The entire WSU study abroad group left Thursday night for a 4 day adventure in Turkey. We took the train from Brig to the Geneva airport around 9am and met Dave Sprott, the Associate Dean of Students for the College of Business (and our chaperone for the trip), at the airport. I love airports and plane rides because something interesting always happens! When we were going through security this little boy was balling because he didn't want the security guy to put his bag through the scanner. At one point he said "I don't like him!" It was actually quite adorable.
Our plane ride to Istanbul was not very full, so I found a row of seats to myself so I could sprawl out and relax. I loved the plane ride because honestly, Turkish Airlines has the best in flight meal I've ever had on an airplane.
After landing in Istanbul we had to purchase Visas and then get through customs, which didn't take too long, but it was just another waiting process for the trip. That's the one thing that sucks about traveling. You're always having to wait to get where you want to go. Finally after making it through all the checkpoints we found our travel agent and headed to our hotel! Once we got to our hotel we broke off into our rooms (I shared one with Maddie and Filsan) and then met again in the lobby to head to find an ATM and a place to grab some dinner.
Our hotel was in an amazing location! Right on the Hippodrome, which is the famous square in Istanbul. So we were pretty central located in the city. Plus it was easy to figure out where our hotel was in case we were to get lost. Our travel agent took us to a traditional Turkish restaurant and we enjoyed our first taste of Turkish cuisine!
After we ate dinner we wanted to find a hookah bar, and luckily there was one connected to the restaurant! So we head over there and ordered to hookahs for the group. One thing that was nice is that everyone got there own mouth piece, so no sharing germs!
The next day was an early day, we had to meet in the lobby by 9am to start our tour of Istanbul. The weather was A LOT colder than we all expected, it had snowed just the day before! Since we were so close to everything we didn't have to start out walking too far. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, but sometimes it seemed like he talked to much about everything.
First he told us about the Hippodrome and it's significance.
Then he took us to the Blue Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world, and one of the most famous sites in Istanbul. When you go inside a mosque you have to take off your shoes and women are requested to wear a head scarf.
After the Blue Mosque we headed over to the Hagia Sophia. What I really liked about this place was that it went from being a church to a mosque, and now is a museum, but you can see that there were still images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary after it became a mosque. I liked the aspect of respect with not painting over our tearing down the images.
We were freezing cold at this point and ready to be inside, so we headed to lunch early. Surprisingly we were scheduled to have lunch at the same place we had dinner the night before! But the food was good, so no one complained. After lunch we headed to the Sultan's Palace, which I was super excited about! I just like it all because I was a Sultan Turk, no big deal :)
We headed over to one last mosque, Suleymaniye Mosque. When we arrived the call to prayer had just begun, and usually they don't let tourists go inside for it, but they let us go! It was so neat to get to experience a real call to prayer in a mosque in Istanbul! The ritual is very interesting to me, religion and different religious practices are very fascinating to me, so getting to experience this Islamic tradition first hand so amazing.
Once the call to prayer was over, we left the mosque and headed to the Grand Bazaar! The place was huge, but it wasn't as spectacular as I thought it was going to be. It was just a ton of knick-knacks, knock off designer items, scarves, jewelry, etc. All things that I wasn't really looking to buy. But it was fun to experience! Especially all the heckling and listening to what people would say to try to get us to buy something.
After sometime in the bazaar we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go to a seafood restaurant for dinner. The dinner was really good, a had a filet of sea bass, which I very much enjoyed. I'm glad I asked for it fileted though because if not it would have come whole. Gross. After dinner we went back to the hotel and went up to the terrace to hang out and play some Catchphrase, always an entertaining game. Then we headed to the hookah bar that we went to the night before, but got there sort of late so we were only able to be there for about 45 minutes. It was still fun regardless.
The next day was sort of a free day, so we decided to all meet in the lobby at 11am to head to the pier to catch a boat to the Asian part of Istanbul! I was so so so excited to get to go to another continent! Yay, now I've been to three!
We didn't spend to much time in Asia, we just grabbed some lunch and then headed back. We pretty much just wanted to say that we've been to Asia! Haha
After our Asian adventure we decided to split up, all the boys wanted to go back to the Grand Bazaar to buy stuff, but Maddie, Filsan, Dave Sprott, and I wanted to head to the Spice Bazaar instead. I have to say that I very much enjoyed this bazaar, better than the Grand Bazaar actually. It seemed more local, not as touristy. I like experiencing cultural things like that. There were so many bulk spices and teas! It smelled so yummy in there.
Just outside the Spice Bazaar there was an animal/garden type bazaar. They were selling puppies, bunnies, birds, pet foods, plants, seeds, and even leeches (EWWWWW).
We decided to stop at a cafe outside the bazaar to grab something to drink and to get a hookah. It was nice to just sit outside, relax, smoke hookah, and people watch. So many vendors came up to else to sell things, once they saw that we bought something from one guy, the rest just started filing in. It started to get cold, so we decided to move on to the hookah bar we had been to the last two nights, since it was inside. It was really relaxing to just sit down after two long days of being a tourist.
That night we went to a traditional Turkish dinner and show. They served us a four course meal while we watching Turkish folk dancing and belly dancing. I enjoyed the folk dancing a lot more because it had a lot of culture in it, but the belly dancing made me feel like I was at a strip club. I've seen belly dancing before, and even taken a class, and these woman just seemed really gross and distasteful. My favorite part was when two guys dressed up as "muppets" and did a dance. It was seriously so funny. We were all laughing so hard that Maddie even lost her voice.
The next day was straight to the airport in the morning to head back to Brig. We had to go through so many lines to get to our plane, and we thought all the boys were going to be late! But they weren't, luckily, and we all made it on to the plane safely.
Overall it was an amazing trip! Such a wonderful experience. I'm so happy that we got to go to Istanbul. Even though I was bummed out that we didn't get to go to Cairo, Egypt...Istanbul was an excellent alternative!
As always, many more pictures on my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=334689&id=672975663&l=3a0059680f
-Love-
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