For Spring Break, Mark and I decided back in the fall that we would go to Turkey. We originally thought of going over our winter break, but a friend of ours recommended waiting until the spring so we could see all the tulips in bloom. I am so glad that we waited to go until now, the weather was great and the greenery and tulips were beautiful. We were in sensory overload with all of the greenery, as we don't get much here, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Below are pictures to help give you a visual of our trip.
Of course the first thing we do is order food from the place next door...we called it the pizza boat.
I was pretty excited to see so many shwarma places...this guy even let me hold the knife. Needless to say, they had delicious shwarma (domer as the Turks call it) and we ate there several times during our trip.
We stepped it up this trip and still stayed in a hostel, but we had our own room.
View from the roof at our hostel.
First full day in Istanbul -- checked out our first mosque since we've been in the Middle East, a bit surprising we haven't gone to one in Doha yet. This is nick named the blue mosque by many westerners because of the blue tile inside on the walls.
Even men had to cover up if they were wearing shorts...
I needed to borrow a sheet to cover my hair while in the mosque, the rest of my attire was okay.
Quite beautiful inside and enormous
Easter Service - it was amazing to worship with people from all over the world and have different parts be spoken or sung in different languages 00 most of it was in English
Galata Bridge
Turkish Delight -- quite a treat
Alexander the Great
We loved all of the tulips and greenery in the country
typical afternoon snack - mine was a plain piece of bread with sesame and Mark's had nutella
Topkapi Palace
Where the concubines lived
There were signs for people to leave the stroller outside - but these parents apparently thought that meant to leave your kid too. Quite hysterical - poor kid who was abandoned.
Rooftop restaurant to grab some coffee/apple tea, we enjoyed the beautiful views
My handsome hubby and I
Efes beer - Turkey's pride and joy and some delicious food below
Galata Tower at night -- enjoyed the scenery on our long walk home that evening
One of our favorite things we did was go to the Prince's Island
We unfortunately became quite pros at using the squatter potty, but am so glad to be back where it's rare to see these.
The waffles were AMAZING!
Ours were wrapped with a sauce and some fruit - quite delicious
Starting our hike up the mountain and stopped to take a picture infront of the pretty building
Only emergency and sanitation vehicles allowed on the island -- saw tons of carriages and bikes
Stopped to enjoy the view along our hike and to take a breather
We made it to the top! :)
Beautiful views
view+reading/relaxing=wonderful afternoon
Enjoying dinner at sunset with Bernadette and Bonny
Favorite place we visited - the history was fascinating! This used to be a church, then a mosque (which is when they plastered over the faith based mosaics), and now its a museum.
Ordering our afternoon snack from the food vendor
camel back = one of the best things we bring on vacations
Enjoying another rooftop restaurant - - coffee/tea+reading
Enjoying some Efes and the sunset
We were really excited to eat the street food, but it was an uneatable meal. The vendor's version of chicken was really just fatty beef.
We began our journey to walk "off the map" in search of fried ice cream (hours later...we never found the ice cream, but enjoyed some great views and other food along the way)
Traveling the world with my best friend= incredible
yummy meal - all the food was so good!
It was raining the day we flew out -- we spent the afternoon pub hopping and playing games
Playing Checkers bringing back memories of playing as a child with my dad
Efes+Shwarma=typical Istanbul treats
Enjoying some Turkish tea while shopping for Turkish Delight.
Our trip was great and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to travel to new places. I am so lucky to travel the world with my best friend and am soaking it all up. We both loved Turkey and would possibly go again to explore other parts of the country. The history in this country was so fascinating. My favorite thing we did was go to Princes' Island and my favorite place we saw was the Hagia Sophia. Our church service on Easter was another highlight of our trip and was so glad we were able to celebrate JC's resurrection with people from all over the world. We made sure to have many opportunities to relax and soak up where we were and enjoy the beautiful country around us.
We are back to school for another couple of months before our summer travel adventure begins.
Feeling Incredibly Grateful,
Kristin
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