Istanbul was once Constantinople

"City of many many cats"

Istanbul is the first trip that I have gone on in what seems like forever! The past 3 weekends I have spent in Budapest, which isn't a bad thing I have just kind of gotten stir crazy. This trip was kind of like a reunion of Croatia, because it was almost the same group again (we just switched 1 Indian for another and added Stephen G)!! Clearly this is going to be a good weekend and Istanbul is going to be so different than all the places we have been going to lately. 

#1 cool thing about Istanbul and this trip is that we flew in on the Asia side of Istanbul and then took a bus into the main city center (where our airb&b is) and crossed over to the Europe side. So we were in 2 continents in 1 weekend, nbd!! After we dropped all our stuff off at the airb&b, we went out sight seeing. We came across this cute little park and were playing this weird game similar to never have I ever and tag. Then we walked around the city to kind of get a feel for what we wanted to check out the rest of the weekend. We ran into the spice market without even realizing it and all the food and Turkish delight there looked and smelled amazing! Alison and I kept getting hit on hard core by all the Turkish men, we concluded that they aren't used to seeing such pale people around... 

Later at night we went to this Turkish pizza restaurant around the corner from our place and the owner then offered to show us where a good Hookah bar was. It had been such a long day and the Hookah bar was so mellow, that Bani and I kind of fell asleep there... Oops

I was awoken in the morning by the prayers being broad casted from the multiple mosques around the city. That was one way to wake up in the morning. To start our day off we wanted to go and check out the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia; we just walked by them so we could go in them with Steve and Therese once they got here. After grabbing lunch, a gyro of course, Alison and I decided to venture off on our own. We really wanted to go and check out the open air markets and get some much needed shopping done!

I really enjoyed the open air markets. Although we were getting hassled by the owners of the stalls it was still something new. There was so much tea, Turkish delight, pottery, jewelry, and pretty much anything else you could think of. Basically we wanted to buy all of the market. Alison and I actually ran into Steve and Therese at the market! Totally random I know, but after talking with them for a bit Alison and I went to have a tea break (Tea Time)! We found this really cute place for tea and just chilled out for a bit before heading back to the airb&b for dinner. 

Date night

All of us went to dinner and got some really yummy fish. Okay side note, I completely hate eating fish when there is too many little bones in it. It drives me crazy and I almost always choke on the damn bones!! So of course that's how this fish was and I ended up giving most of mine to Jake, because I just couldn't deal with the tiny dumb bones (stupid fish)!! Oooh and just another funny moment during dinner Robert pretended to kiss his fish and then freaked out cause he thought he saw it moving and dropped it on the ground..... I was really too tired to go out tonight and went back with a few others. I honestly forgot how much walking you do on these trips, I don't go anywhere for 3 weekends and I'm out of shape -_-

Next day was filled with a lot of sight seeing! We went inside the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, toured the Cisternas Da Basilica, went to the castle, and more time at the open air markets. The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are both so beautiful, not just on the outside but also inside. This was actually the first time I had ever been inside a Mosque and it was huge!! It is also a place of respect and prayer, not just a tourist attraction. We tried going to the castle, but got there too late (we really did try, we sped walked all the way there)! I really enjoyed the Cisternas, it's an underground water system in Istanbul, which pretty much means a fancy sewer system. It was really cool though, it looked like the Chamber of Secrets from Harry Potter (no joke)! There was even Medusa heads all around the Cisternas!! I was pretty skeptic about the Cisternas and am happy to say that it turned out to be my favorite sight of the day. 

   Alison and I went off again to just explore the city as much as we could and ran into the open air markets again. I feel like everything leads back to those markets, which is good because I really wanted to get some Turkish delight to take back home. Alison and I were obsessed with the white marshmallow and pistachio flavored ones, umm yumm!! I wish we could just bring back these markets to the states, I mean they have everything you could ever need! We ended up getting tea at the same place as yesterday and the server remembered us and gave us complimentary tea! (such a sweetie)!

All of us as a group met back at the airb&b and regrouped for dinner. It's hard to travel in a group of 11 and so we ended up splitting up during the day. During dinner we were all able to catch up on each others day and just hangout. We went back to the Hookah place that we had gone to the first night. It was really chill and a great way to end the trip. 

This has been such an amazing and busy trip. I wish we could have had more time to really get to see more of the city. There was so many interesting things to see and I'm really glad that I went on this trip! To think that I almost didn't go is ridiculous! Until next time--Szia!!