Josh just asked, "If you could change anything about the trip, what would it be?"
I honestly can't think of anything that I would have changed.
Not one thing.
Well, maybe skipping the Anne Frank House, but I will deny it if you ever tell anyone, and besides, one cannot go to Amsterdam without seeing it, or so I am told. One thing that we are both extremely glad that we did was take our little weekend trip to Istanbul with Lamar and Melanie.
View of Istanbul from Topkapi palace
View from our room
We toured the Blue Mosque
Josh standing in the courtyard at the Blue Mosque
and just a few more photos of the Blue Mosque that I couldn't leave out. Sure wish that I had the picture of both Melanie and Dixie in their headscarves.....moving on...Wow! Aren't the arches and ceiling paints incredible!?!
We enjoyed touring the Dolmabahce Palace. It was built in the 19th century (1856) in an epic move to keep up with the European Joneses. Seriously. That's basically what our bus driver--I mean tour guide-- told us. Photos of the interior are "forbidden", but a little birdie was able to find a few to share.
Thanks, little birdie!
The second picture on the right shows the crystal bannisters on the staircase. The locals may be starving, but royalty has crystal stair bannisters. Sort of sounds like some of our royalty, whoops, I mean elected government leaders.
It was enormous, containing 285 rooms, 46 halls, 6 baths, and 68 toilets. Sure wish we could've got a few pictures of those. It also was covered with inlaid gold and carpeted with only the best in Turkish carpets, which are never called rugs.
Speaking of all things "forbidden", taking photos with the local cops was high on the "let's see if we can get away with it" list
But where were we? Oh yeah, the keeping up with the Joneses bit....
This was the original sultan's palace. It was designed to be less ostentatious as a way to show the sultan's piety. The Ottoman sultans lived here from 1465-1856.
No, this isn't Disney Istanbul. It's Dixie standing in front of the main gate to Topkapi Palace.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that Sultan Mehmed II had this built? I think that Josh secretly idolizes the Sultan, also known as Mehmed the Conquerer. Mehmed was an interesting and brutal man. You can click here to read more about him.
more from Topkapi Palace. Definitely a humble, beautiful home.
We stayed in the old part of Istanbul that was once the Byzantine city of Constantinople. Constantinople's original walls were built in the 8th century BC in a set of interconnected walls separated by ditches and moats. You can see one of the inner walls next to the street we are standing on. We're not sure when this particular stretch of wall was built, but it's interesting to note that Constantinople's walls were only breached two times since they were built.
We walked on this street several times. It was only a block or so from our hotel.
The sites of Istanbul were amazing. We thought it couldn't get any better until we saw saw Harrison Ford touring the city.
Oh, wait. That's uncle Lamar.
My bad.
We loved looking at old buildings
and visiting Asia for the first time
Josh, Dixie, Lamar and Melanie overlooking the Bosphorous Strait from the Asian side of Istanbul
Dixie enjoyed shopping in the Grand Bazaar. Bet you didn't know that it's actually an Olympic sport. Just imagine a combination of combat shopping while performing algebraic equations and you will about have it.
Wait? How many liras equals a dollar?
Advice from a World Travler aka Lamar:
"Josh, if you spend all of your time worrying about the cost of things, it will ruin the trip.
Just RE-LAX."
Lamp shop in the Grand Bazaar
Turks are amazing sells people. This probably qualifies as the best quote from our Turkish shopping experience:
"You're gorgeous. Are you for real?"
Okay, so maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious. For some reason, the guys in the spice market thought that pick up phrases = sales. Sorry guys, hate to disappoint your sales figures, but they were good for a laugh!
Dixie did buy pepper and chocolates at Hazer Baba's in the spice market. Can you see her in the crowd? This collage also shows the entrance to the Grand Bazaar and the covered walkway between the stalls. It was hard not to get completely lost in the place!
and at the risk of beheading, we couldn't help but break out into a bit of silliness. Of course, one would have to prove it first. I have to admit that it was with a sigh of relief that we landed back in the Netherlands with our heads still attached and no sign of Turkish prison in sight.
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