Weather - 80 degrees, partly sunny/mostly cloudy with the most beautiful cool breeze I've ever felt in my life!
Plans - Dinner @ 7:00pm
Today we arrived at Istanbul Ataturk Airport exactly on time, which was 9:10am their time, 2:10am back home. Jet lag, nagging kids, and just an irregularity in my circadian rhythm have really thrown off my sleeping pattern. Currently at 5:00pm I'm trying to snag a nap, but the hotel I'm staying at believes that the air conditioner works when "you can hear it." To which I snappily replied, "oh yeah, you guys get paid smell it, don't you?" I have to reset my patience timer.
Aside from that we had plenty of time to kill prior to our 7:00pm kick-off dinner. In trying to stay actively awake for our hosts and not succumbing to the ever-increasing need to nap (I hear zombies in my head yelling, "SLEEEEEP"), we took a day trip out for some lunch and then did a little site-seeing.
In downtown Istanbul we're between two districts, and the busiest of all is Taksim. This is where we ate lunch with the locals, which had awesome food. Thank god one of the Turkish Cultural Foundation people (Hulia) ate with us, because I pretty much just sat there (as did Mark & Cynthia) because of our language barriers. I wish that's something I'd better prepared for already, because we had delicious lunch (I had fresh meatballs with sweet potatoes, peas, and greenbeans soaked in lemon juice) and I want to continue that (Attaching photos), and I especially don't want to feel like a schmuck when I order their delicious tea.
Afterward we took a taxicab ride down to a real cool place call the "Minaturk." Essentially, to an American it feels like a mini-golf course (with all the minarets from the mosques feeling very windmillish), but, in reality, they architects have taken 50 or so of some of Turkey's most famous sites and reconstructed them on a 1/20th scale. (Attaching photos of me at the Sultanate Mosque mini, Cynthia, Mark, and me at the Parliament mini, and a mini of the Helecarnassus Mausoleum (which was once one of 7 Wonders of the World and now is destroyed) and the Church of the Virgin Mary, which used to serve as the Pope's meeting ground when the center of Christianity was based out of Istanbul (not much remains of this, but we will see it in Ephesus).
For a real good laugh, check out Mark doing burpees between the mini Hagia Sophia and the mini Ataturk Airport - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1aEeE98fw
After we returned to the area (in rush hour, which, I will say is like I-83 but with bat-crazy drivers who take twists and turns to God only knows where) and then went to the Ataturk National Memorial, a tribute to the "Father of the Turks," Mustafa Kemal, who is the founder of the Turkish Republic and kinda like their George Washington. While we were there, Mark decided to do burpees for a viral video project people are doing, and while it was stinking funny, I'm not sure if we made friends with the Turks there because of this. I like the memorial because on one side it showed him as a valiant fighter for the Ottomans, as he was their most successful general in defending Turkey, while on the reverse it shows him leading a new secular country of Turkey, dressed in western clothing and having women in his cabinet. It's a real neat statue that the pigeons seem to like as much as the Turks, though.
Mark doing more burpees at the Ataturk Memorial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1aEeE98fw.
Now, off to dinner. Our hosts have said it's going to be great. I hope it sets the tone for a good night sleep!
No comments:
Post a Comment