A Turkish Delight

I'm in Turkey!! And Europe! I'd never been to either and within an hour of landing I was driving across the Bosporus Strait from the Asian side into the European side of Turkey! It's looking like this trip will be worth the really early start...

Me. Asleep. In the Tel Aviv Airport. 

The first place we went to from the airport was a restaurant to eat lunch. I have to say, it was a great start to our Turkey experience.

Lunch with Olivia, Lauren, Catherine, Amber, and Kasdyn

We had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and brussel sprouts :)

After lunch we went to Hagia Sophia, a 1500-year-old church, later converted into mosque, but currently a museum. 

A-MAZ-ING. In the 6th century over 10,000 slaves were used to build this phenomenal structure in just under six years. We got some great pics. 

Inside the Hagia Sophia...

This building had the largest dome in the world for over 1000 years until several European cathedrals were constructed. 

With Christeen, Sadie, Thomas, Kasdyn, Ava, Hunter, Mike, and Catherine. 

My favorite picture of the day - the view of the famous Blue Mosque from a window of the Hagia Sophia. 

Not gonna lie, after that I was pretty much done for the day. We had gotten like three hours of sleep the night before since we had such an early flight and I was DEAD. But we had a few more things on our itinerary. All I really remember is the rice pudding and Coke that revived me as I sat amongst some ancient ruins near some museums I think I walked through... 

Also I found this picture so I must have been here too...

Then we went to our hotel and ATE DINNERRRR!

Does anything look better than this after a long, sleep-deprived day? No. No it doesn't. 

I could have slept after dinner forever but I didn't come to Istanbul to sleep, I came to PARTY! So I mustered up everything I could and hit the town. Our evening comprised of a walk to the Blue Mosque on which there may or may not have been an electricity black out, a hazing ice cream man, and a missed tram back to the hotel... here are some pics!

Street group selfie with Mackenzie, Christeen, Drew, Vicki, Sadie, and Jordan!

Blue Mosque lit up at night. We sat on those benches and enjoyed the PERFECT evening weather as we looked at the mosque and the people walking by. We had a ton of fun there...

Some of us had more fun than others ;)

I tried tons of food on the walk! Rice pudding, baclava, corn on the cob, a milk drink, and this fruit flavored liquidy taffy stuff on a stick. Didn't love the taffy but everything else was pretty good!

I slept like a rock when we got back to the hotel. First day in Turkey = success :)