to clear up any confusion the title comes from a song from 1990. heres a link to a video where tiny tunes put it to a wonderful little skit:
so for my spring break, (again working back in time) a few friends and i went to Istanbul! it was incredible. a true cultural experience. first i just want to start by saying that i will never EVER fly anything but swiss air. we were so comfortable and there was so much space on the four flights (rome to zurich, zurich to istanbul) that we had it was amazing. on the flight over to istanbul my friend and i sat next to each other, and both had window seats!!! i sat next to one person on all the flights and she was a really cute french girl! and you get snacks on every flight followed by a piece of swiss chocolate. i cant even imagine what first class was like...
ok now that i got that out of my system.. we stayed in area of Sultanahmet, which just so happens to be the tourist district of the city. but it was still really nice. our hostel was fairly cozy, minus the fact that it didnt have heat. and it was colder then than it had been in december, it snowed while we were there... not exactly what we were expecting here haha. but we had blankets and i had seven layers of clothes on so it was sooo bad. but upon arrival we dropped our stuff off and were off wandering the city.
we started of course with the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (see left), which were conveniently three blocks from where we were staying. we saved the hagia sophia entrance for another day but we promptly enter the blue mosque. while we were there we were actually allowed to saty for a service. it was really interesting be able to watch this completely different culture and religion. i really enjoyed it. after that we set off the explore the city for all of its wonderful culture and cheap food :) i was able to get 3 kebabs, a potato pastry, lots baklava, and a donut pastry for dessert. all on the first day. it was glorious.
the next day was fairly miserable so instead of more wandering we hit up some museums, including the archeological museum which was very, very cool. after that we met up with some friends of friends of friends (you know one of those things) who happen to be studying abroad there. they made us a very nice dinner and then took us out at on a party cruise up along the canal that turned around in the black sea. it was a lot of fun. the next day was way nicer so we
went to Hagia Sophia and we all basically exploded with happiness. This is a building we have learned about just about every year in school and were always under the impression that we will never ever EVER see it. and we did. and like i said, we almost exploded with happiness. we spent two almost three hours there and then continued to explore the city and all of its wonderful treats. that night we went out with a few canadian students that we met at our hostel.
the next day with the accompaniment of our new found canadian friends we went to the Topkapi Palace, the home of all the sultans, it was awesome! seeing as it was just sooo
unbearably cold that day we decided to go underground, to and underground cistern (left)! altho its no longer in use, it was really cool down there. and then went to the Great Bazaar! and of course while we were there we got attacked with people trying to get us to buy stuff. some of the girls got some things in which we had to barter down for, which was a lot of fun. on our last day, we decided that we needed to make a trip over to Asia, seeing as its only a 25 minute boat ride away. so, we did!! it was a lot of fun, not much different, but now i can say that i went to two different continents for spring break haha. Istanbul was an incredible experience and it was truly something i will never forget or experience ever again.
No comments:
Post a Comment