Istanbul??

And then we went to Istanbul.  You know, in Turkey.

First of all, I would like to say, I was against going to Istanbul from the start.  Mitch was the one that wanted to go there.  (He's always the more adventurous one.)  I tried to talk him into seeing more of Italy or some of Spain instead, but he insisted he'd always wanted to go to Istanbul.  (Funny, he'd never mentioned it before...)  And, since I got to choose London and Paris and we both wanted to go to Switzerland, Mitch chose Rome and Istanbul as his two cities. 

So.

We went to Istanbul.  (Who goes to Istanbul???)

And we loved it.

Both of us.  

It was maybe our favorite city of our whole trip.

It was just so different than the rest of the cities/countries that we saw.  So... Turkish. 

We flew in on Wednesday night and I'll be honest, I was a little (okay, a lot) nervous about the flight there and going through customs, getting to our hotel, etc.  Turkish Airlines?  And buses from the airplane to the terminals/customs?  And the words on their signs don't look like our words.  And it was late at night.  And we couldn't really tell where we were going (/we didn't exactly know where we were going).  My imagination can be very active.

Well, 1.  Turkish Airlines is fantastic.  2.  The buses from the runway got us there.  3.  They actually speak tons of English.  4.  Somehow we got to our hotel.  5.  And it was okay even though it was a Turkish hotel.  (I wanted to stay in an American hotel and Mitch wanted to stay in the Turkish one with good reviews.)  Our hotel even left Turkish Delight on our bed for us!  (Mitch liked it.  I liked the idea of it, but I didn't want to try it.  Don't worry, I eventually did on our last day when the guy at the baklava store made me.  I thought it was just okay.)

The first morning there, we went to Topkapi Palace.  On our way there, we passed a store with two cats.  I like cats.  And one let me pet it.  (The other was asleep inside.)  Then, as we were walking, we passed a kitten and a mama cat!  And then, at Topkapi Palace, there were more cats.

And that's when I decided I liked Istanbul.

Topkapi Palace was neat.  I really liked their treasure vaults.  They have a lot of really, really old jewels.

Interesting fact:  Part of Istanbul is in Europe and part of Istanbul is in Asia.  We were staying on the Europe side and from Topkapi Palace, you can see the Asian side across the Bosphorus. 

I loved the architecture and colorful tiles.

Those are all parts of the palace.  

After that, we went to the Hagia Sophia.  It's a mosque turned museum.

This picture is actually from a different day, but it is the best one we have outside Hagia Sophia.

This picture is actually from a different day, but it is the best one we have outside Hagia Sophia.

After that we went to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar.  I don't have any pictures of that, but it's essentially a big area with a bunch of shops and vendors selling all kinds of things (and a lot of spices).  My favorite vendor was the guy with the fresh squeezed orange juice.  Also, on the way to the Spice Bazaar, there are a lot more cats.  (I stopped counting when I got to twenty-five.  In ONE day!)

That night, after the Spice Bazaar, we ate at a Turkish restaurant.  We don't exactly know what we ordered, but we asked what their best dish was and ordered it for two.  It ended up being the best thing we ate our entire trip.  The best.  Hands down.  (And!  The middle part was on fire when they brought it out!)

It was delicious.  Absolutely delicious.

The next morning, Mitch and I went to a hamam.  A hamam is a Turkish bath house.  We don't have any pictures of that either (obviously).  Basically, at the bath house you sit in a really, really, really, really hot room and you sweat more than you've ever sweat before in your life and it's so hot that you can barely breathe.  (At least, that's how I felt.)  You really can't do more than sit/lay on the marble because it's so hot.  You have to sit for like... forty minutes or something and it feels like... twelve hours.  (At least, it did to me.)  I guess the idea is that you sweat out all of your impurities or something.  Mitch liked it!    

Then, when you think you're about to die, the Turkish bath guys come in, lather you up a bunch, and wash you off with cool water that feels like heaven.  There's a little bit of a massage in there, but not like a normal massage.  It's more of a bath.  That's a really basic summary of the bath house.  After the bath, you sit in a sauna like room that feels actually really cool after coming out of the bath house part.  It was... an experience.  (Also, now Mitch and I have a point of reference for things.  If I go up to the attic and say, "Our attic is as hot as the hamam," Mitch knows how hot it really is in our attic.)

After the hamam, we went back to the hotel to shower and change.  (Funny that I felt like I needed to shower after the hamam.)  Then we went to the Basilica Cistern.

 It's hard to get pictures underground, but this is one of Medusa's heads.

And after the Basilica, we went to the Blue Mosque.

 Like I said, everything in Istanbul is completely different than the rest of Europe.

And after the Mosque, we went to the Grand Bazaar.  Except, on the way there, we had to stop to see a bunch more cats.  I started taking pictures of them.  They're just everywhere!

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in one of the parks to let me pet a bunch of the kitties.

It was the most interesting thing to me!  There were just cats everywhere.  And they were (mostly) friendly!  I ended up Googling it later and I guess a long, long time ago, Istanbul had a problem with mice, so they got cats.  And the mice problem was dealt with, but then they had a cat problem.  But I guess that the people in Istanbul just tolerate the cats.  Supposedly it's a partially a Muslim thing.  I read that there's a saying that's something like, "If you've killed a cat, you need to build a mosque to be forgiven by God."  People even leave little piles of food and things of water out for them.  And they pet them.  I loved it.

Anyway, so I pet a bunch of the park cats (bless Mitch's heart for waiting so patiently) and then I found--

 KITTENS!

So, then Mitch had to wait longer.  He got his shoes shined while he waited.

Best city ever.

The next day we basically just woke up, bought more baklava, and went to the airport.  If we had known how much we would like Istanbul, we definitely would had stayed longer.  We should go back.

From Istanbul we flew back to New York and then back to Salt Lake City.  The international flight wasn't quite as nice, but we made it.  And that was the end of that trip.

The End.