My mom, dad, brother, two younger sisters, Trev and I left bright and early Saturday, May 8th. Our adventure began by taking a 4-hour flight from SLC to the JFK airport in New York. We made the 10-hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey, but not before sitting on the runway at JFK for 2 hours making the already long flight even longer. But none-the-less we made it to Istanbul in one piece early Sunday afternoon.
Later Sunday night we ate some dinner and took a stroll on the on the local boardwalk along the Mediterranean Sea. It was such an amazing view it made us wish we had something similar to that in Utah.
On Monday we made our way to downtown Istanbul. The city is unbelievably huge with a population of 13 million. My family was expecting a more middle-eastern atmosphere, but we were surprised to find that only half of the women in the city wore the traditional head scarves.
(A street market near the Blue Mosque)
We visited the Blue Mosque.
And the Hagia Sopia which was my favorite of the two buildings. They are built across the street from each other. The Hagia Sophia was built before the Blue Mosque and the Blue Mosque was supposed to outdo the Hagia Sophia. I still think the Hagia Sophia is still far more impressive though.
The Hagia Sophia was the 3rd church built in that exact location. The first two churches had previously been destroyed. The building was used as an Orthodox basilica and then the overtaken by the Muslims and used as a mosque until it was turned into a museum in 1934. Both Christian and Muslim elements are displayed in the Hagia Sophia. I was amazed to see the incredible detail of the building.
We also took a bus tour of the entire city.
(The city wall)
That sums up Istanbul. Next to come will be our stay in Antalya, Turkey.
Later Sunday night we ate some dinner and took a stroll on the on the local boardwalk along the Mediterranean Sea. It was such an amazing view it made us wish we had something similar to that in Utah.
On Monday we made our way to downtown Istanbul. The city is unbelievably huge with a population of 13 million. My family was expecting a more middle-eastern atmosphere, but we were surprised to find that only half of the women in the city wore the traditional head scarves.
(A street market near the Blue Mosque)We visited the Blue Mosque.
And the Hagia Sopia which was my favorite of the two buildings. They are built across the street from each other. The Hagia Sophia was built before the Blue Mosque and the Blue Mosque was supposed to outdo the Hagia Sophia. I still think the Hagia Sophia is still far more impressive though.
The Hagia Sophia was the 3rd church built in that exact location. The first two churches had previously been destroyed. The building was used as an Orthodox basilica and then the overtaken by the Muslims and used as a mosque until it was turned into a museum in 1934. Both Christian and Muslim elements are displayed in the Hagia Sophia. I was amazed to see the incredible detail of the building.
We also took a bus tour of the entire city.
(The city wall)
That sums up Istanbul. Next to come will be our stay in Antalya, Turkey.
6 comments:
i am so jealous of your trip! i am itching to see more, so get on it.
ps, love your hair more blonde! maybe it's been that way for a while? who knows, i NEVER see you!
Natalie it looks like you had a BLAST! I'm so jealous!Haha
So..I miss you. :(
We need to get together and do dinner again.
Love you girl!
Looks AMAZING! Miss you lady!
Your family does such fun things! It looks like it was incredible! Your pics are amazing too? You must have a killer camera...
Wow what a cool trip! I'm super jealous. Miss you guys! We need to get together again one of these days:)
I'm so glad I found your blog. Now we can stay in touch a little bit more. I'm guessing this is the amazing trip that you needed the dress? Well looks like you guys had a ton of fun and hopefully one day we will go there.
PS to change your photos direction you have to do it in your photo file (right click and select rotate clockwise until its the way you want it) you can't do it on blogger... hope i helped if not it was worth a shot.
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