Istanbul!

Today is the first day in Istanbul, Turkey! So crazy! Kristi and I had a city orientation today and to make this blog a little easier for me to write I copied and pasted the trip description and im going to add to it my own tidbits as I go.. so here it goes..

“Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul are names that conjure up images of a great city’s past: Byzantium, the city founded by Mergarian colonizers 2,600 years ago; Constantinople, built on seven hills by the Emperor Constantine; and Istanbul, the city that links Europe and Asia and the fabulous capital of the Ottoman sultans. Istanbul is not only a city with a colorful past, but also a bustling modern-day city full of life and activity. During this orientation to the city, view some of the most significant historical and cultural sites in Istanbul.

Drive through the streets of ancient Pera (Latin Quarter) and Taksim Square. Then cross the Golden Horn over the Ataturk Bridge to the old town. View the city walls dating back to the fourth century, which were destroyed during the conquest in 1453, and the Roman Aqueduct of Valens from the second century. “

So far all of this was a driving tour which was A-OK with me.  The city walls are the longest city walls in the world at 20 miles long and had a unique set up.. there was not just one wall but two.. one on the outside then an inside wall for a backup/ extra protection, the guide said they were impossible to cross or defeat. Go turkey!

Okay next we:

“Tour the Sehzade Mosque, which was designed by architect Mimar Sinan. As chief architect of the palace, Sinan designed more than 360 structures. The Sehzade Mosque represents his mature style and the first grand mosque he created.”
 
 This mosque was super cool and the first mosque I’ve ever been to, even though many groups and classes in bg take trips to the mosque on 75.. my first mosque experience though I would say is way cooler and more authentic ;)  so we had to take off our shoes to enter of course and then the inside was just beautiful. One thing that bothered me a little was how the people pray.. I understand that men and women in the culture are separated for things and that they are separated for praying… what I disliked was that women are given this small area in the back of the mosque that is fenced off essentially from the rest of the mosque and the men get to pray in the whole wide open beautiful area.. just not fair.. I didn’t like it.. then also they have special carpets in the mosques that have lines on them so that you know to stand on the line in order to give enough space between you and the person in front of you if you wish to kneel down on the ground.

After this first stop we took time to enjoy our wonderfully delightfully disgusting box lunches from the ship.. yum.. it started to rain!!!! This is the first rain we have seen since leaving! It was pretty exciting and it felt good but Kristi and I opted to eat on  the bus.. side note its supposed to only be in the 80’s the whole time we are here which is like unheard of for this time of year and just really lucky for us.. our guide told us today that it was really unusual for the locals that it was raining this afternoon because that doesn’t happen at this time of year!

“Drive by the Hippodrome and view the Serpentine Column and the Theodosius Column, both of which were brought from Egypt in the fourth century.” We did this after the blue mosque so this is out of order and we walked by them not drove.. it was cool to see the serpentine column which was originally in Egypt and some Turkish leader had it removed from their and brought to turkey.. it originally was three serpants that winded up together with three heads at the top but the heads are no longer there..

“Next, visit the Blue Mosque with its unique configuration of six minarets and bluetiled interior.” This mosque was much bigger than the first and had lots of colored tiles and was really pretty there were a lot of people here though.. the first mosque we went to isn’t one that is usually visited by tourist but the blue mosque is and I think that largely has to do with the fact that it is less than a ten minute walk to our next destination.. the Hagia Sophia.

“ Conclude your orientation with a visit to Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Cistern.”

The Hagia Sophia was originally built as a greek orthodox church. It was burned down, rebuilt and burned down again and then rebuilt to its current being of stone where it still stands today.. when the ottomans invaded and took over turkey they converted the church into a mosque.  To enter the building there is a hall that has 5 doors to represent the 5 senses of people.. then that opens into another hall that has 9 doors of varying sizes. The largest in the middle was for the emperor and then the next largest for all the other head honchos and then another smaller doors for all the other regular people.   All the mosaics that once existed on the ceilings in the main area of the church were covered in plaster and that was then painted in the designs.. no mosque has any religious figures in it, no paintings, statues or anything, its part of the religion.. so when it was converted all of these had to be covered.. they have enough respect for other religions to not completely tear down their original beings and think that covering them is the more respectful way to go.. well they left one mosaic at the front uncovered of mary and joseph. There are 4 angels on the ceiling whose faces were covered by wood and only recently has one of the faces been uncovered to show the real mosaic that it is… 

After the Hagia Sophia we headed to the Cistern which was really cool too.. it is underground! The romans had the aqueducts that were built around the city lead into one of 20 cisterns in the city.. we got to go down in the one and they created sidewalks in it so that you could walk around it.. they had used old columns that had been taken from all sorts of Roman places and used them to build the cisterns so that was kinda cool to look at too.. I can better describe this in person.. if you really care to know ask me about it when im back.. those of you who will get to sit through hours of me going through pictures and stories aka (family, sean, mindy) ill explain it to you then..

After the cistern we headed back to the ship had dinner on the ship and then rested.. kristi, Christina, Jackie and I were supposed to go out for desserts but I wasn’t feeling to good, so I stayed behind… and that concludes my day today..

Other cool facts:
-       There are over 2000 mosques in Istanbul, 200 greek orthodox churches and a some synagogues
-       I learned this from sean before coming here but, Istanbul is the ONLY city in the world that is on 2 continents; europe and asia.. we are going to try to go to the asia side one night to get dinner or something so that we can say we’ve been to asia =)

i think that's it.. tomorrow i think im staying on the ship for most of the morning and afternoon kristi and everyone else have other trips.. and im not going out alone! i need time to work on my spanish stuff though so hopefully ill get some work on that down.. at night i have a trip to a sufi dervish ceremony that im excited about!