A Week in Not-Constantinople

Four friends and I spent our senior spring break in Istanbul!

First view of Istanbul from the sky was already beautiful!

The easiest thing to describe is probably the sightseeing we did.  Beforehand I'd only done some very brief internet searches for what to do in Istanbul, so I hardly knew what the big sights were until I saw them.  Once we dropped off our luggage at our hostel, the first thing we did was take a walk along the coast.

Our hostel was about a two-minute walk away from the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, which was quite convenient, both for visiting them and for finding our way back home.

Hagia Sophia during the day

...and at night

Inside Hagia

In the courtyard of the Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque interior

I felt an incredible sense of awe inside the Blue Mosque when we visited on our first full day.  From then on, there was something about the hearing the daily calls to prayer, something about stepping inside a mosque and just sitting, that made me really happy.

Inside a second mosque

Some of the other things we saw were Galata Tower and Galata Bridge, the spice market and grand bazaar, the constant stream of people through Taksim Square and Istiklal Street, a huge cistern, and the modern art museum.

Galata Tower, another useful landmark

Spice market!

Bosphorus Bridge at night

A protest happening near Taksim, something to do with Chavez's death

Constantine Column

Serpentine Column, with the Obelisk in the background

Chora Church

Inside Chora

Cistern

One of my favorite things was climbing on top of the old city walls and looking out in every direction.  Felt like we were on top of the world.

One day, we took a ferry to the biggest of the Prince Islands, which are technically on the Asia side of the city.  The island had a huge amount of green space and a weird mix of well-kept mansions and run-down, overgrown areas.

Jellyfish!

On the way back from the island

At the beginning of the week it felt like break was going way too quickly, but by the end we couldn't believe how much we had done.  It was cool to get a sense of different parts of the city, but a week was certainly not enough time to actually get to know Istanbul.  We'd take a different way back to our hostel, then  somehow end up one street over, realize we had never seen any of it before, and when we'd get back on track we had no idea how we got from one place to the other.  I really enjoyed wandering around though, stumbling upon markets and shops and art galleries that I'd never have known were there.

Exploring...

We ate a lot of street food over the course of the week.  Sadly, I didn't find anything that lived up to the Austrian version of Turkish kebap.  :/  The fanciest meal we had (testi kebab) was meat and veggies cooked in a clay jar that they light on fire and crack open right in front of you.  We also tried raw meat and raki (a rather disgusting anise drink), and frequently enjoyed sipping tiny cups of tea and smoking nargile.

All in all, it was a week full of surprises.  Meeting fellow travelers is always fun, and our group was a blast.  I enjoyed people's hospitality and little cultural differences like seeing men walking down the street with linked arms.  I got a kick out of practicing my one Turkish sentence "Adam yiyor." (The man eats.) on some shopkeepers who had tea with me and Julia.  By the end of the week, though, I was more than ready to leave behind the countless men yelling "compliments" at me and/or claiming to be my boyfriend.  Strangely, I did hear quite a few times that I look like I could be Turkish (minus the pink hair).  One of the best things about the week was that we had no agenda, so if we felt like doing nothing but sitting and journaling or reading or sketching, we simply did.  So now that I've come back to school and once again have my computer and planner and looming assignments to manage, I am even less motivated than before.  But!  It was a highly unforgettable week!  And I got to cross "Go to Turkey" off my bucket list.  So I really can't complain.  

Our hostel

The adjoining restaurant, our main hangout

Ohh adventures.  :)