WARNING: if you don't like pictures, don't read further.

This week and last were the Autumn Break for Schleswig-Holstein and a few of us ETAs were able to take a trip to Turkey.  It was an amazing time, and as a result I have almost 800 pictures.  BUT I'll spare you from that, and post just over 100.  I'll start from the beginning:

On Sunday, October 9th Erika, Ariel and I set out from Kiel at 6:45am.  We had a flight to catch in Hannover, which is just over 3 hours away.

7am train ride through Schleswig-Holstein

After some worrying delays on the track, we finally made it and since our flight ended up being a little delayed we actually made really good time.  The flight to Istanbul was about 3 hours as well, and after a 4 course meal and an in-flight viewing of Arthur (the old one was better!) I exited the plane onto Turkish soil... err linoleum actually.  After a long line to get a Visa and an even long passport check line, we finally met up with Keriin and Jessica, the two girls from Hamburg.  Our hostel was in the middle of Sultanahmet, the area of Istanbul where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are located.

We met up with Wes at the hostel and decided to stroll around the neighborhood until our final party member, Harry, arrived a couple hours later.  We had our first tastes of real Turkish kebap and baklava and began to absorb the sights of hundreds of merchants lining the streets with brightly lit lamps and beautifully colored scarfs and trinkets.

The Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

sooo many sweets... check out that halva!

First tastes of baklava and Turkish delights

drooling

Hagia Sophia

Shisha

The next morning it was raining and chilly so we decided to check out some of the indoor attractions.

Hagia Sophia

First we visited the Basilica Cistern, which used to be housed beneath a Roman Basilica.  It is now a cavernous cistern, filled with a shallow pool of water and fish.

Column of Tears

One of two pillar supporting Medusa heads.  No one know exactly who placed them there or why.  The other is upside down.

After the Cistern, we attempted to visit the Blue Mosque, but as it was prayer time we weren't able to enter.  Instead we waited out some of the rain under the overhang and then headed to the Grand Bazaar.

Harry in front of the Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque.  To the left of the columns on the ground floor are spickets where Muslims preform Wudu, or partial ablution, before praying or handling the Qur'an.

Waiting for the rain to let up at the Blue Mosque

The Grand Bazaar

Jessica and espresso at the Grand Bazaar

After navigating our way through snaking hallways and overflowing stalls, we finally made it out into the wet Istanbul streets once again.  In an attempt to get out of the hurricane weather and a get proper meal, we stepped into a restaurant.  We were ushered upstairs and ordered a huge family style meal, which ended up being a bunch of different grilled meats, rice, lettuce, tomatoes, french fries and some other stuff all loaded onto a huge tray and plopped in front of us with some bread.  Much better than it sounds.

After being sufficiently stuffed we wandered back to the Blue Mosque and finally were able to go inside.  It was worth the wait.  I have been to countless European cathedrals and palaces, but nothing I've seen before compared to the Blue Mosque's beauty.  The ornate painted tiles covered almost every surface and the large open floor space did wonders accentuating the majesty overhead.

I overheard a tour guide saying the Blue Mosque got its name from the three stripes of blue tile on this pillar, which was how the whole mosque looked at one point. Though I'm not sure if that's true.

A sign in Arabic asking visitors to stay behind the barricade.

The girls: Ariel, Jessica, me, Keriin and Erika

Seriously stunning.

Yummm... if you read any of my posts about Macedonia, you already know I'm in love with halva.

The Blue Mosque during our walk home from a shisha bar that night.

The next day we decided to visit Hagia Sophia.  It had been closed the day before, but we were able to see the humongous building's inside for ourselves on Tuesday.  From the outside one can see the different building sections jutting out and running into one another, each representing construction from different eras and rulers.  From the inside, the mish-mash of cultures is even more tangible.  First used as a Orthodox church during the Byzantine period, and later converted into a Mosque after the Ottoman Turks invaded, the interior suggests a bit of decorating ADD, but since Hagia Sophia is now a museum, different elements of the structure were highlighted to show the various eras of its history.

A mausoleum in the Hagia Sophia complex.

Mausoleum

Mausoleum entrance way

Hagia Sophia

Obviously from the mosque phase of the building

An uncovered Christian angel fresco above a Muslim Arabic shield

Uncovered Christian mosaic (a very GOLD mosaic, btw)

There were a LOT of tourists in Istanbul.

 The same evening as going to the Hagia Sophia, Jessica, Keriin, Wes, Harry and I boarded a bus which was to take us to the southeastern region of Cappadocia.  The bus ride was 10 hours overnight, but surprisingly wasn't as terrible as it sounds.  We were all dead tired when we got in at 8am, but mustered up enough gusto to find a hostel and sign up for a whole day tour which started an hour later.

The tour lasted from 9:30am until 4pm and took us all over the Cappadocia region.  The first stop was to one of the 37 underground cities where Christians used to hide from prosecutors.  The one we visited was 8 or 9 stories deep and made up of a huge labyrinth of tunnels and caves.  The complex could house over 4000 people at once, but would only have been used for a month or two at a time.

Me in one of the tiny doorways.

Stairway

A "living room" with ye olde graffiti.

Another living room

The boys had a slightly more difficult time with the high restrictions.

After the underground city we were taken to a valley where early Christians had lived and built churches into the rock walls.  We spent about an hour following our tour guide along the valley floor and ended up at a restaurant where we were served complimentary lunch.

valley tilt-shift style

Keriin, Jessica, Harry and Wes exploring some of the caves

Harry and Wes continued exploring the cave and came out standing awkwardly above our group and tour guide explaining the area.

Valley cave church

Pistachios are eaten in everyyyything in Turkey.  This is a Pistachio tree.

Cave dwellings further up the sides of the valley.

Wes and Harry scurrying up ahead of us. 

Panorama from the cave dwellings above the valley trail.

From the Valley we were driven to another area with more cave dwellings, this time a bit of a hike up the side of the cliff.  There were other tour groups there as well, and as the rocks were quite smooth, round and with absolutely no barriers it seemed to be not the safest of places.  The caves were really interesting though, and I'm pretty sure no one died while we were there.

Keriin and Jessica on the second floor.

High and dangerous with too many tourists.  But still awesome.

Chapel frescoes

After a long drive back to the Göreme area we were staying in, we stopped at a gift shop place and then an onyx shop.  Basically every sort of tour stops a billion times at souvenir places or cafes.  Everywhere you go is people hassling you to buy their junk or eat at their restaurant.  But the view from the onyx place was pretty cool.

Bromantic.

That night we wandered around town at what appeared to be the onset of a thunderstorm.  Luckily the rain held off and we were able to eat at a cool rooftop restaurant with brilliant flashes lighting the skies.  Dinner was followed again by shisha, at which point it started to pour and we were forced to sprint back to our hostel when it was time to leave.

Carpet merchants and lots of huge rocks in the town of Göreme.

Rooftop restaurant

The next morning we checked out and walked into town to see about things to do that day.  The boys had their sights set on renting mopeds to ride around the neighboring towns, but since none of the girls had ever driven a moped before, we were a bit leery.  The girls instead opted for a 2 hour ATV tour, while the boys got to ride their dumb scooters.  Doesn't matter though, cus we had a great time without them! :)

The courtyard of our "cave" hostel.

Harry on his scooter

Red Valley

Cave dwellings in a neighboring town

Jessica having a tea break.  The guy working at the stop said his grandparents lived in the cave dwellings until the '60s when the government forced people to move out after a cave in. 

Rural Turkey

A place called... wait for it... Love Valley. ;D
Get it? Cus the rocks look like... never mind.

We were literally in the middle of nowhere, but because tourists stopped there, you could get tea, coffee, some food, jewelry, scarves. 

Jessica and Keriin

Stopped at some more cave dwellings.  This time we were close enough to explore and there was no one else there! Super cool.

The upper portions weren't accessible, but they even still had paint decorating the outside. 

ATVin' BAs

After the ATV tour, we girls stopped for a coffee and baklava break.  We decided to check out the Open Air Museum about a kilometer outside of town.  On the way there we came across another random church inside a free standing rock.

We eventually made it to the museum and saw one of the very ornate churches before making it to the official entrance gate and deciding not to pay 10euro to enter and see the same thing we'd been seeing all day.  As we were making our way back to the main road we stopped to look at some more of the numerous tourist shops along the route.  One in particular caught our attention and the owner took a liking to us.  As we browsed around he chatted with us, gave us tea, ice cream, introduced us to his friends and family and in general was the epitome of Turkish hospitality.  He also ended up giving us really awesome deals on all the stuff we bought from him.  He invited us to join him and his friends for a big bon fire that night out by some caves, but we had to sadly decline as we had another 10 hour bus ride back to Istanbul.

A vividly painted church of the Open Air Museum.  It said no photos, but I snuck it anyway! Shhhhhh..

Our new shop owner friend, Ahmet.

Walk back into town.

Golden sunset light on the Open Air Museum.

Sunset and hot air balloons over Cappadocia.

The next day back in Istanbul, we napped until the afternoon and then set out to walk to a bridge where we had heard fisherman catch their fish and give them directly to the restaurants on the lower part of the bridge.  When we first started walking it was, of course, pouring rain but after a little while the clouds started to part a bit and we could actually soak up the atmosphere.

Fishing off the bridge.

We also wandered through the Spice Market, which was right next to the bridge.  There you can find almost any sort of spice or Turkish food you could imagine.

Turkish coffee trinkets

That night we met back up with Erika and Ariel, who had stayed in Istanbul the whole week.  We then met up with a Turkish friend of Wes's, who showed us around the student area of Istanbul.  I didn't take any picture while walking there (surprising, I know) but the decorative lights lining the streets and ornate white buildings reminded me a lot of Vienna during Christmas.  Which was weird.  We went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner and then went to a few different bars and eventually some clubs.  The streets were narrow and winding and everywhere you turned were more bars and pubs and people.  Overall the night was quite a success I'd say.

Raki, the favored Turkish drink.  Think Ouzo, mix with ice water to turn it cloud and sip it while drinking water.  It has a pretty strong licorice flavor therefore, I wasn't a huge fan.

Popcorn street vendor outside the last club we went to.  He made the popcorn over an open flame. 

Saturday was our last full day in Istanbul and Jessica, Keriin and I started it off by attempting to go to Topakai Palace.  Unfortunately even just the ticket line was about an hour long, so we skipped it and headed straight to the Archaeological Museum.  Being that Turkey has historically been a huge cross-roads of cultures and civilizations, there was a huge mash-up of stuff up in there.

Babylonian wall tiles

Mesopotamian? Babylonian? I don't know, but I do know he's freaky looking.

Egyptian hieroglyphics

Some king's mummy.  Why is his body arched up like that??

Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus.  You can still see the remains of paint on it!

The Alexander Sarcophagus

Women Mourning sarcophagus

The Tiled Pavilion

"I am le bored"

"I am unimpressed by anything and everything.  I am also a bit drunk."

Ooooh so THAT'S how merpeople reproduce. Wait, scratch that awe and replace it with disgust and weirded-out-ness.

"Yup. Just a goddess.  Chilling by this pillar.  No biggie, ya'll." - Athena

The Tiled Pavilion

Inside the Tiled Pavilion

Our last night in Istanbul was spent on a rooftop bar smoking shisha and gazing out over the city.

Goodnight, Blue Mosque.

Goodnight, Hagia Sophia.

We left Sunday morning at 6am and got back into Kiel around 4pm.  I am now in the middle of my second week of break and I sure have made up for being so busy the week before.  I literally did nothing yesterday.  A day off is nice sometimes, but now I'm gettin' antsy! Time to go for a run, do some errands and plan some lessons for next week.  I am fairly positive that my next post won't be as exciting or action packed as this one, but since Halloween is coming up soon there might be a little ghoulish cheer involved.  :)

Until Next Time,
Chelsea