourists because of all the blue tile in it. The dome ceilings are so cool. apparently, they aren't just a characteristic of mosques like i thought. I had fun sketching them along with the towering minarets. Theses minarets and domes are on so many of the buildings. they just dot the hillsides. It makes the landscape look very "disneylandish."
After the blue mosque we went to the Topkapi palace. It had gorgeous gardens with these huge, hollow sycamores. I like tress and these were cool looking. The palace was basically a museum. It used to be the capitol and residence of the rulers of Istanbul/Constantinople. There were exhibits of ancient Turkish royalties wardrobes. The men wore dresses. ha. The refreshingly ever-reverent Huntsman (aka, my New Testament Professor) explained that the more cloth and material they had wrapped around their body, the richer a person was supposed to be. We looked at the treasury museum. Oh golly, there were some beautiful gems there. Among which was a 86 carat diamond called the spoon makers diamond. Do you have any idea how huge 86 carats is, because i didn't until i saw it. if you were to put that thing in a ring on my finger, with the center of the circular diamond on my ring finger, the radius would encompass all of my pinkie up to the nail and would go to the middle of my hand. That's huge! We joked that when us girls got married we would tell our fiancee that we only needed one diamond on our ring, and it wouldn't be as big as 86 carats. just 85.
At one part of the museum, i started sketching a curved knife. We couldn't take pictures but i really like the way this knife looked. an old Turkish man came up and watched me. He was pointing at the drawing and himself. I could tell he wanted it, but i had other drawings on the other side. So i flipped the page and drew it again and tore it out for him. He took my pencil and wrote down the description on the display in Turkish. The he gave me a huge smile and touched his lips and blew a kiss at me. It made me grin.I was really faltered he liked my drawing so much.
We then went to the basilica cistern which was a huge underground man made cavern from the time of the byzantine empire where they stored water. there were rows and rows of columns. and fish swimming around in the shallow water. The lighting was really interesting. and there was eerie music playing which set a creepy mood. Water dripped from the ceiling and it smelled dank and dark. I loved it. But it was really hard to figure out how to draw because of the lighting.
Then we went to lunch and at yummy food and then the grand bazar which was basically like the very first and oldest indoor mall. Bought some stuff. goofed off and made friends with happy turks.
Ferry ride on the Bosporus straight! loved it! the sun set behind us and the mosques on the hill. i didn't realize that i would be able so see asia on one shore and europe on the other. that was kind of cool to think about. I was freezing cold and ended up borrowing various additional layers from multiple kind people.
Then we at dinner. Good stuff. Then our tour guide Fati took a handful of us out into the city (at night) and to a world famous baklava shop. it was super good. They had a tray of baklava that was made to look like Obama. It was really impressive. and it tasted good too.
we rode the tram back to our hotel and called it a night.
Hooray for Istanbul!
We went to the hippodrome. ( i can never decide if i want to pronounce this hiPODromee or HIppodromm) and then to the blues mosque. The blue mosque isn't officially called the blue mosque, that's just what it is known as by the tourists because of all the blue tile in it. The dome ceilings are so cool. apparently, they aren't just a characteristic of mosques like i thought. I had fun sketching them along with the towering minarets. Theses minarets and domes are on so many of the buildings. they just dot the hillsides. It makes the landscape look very "disneylandish."
After the blue mosque we went to the Topkapi palace. It had gorgeous gardens with these huge, hollow sycamores. I like tress and these were cool looking. The palace was basically a museum. It used to be the capitol and residence of the rulers of Istanbul/Constantinople. There were exhibits of ancient Turkish royalties wardrobes. The men wore dresses. ha. The refreshingly ever-reverent Huntsman (aka, my New Testament Professor) explained that the more cloth and material they had wrapped around their body, the richer a person was supposed to be. We looked at the treasury museum. Oh golly, there were some beautiful gems there. Among which was a 86 carat diamond called the spoon makers diamond. Do you have any idea how huge 86 carats is, because i didn't until i saw it. if you were to put that thing in a ring on my finger, with the center of the circular diamond on my ring finger, the radius would encompass all of my pinkie up to the nail and would go to the middle of my hand. That's huge! We joked that when us girls got married we would tell our fiancee that we only needed one diamond on our ring, and it wouldn't be as big as 86 carats. just 85.
At one part of the museum, i started sketching a curved knife. We couldn't take pictures but i really like the way this knife looked. an old Turkish man came up and watched me. He was pointing at the drawing and himself. I could tell he wanted it, but i had other drawings on the other side. So i flipped the page and drew it again and tore it out for him. He took my pencil and wrote down the description on the display in Turkish. The he gave me a huge smile and touched his lips and blew a kiss at me. It made me grin.I was really faltered he liked my drawing so much.
We then went to the basilica cistern which was a huge underground man made cavern from the time of the byzantine empire where they stored water. there were rows and rows of columns. and fish swimming around in the shallow water. The lighting was really interesting. and there was eerie music playing which set a creepy mood. Water dripped from the ceiling and it smelled dank and dark. I loved it. But it was really hard to figure out how to draw because of the lighting.
Then we went to lunch and at yummy food and then the grand bazar which was basically like the very first and oldest indoor mall. Bought some stuff. goofed off and made friends with happy turks.
Ferry ride on the Bosporus straight! loved it! the sun set behind us and the mosques on the hill. i didn't realize that i would be able so see asia on one shore and europe on the other. that was kind of cool to think about. I was freezing cold and ended up borrowing various additional layers from multiple kind people.
Then we at dinner. Good stuff. Then our tour guide Fati took a handful of us out into the city (at night) and to a world famous baklava shop. it was super good. They had a tray of baklava that was made to look like Obama. It was really impressive. and it tasted good too.
we rode the tram back to our hotel and called it a night.
Hooray for Istanbul!
