Day 1 started out early as we got up at 4:00 AM to go catch a plane. Apparently getting through the security at the Ben Gurion airport is pretty crazy sometimes so getting through 72 people is quite a feat. I am not exactly an airport security conossuier but I think I counted 5 security checkpoints before we got into the airport. I think there are like 2 in Salt Lake International. So check “Go through the toughest airport security in the world” off the bucket list. Then we rode a Pegasus to Troy. Haha, it sounds so funny when you say it like that. The airline company we took was called Pegasus, and we are going to Troy, so it works.
It was on the bus ride from the airport I learned a couple things about Istanbul. #1 . . . . Istanbul is absolutely amazingly the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I really am shocked that more people do not put this on their list of places to travel because I think it should be up there with Paris and London and Rome. It has the amazing historical ruins from both the Greeks and the Romans; it has the gorgeous palaces with treasury museums including solid emerald boxes and a 72 carat diamond; it has the adorable shops and quaint streets and restaurants; and the romantic river cruises and the beaches to play on. It is also incredible clean. I noticed this the first day and was stunned that in a city of 14 million, the public areas are soooo clean. Not a piece of trash to be seen. But the next morning I saw the dozens of public workers that keep this place clean, and I was amazed at how they upkeep their city so well. #2 . . . The Turkish flag is so beautiful. It was actually Turkish Independence Day the day after we got there so there were flags EVERYWHERE. And the Turkish flag with its red and white stands out on all the buildings. Here are some of the pictures of flags I took. #3 . . . . The reason everybody doesn’t visit Turkey (this is what my professor said) is that since the country is 98% muslim people get nervous. Which is dumb because I have lived with Muslims surrounding me for a month now and they are amazing people. And their religion is amazing, and you can feel the spirit in their holy places, and their religious culture is one of acceptance and access to God for all. Also, because at some places (aka one in all of the places I went to in Turkey) there are men with machine guns. Which freaks some people out, which is understandable. But really, Istanbul is sooooo worth seeing one man with a machine gun. Also, if you go to Istanbul you are in Asia in one section of the city, and Europe in the other. So you can visit both continents in one visit.
The Bosporus Strait---so georgeous.
These are all pictures from the bus . . .
Ok, the first place we went to in the city was the Hagia Sophia (in English the translation is roughly Church of Holy Wisdom). It is an amazing church that was built by Constnatine but was turned into a Mosque by crusaders, and now it is a mix of both because they turned it into a museum. One girl from our group went back later that night and opened her mission call in the church (her name is Teresa and she is going to Argentina). We were laughing because I bet God thinks it is kind of funny that all these kids of his are opening up their mission calls in these super historic places. I think she was the first that will ever open up a mission call there, and probably the last. Dr. Seely (who actually taught Peter Jarman in the JC in 1990) said that he thought I will probably be the first person to ever open up my mission call in the Pool of Bethesda. Anyway, the other funny story from the Hagia Sophia is that I accidentally walked onto this one section of the marble floor with special marble circles on it that was chained off. It is called the coronation spheres and it is where the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned. So we joke that I am now the current Holy Roman Empress because I stepped on the coronation circle.
The ceiling of the church. It was a Christian church, but when it was a mosque they plastered it over. Now that it is a museum they have removed some of the plaster and have uncovered some of these frescos.
This is the gate that only the royal emperors were allowed to walk through.
It is cool to see the relics of the Christian next to bug Muslim circles. This church is a great example of the religions of Turkey---first Christianity and now Muslim.
I can touch!!
Outside the church.
There is a post that you stick your thumb in and circle your hand around and make a wish, and an angel that is stuck in the church will occasionally “cry” and you get a drop of water on your hand. This means your wish will come true.
Then we went to the Istanbul Archeological Museum. The things here were really cool, really old, and I will tell you about the highlights in the pictures.
This is a picture of a engraving that stood on the outside of the temple mount. It says something like “don’t cross into this holy place or you will die”. But the amazing thing about this is that it is in room 28. Aka the room that has artifacts that celebrate the Palestine aka a room that they don’t let anyone into. But for our tour, Dr. Seely (who has been dying to get into this room for years) convinced them to let our group up there. So I saw something that the general public doesn’t have access to. It was really neat.
This is me with some cool Roman structure. There are Greek and Roman ruins all throughout the museum.
This is a replica of what the gates of Babylon would look like.
A sarcophagus that was dedicated to Alexander the Great. It was huge.
This was a picture of the museum door with a Turkish flag. I love how bright and simple their flag is.
This is Istanbul at night. Sooooo beautiful. We took the metro bus down to the river to walk around and then took it back. The return trip on the Metrobus was nuts! I don’t think I have never been so squished in my entire life. We were packed into the metro car like sardines, but tighter. We could say I got a very intimate feel for the Turks because I was pressed up against several of them for a full 20 minutes that felt like 20 hours. It was quite the adventure.
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