We had a great first day in Istanbul and then I fell asleep at the hotel for a few hours before dinner. Lucky for you now I’m wide awake and everyone else is sleeping so I’m enjoying the quiet and able to post some photos.
Crack of dawn at the airport. It’s a way of life here in the Middle East. Flights take off at all hours of the night and early morning.
Muslim country, yet there Christmas trees all over. Meanwhile we can’t have a nativity on base because it might offend the Muslims. Wake up! They aren’t offended.
Supposedly this is an awesome car. I’m not a car person.
Istanbul below!
The last time we were here, she was a very bald baby.
The navigator and his map
There are loads of stray dogs here. Not packs of wild dogs, but almost like city pets. They are tagged, which means they’ve been fixed and released. They’re all very calm and lie around like they’re part of the Istanbul family.
Grass. It’s a novelty.
They have these restaurants which I guess could be called a cafeteria, in that you see the food and pick out what you want, but it’s way better than any cafeteria food I’ve ever eaten.
We ordered lamb and eggplant, grilled chicken and potatoes, stuffed eggplant, beef and grilled vegetable filled pastry, fresh salad (bottom left in the photo — cucumber/tomatoes/red cabbage/carrots), and a few other things. It was the best meal I’ve had in a while. All of the dishes were perfectly cooked.
Camille with sautéd mushrooms and carrots.
Then we headed to the Grand Bazaar
I love Turkish lamps.
I’m pretty sure she slept through our last trip to the Grand Bazaar too.
Love, love the lamps
Our main point of visiting the bazaar (besides the fun of looking around), was to buy a belt for Carter since he forgot one and the poor scrawny kid had to keep hiking up his pants. Problem solved on the road where they sell all the knockoff clothes on the street. It’s fun that we’ve been here before because we actually knew where to go to get something we needed.
She missed it all. I’m sure we’ll go back.
The Blue Mosque is a gigantic structure.
There are street vendors everywhere you turn selling food and drinks. This was a hot, sweet, milky drink made out of orchid root and sprinkled with cinnamon. We agreed it tasted like drinkable rice pudding. (They all liked it.)
On the Hippodrome — the large square that stretches between the two huge domes in Old Istanbul.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire — literally. I’m getting some for the boys tomorrow so they can say they’ve tried them.
Blue Mosque
We went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants from our previous trip: Cafe Rumist
The ceiling of the restaurant is covered with lamps that are available to purchase. We all picked out our favorites.
Fresh bread — divine.
Just assume that any food that I mention is out of this world amazing. Turkish food doesn’t beat Mexican food, but it’s right behind it.
Off to sleep to rest up for day 2.