Turkey Day 1

Yea, well now that we have a new group of students that are at this moment, driving to the Center, I'm going to tell you about our first two days in Turkey LAST semester. :)

Actually, the first day was flying to Turkey. Pretty uneventful. BOTH of Kent's shoulders are now hurting him, and I'm a gimp, so we had 2 wonderful students who helped us with our luggage throughout the entire flying ordeal. They saved us!!! I of course, had to wear my sleeve, which is a nuisance - but, you know!

We arrived in Turkey in time to check into our hotels [they had to put us into 2 hotels this time] and then we walked to dinner. I didn't take pictures of the actual meal [oh, except dessert], but here are the options you see as you walk in!

The meat selections:

The salad bar:

The dessert table:

 This was our dessert. All three of these were VERY sweet - all soaked in syrup. But good! :)

The second day was pretty much all walking. Kent and I left a little ahead of the students so we could take pictures along the way:

LOVE this city!

In Utah we see beautiful mountains in the background - here - beautiful mosques!!! :)

Our first stop today was the Topkapi Palace. This is where the Sultans lived for many generations. It is now a museum. We got to walk through the room where he held his audiences with the important men of the government. We saw artifacts, treasures, clothing etc. on display - including the largest diamond in the world! It was all really awesome. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed so you'll just have to imagine. I did take a couple of pictures of the view from the complex. This is looking out over the Bosphorus to the Asian side of Turkey.

Nice open air restaurant overlooking the Bosphorous. Well, not this time of year - it was FREEZING!

Walking up the street to our next site, we saw this - this is the entrance to what used to be a soup kitchen for the poor. I thought it was beautiful.

These homes are built right up against the wall of the city

We also visited the Blue Mosque

 And the Basilica Cistern

We took the bus to lunch. Here are some street scenes from the bus:

Some of our group at lunch:



After lunch we had a bit of time to wander through the Grand Bazaar. You could spend hours in there wandering around, it is so big!

We bought some Turkish Delight [see bag in hand]

We ended our day with a boat ride up & down the Bosphorus. Fortunately, there was an inside cabin - yay warm!! Marvelous day!