morning by morning: La Turquie

Secretly I'm back in Wisconsin already, but I have plenty more to share so I'm going to continue blogging about the semester for a while.

The second part of my Spring break was spent around the country of Turkey. For a few years, Turkey has been the country I most wanted to visit, probably due in large part to the three Turkish students my family has hosted recently. During both my first and second years of college, I applied for summer study abroad programs in the region: one in Nicosia, Cyprus and the other in Izmir, Turkey but didn't end up going on either because of a cancellation and deciding to go to Egypt instead. But, last month, I finally made it there! Albeit very ephemerally. But still, Turkey!

First I went to Istanbul for two nights by myself. I stayed in a hostel on the Asian side of the city and met a few really nice girls also there by themselves. However, I spent more of the time turing alone because my pace was slightly insane due to my time constraint. It was my first time really in a city where I knew no one and none of the language. For a while it was fun, but then just okay. I'd rather be with people. Luckily, even in a city of 13 million, Turkish people are really nice. I accidentally went into Paris mode a few times and started pushing my way through crowds on the Metro and ferries, which was absolutely unnecessary. Turkish people don't push. They also would drop what they were doing to help me find where I was going. Which may have been partly attributable to my blonde hair. But nice nonetheless.

There were a few things about the city that reminded me of Cairo, where I spent the summer in 2009. Mostly the mosques, the tea, the headscarves and the bazaars. But really, Istanbul is unlike any other city I've seen. At the delta of two rivers on the bank of the Sea of Marmara, there are three distinct landmasses connected by bridge and ferries: the west is the old city, the north is the new city and the east is the asian side. I never quite arrived at figuring out the ferry system and thus had plenty of extra long rides around the city. But it was sort of like a cheap tour cruise. Here are some photos.

Turkish Tulips- a national symbol of the Republic. They are everywhere and in every color. In fact, Holland got their first tulips from the Ottomans way back.

Outside of the Blue Mosque

Inside the Blue Mosque.

Houses.

Inside the Dolmabahçe Palace.

Dolmabahçe Palace gate.

A cool floor in the Dolmabahçe Palace. We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, so most of my sneaky pictures are blurry. But look up photos of the chandeliers. They are absolutely enormous, the largest in Europe.