Istanbul with my personal turkish tour guide

You would love her...seriously she's awesome and because she insisted on taking pictures of me at all the historical places she was kind enough to escort me to--you all have pictures of me in front of stuff in istanbul. These photos will accompany this blog--and not be on facebook hopefully this way less people will see them.

sidenote--shouldn't my computer recognize facebook is a word and stop trying to get me to correct it?

Ok so here it goes today I went with my host mom's cousin to the European side of the city in order to get in some site seeing and in the process learn a little more about the history of Istanbul and Turks. I'll admit it was pretty cool seeing everything and comparing it in my head to more western culture of a similar era--yes I am a dork. I have more pictures of the insides of these places but mostly the coolest places i.e. inside the masque and treasury I was not allowed to take pictures.

Here I am outside the door of the old castle I actually went here last... and by this time it was raining pretty well--note the hood. This building was cool a lot of jewels. rubies. emeralds. diamonds. gold. silver. some of it had to do with ceremonial stuff like thrones or writing boxes. Others with prophets holding the mantel an arm or something and other it was just like straight up precious stone like wabam diamond--it was HUGE. There was also a giant bed in this place you could fit like 15 people in it comfortably. It also had a really cool library. Id read there.

This is me in front of the museum I forget the name that says its a translation but is still totally Turkish so I can't say it anyways. This was built in the time of Constantine originally but then burnt down and this one was built in less than six years--note thats AMAZING--it was the largest basilica for over a thousand years and now is like in the top 5. It was originally a basilica and then was turned into a masque after the romans were over thrown and then the guy that started the Turkish empire made it into a museum and according to my guide its best that way. Inside it looks a lot like a church but with more tile the roof is mostly yellow like stucco. this is also where some weird guy came up to me--avert eyes keep moving. Its also really confusing inside so we went around it like 4 times the same with the one above...also exits from the upper gallery should not be by the entrance and the entrance to it by the exit its just not nice.

Both of these are me in front of the blue masque (note the absence of umbrella//hood=not raining so much) Its called that because of all the blue tiles inside. Inside it was mostly just carpeted and we had to take off our shoes...but we didn't cover our heads I felt slightly scandalous until I saw a couple of old Asian ladies had also ignored the workers yelling at them to get a head scarf.

oh this is the courtyard of the blue masque

This was the first place we went it supplied water to the place that is now the museum and yeah there was water..it kept dripping down and hitting my head! But it was cool and mysterious and had two statues that looked like Medusa...probably because they are supposed to be this was probably my favourite just cause it was fun to look at!

up next worst meal ever--but its 22 my bed time--yeah I know lame.

later! Annie