"This mosque smells like feet"

I just want to start off by saying the title for this post is in no way meant to be irreverent or disrespectful... the mosque was beautiful to look at and a cool thing to experience, but as we all noted - there was a distinct smell of feet. But I'll get to that later.

People started trickling into the hotel yesterday right as I woke up, which was around 11:00 AM. Luckily, the first person to get here in the morning was Jeremy, so I didn't have to hang around awkwardly by myself trying to make small talk while people get settled... there's plenty of time to exercise my small talk skills at other times. So Jeremy and I started to walk around the city a little, and ended up walking all over. Unfortunately I forgot my camera in the room for that excursion, but there was so much cool stuff. We had bagel sandwiches for lunch (the bagels are different here though, so... yeah) and walked around some more. We ended up walking through the extremely busy part of town where all of the businesses and shops are... I was amazed at how many American stores there are here. Honestly, on the main street we walked down, there were 4 Starbucks. On one street. Because that's necessary. Also, we did get a lot of looks, because clearly we were American. And Jeremy was wearing his US Postal Service Shirt, which probably didn't help us look inconspicuous. This one guy was insistent on giving us a tour, and ended up giving us a "tour" to his shop where he and his "cousin" attempted to sell us a $150 tiny rug. And then we had a knife fight.


The main street on our side of town.

So dinner ended up being a lot of fun... once everybody got in we walked down to the restaurant in the part of town Jeremy and I had spent a lot of time. We got to sit upstairs, and it was pretty fun... I liked the people sitting at my table, and it was the birthday of the girl sitting across from me, so all the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to her in Turkish and our table got to eat the awesome cake that came with it. Everyone else was jealous of us. But let's be honest, that was the case before the cake too. The rest of the food was good - I seemed to get pictures of things that look gross but tasted good. I'll get better food pictures soon Mom, I swear.


A picked over plate of appetizer food. Tasty, right?


The birthday girl and her surprisingly awesome Turkish cake. You're just as jealous as everyone else... I can tell.


The other side of my table.


The cool side.

So anyways, the rest of the night was fine... most people went to bed, but there was a small party on the other side of my floor. I tried to sleep, but sound apparently travels well enough for it to sound like they were on top of my bed. And then my roommate (the one I don't know) clearly wanted to make a terrible first impression, so he decided to come in the room at 2:45 AM and drunkenly skype with literally every member of his family for an hour. So I got to listen to that. Then the other roommate came in and immediately started snoring in a way that i can only describe as "raping my ears." So all in all, a good night's sleep.

Today was amazing... there are two distinct parts of Istanbul - the new side, centered around Taksim square, and the old side. We're staying on the new side where the majority of the population lives, but we spent all of today with a tour guide on the historic part of town, across the bridge. Fun fact: Istanbul is the largest European city with about 12 million residents... who knew? Also, being in a place like this really makes you realized what an infant of a nation the US is. I mean, you know it, but it's different when you are standing in front of a structure that was built in 15 BC by the Egyptians and sent to Istanbul when they were both under the Roman Empire. Crazy.

So we visited four places in the old side of town... the Topkapi Palace, the Church/ Mosque of St. Sophia, the Hippodrome, and the Blue Mosque. I'm sure I've already forgotten some of the details from the tour, but I'll try to do my best. Deal with it.


A view of the city from the bus.

The Topkapi Palace was beautiful... it's a museum now, but it's where all of the sultans throughout Turkey's history have lived. It actually used to be considered it's own mini - city, with 4800 residents that either belonged to the court or worked for it. It's a sprawling complex, with dozens of courtyards and cool stuff. The 4th biggest diamond in the world is there, among a bunch of other artifacts that were kept in the Sultan's treasury. Just walking around was really cool, and there was an amazing view of the Bosphorus Sea, which is apparently considered the most important sea in the world, strategically speaking. Russia likes to think they own it, but Turkey knows what's up. They have immediate control, seeing as it surrounds almost all of it. Anyways.


The view of the Bosphorus from the Sultan's terrace. I like to call it "My new bedroom."

Next was the Church of St. Sophia. It was commissioned in 532 AD by the Byzantine emperor Justinian... You know, the guy who the word "justice" comes from. It was really old really cool, and had a lot of awesome mosaics that the muslims had covered up with plaster but some of which have now been reexposed. It started off as a Christian Orthodox Church, hung out for about 900 years, was converted into a mosque, and now is just a museum type thing. The work on the walls is incredible.... if you want more details, that's what Wikipedia is for.


Oh hey mosaic Jesus made out of Gold. An oldie, but a goodie.


Next we ate lunch. Standard Turkish fare... it was pretty good though. Baklava = good.

Then to the Hippodrome, where the romans held horse races in like the 300s. About 1400 years before the founding of our country. Give or take. It's a nice courtyard area now, and that's where the giant Obelisk resides, next to the imitation obelisk some turks built later. It's way less cool. The main one is made out of pink granite, and was erected in 1400 BC by the Egyptians and sent over once Istanbul became capital of the Eastern Roman empire. Crazy.


SO OLD. And look, hieroglyphics! Clearly, "Eagle Hawk Eyeball Mosquito Staff" means "Stewart is Awesome." They even knew back then.

Finally, we went to the Blue Mosque, the largest operating mosque in Turkey. It is also the only Mosque in the world to have six towers around it, because the sultan who commissioned it was an egotistical 14 year old. But then again, if i could have commissioned a giant church when I was 14, I'm not sure I wouldn't have done the same thing. It was pretty cool because the guide told us all about Islam, which I was embarrassingly ignorant about... but now I know. You have to take your shoes off to go into the mosque, so clearly the smell of feet was afoot - not to mention the sheets some girls had to wear to cover their arms and legs smelled like a mixture of BO, feet, moth balls, and decay. Mmmmm. It was a beautiful building though, and again - the attention to detail in all of the tiles is incredible.

So now we are back at the hotel and have the rest of the day off... I'm about to take a nap and then shower before we meet up with some people for dinner at 7:15. Our group was split into two for the touring today, and I think about half of us are going to dinner together - I can already tell a lot of the people I'm going to get along with, which is cool - and the people we expected to be tools kind of met our expectations, so... no loss, i guess. But all in all, I like everybody I've hung out with so far. And that's a good sign.

Haha again, that was crazy long... If you made it this far, I'm impressed. Again, thanks for reading! I miss all of you, and will keep you posted!