september 21

Today was a jam-packed, fun-filled day! We started off by walking from our hotel to the hippodrome. 

This is a gift that was given by the Germans in who knows when, but the inside was beautiful! I loved all the mosaics around this country. 

This is the courtyard of the hippodrome. The ancient people used to gather here for chariot races! It reminded me of the high school homecoming game! 

The hippodrome has 3 pillars. This first one was brought from Egypt, hence the hieroglyphs. It was brought to the hippodrome in AD 390 but only the top third exists. You can see at the bottom where it was cut off. Imagine how big it used to be!

This one is the iron serpent column. It was part of a statue of three intertwined snakes that were taken from the Temple of Apollo in Greece. We actually got to see one of the serpent heads in the archaeological museum we went to! That was one of the most interesting things about this trip is that we learned about where all these artifacts came from and it was fascinating to see that over time things have just been given and taken from people all over.

This the beautiful Blue Mosque! It was the first mosque I ever got to go inside and I thought it was just the coolest thing ever! Something I've learned as we've explored these religions is all the similarities to ours. The Blue Mosque was built in 1616 and got its name because of all the blue Iznik tile that is found inside.

Here we are waiting to go inside! Women have to cover their heads to enter the mosque and everyone has to take off their shoes.

Isn't it GORGEOUS??!

The Muslims pray 5 times a day. This can be done on a prayer rug or in a mosque. They perform a cleansing ritual before they pray and then have a very involved prayer. In this carpet you can see how it is designed with lines. This is so when a multitude of people come they can be lined up evenly for prayer. The men and women are separated and their praying includes involvement of the whole body.

This is the Topkapi Palace! 

It’s not a traditional castle that you think of but there were so many cool things about it!

 There are three courtyards that have different things in them. We didn’t get to go in the kitchens but they used to make food for thousands of people. They also had an armory with TONS of fancy swords and armor and even clocks that the royal family owned. There was also a school there where boys would come and learn and then be the king’s servants. There was also an 87 carat diamond! It was GINORMOUS! And some other jewels and fancy things and even a baby cradle made entirely of gold. We couldn’t take pictures of any of these things. There was also a religious building with things like the staff of moses, pieces of muhammed’s beard, and the bones of john the Baptist. The third courtyard was my favorite. It had rose gardens, but usually it’s tulips. Turkey is where the tulip originated! And the buildings in this courtyard have the pretty purple marble and also tiles! All the tiles are beautiful! I love them! It also looks over the water. I definitely wouldn’t mind living in a palace here.

 I was with Jezz and Meredith and we just sat down for a minute looking over the water and just felt so blessed to be here. We talked about how people post on social media about their life goals with a picture of some place they want to visit and we’re living the dream! We are accomplishing those goals and we’re not just sitting around dreaming about where we could be but we’re actually experiencing it! And we just talked about how blessed we feel to be here and how we’re supposed to be here right now and how grateful we were for each other and the friendship that has already become so close between us.