Turkey - Part 1

It's the time you have all been waiting for! Turkey updates! Hooray!

The boyfriend and I left on a Friday night and flew for over 10 hours on a direct flight to Istanbul. We flew Turkish Airlines and the flight went great. I slept for a lot of it and we got food galore on the flight along with our own personal TV stocked full of movies, TV shows, and games. I watched Soul Surfer and I cannot recommend this movie enough. Even though you know the story (girl gets her arm bit off by a shark while surfing) it is so well done and emotional. Anyways, we finally land in Istanbul and take the metro to the tram to our hotel. We stayed in a hotel called Side Pension and Hotel and it was located right in the heart of the tourist area, which worked out great since we were super close to all the tourist attractions.

Our hotel room at Side

We got dinner at a restaurant called Palatium where we tried Turkish coffee. 

I had never tried Turkish coffee before but I figured I like coffee, it has to be good, right? Oh how wrong I was. Turkish coffee is like espresso but even more intense and gritty (like stuck to your teeth gritty) and has all this nasty sludge stuff at the bottom. Basically it was one of the worst things I've ever tasted in my life. But now I can say I have tried it. Plus it is served in these super cool cups.

After dinner we walked around a bit and took some pictures in front of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia at night.

I'm in Turkey!

Blue Mosque

Our hotel was next to the Four Seasons, which used to be a prison

 The next morning we woke up and had free breakfast at the hotel out on the terrace. A typical Turkish breakfast consisted of fresh bread, butter, white cheese and jam for the bread, a hard-boiled egg, black olives, and slices of cucumber and tomatoes.

The view from the terrace of our hotel

You could see the Hagia Sophia

And the Blue Mosque

After breakfast we headed over to the Blue Mosque. Outside of it I ran into a stray cat (they were EVERYWHERE) who was super friendly. I sat down and she/he immediately jumped onto my lap.

You had to take off your shoes to enter and women were supposed to have their heads covered. Women were also supposed to dress "conservatively" but since it was cold out that wasn't a problem at all.

The inside was full of intricate tiling and was beautiful

This is where they pray at 5 times a day

The ceiling of the Blue Mosque

Me with my head covered while inside

I think that's enough pictures for now. Stay tuned for more!