Istanbul Dance Party (July 29)

Guess what I started my day with! THE SUNRISE! Yep, I woke up and we all watched the sunrise together as we entered the Bosphorus Strait approaching Istanbul. We actually got to watch the sun rise multiple times- there was a series of mountains that the sun kept peeking out of…then going behind…then rising above the new mountain…then being hidden by the next. It was fun. And beautiful! At first the sun was a bright orange color, and it slowly turned to a very yellow color as it headed up into the sky for the day. On one side of us was Asia, and on the other was Europe. We went under the big lit-up bridge again, only this time it wasn’t lit up because it wasn’t dark, so it wasn’t nearly as pretty. I went back to sleep, then woke up for breakfast. And thank goodness I was getting up and going to breakfast, because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway! My neighbor’s alarm was going off, and I’m pretty sure nobody was in there…so I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. I came back to my room and half slept/half watched the diplomatic briefing on TV, but I could barely hear it anyway because the volume was so low since my roommate was asleep. Then I had to get out of bed to get my “landing card,” something they were requiring for us along with passports. Then it was time to leave on my city orientation trip!

Now, I’m a fan of city orientations by bus because they give you a good introduction to the city, bring you to all the main sites, and give you a feel for what’s there. Then there’s always time to go back to what you loved! We drove through the streets of ancient Pera, the Latin Quarter, then drove by Taksim Square (and were advised to come back at night!). Then passed the soccer stadium and went over the Ataturk Bridge to cross the Golden Horn. We drove by the old city walls (from the 4th century!) and saw the Roman Aqueduct of Valens (from the 2nd century!). Then we got off the bus and saw the Hippodrome, and the two columns- the Serpentine Column and the Theodosius Column. Both of these were brought from Egypt in the 4th century. Here, we were given free time to eat our boxed lunches and wander around. Katie, Kristin, and I found a nice curb in the shade and set up camp. It was against a wall, so we thought it would be nice and safe and peaceful and cool. Just as I was indulging in my brownie dessert, a huge police bus started backing up straight toward us—uh oh! Luckily it ended up being about 2 feet to the left of us…but pulled all the way back so if we were there we would have been squished. I guess it was planning on parking here. Just after our sigh of relief, young policemen started filing out with AK-47’s, and stood there with them about 3 feet away from us. No big deal…AK-47’s…about 3 feet away…pointing carelessly at our heads slung over the policemen’s shoulders……..remember our Darwin phrase? I think Darwin would like it here. No, you know what, he’d love it. Yep, DARWIN WOULD LOVE IT HERE! All at once we packed up our lunches, and scurried away in a sprint-walk. Yeahhhh, I guess we weren’t too comfortable with AK-47’s pointed at us after all.

After we finished eating in a NEW spot, we reconvened and went down into the Byzantine Cistern and walked around down there. It was so cool (figuratively and literally)! And it was very wet. The bottoms of my linen pants were soaked. After that, it was finally time to see the Hagia Sophia! Or, as they call it, the Ayasophia. Because we were a tour group, we got to go in the “Turkish people only” entrance and skip all the lines- woohoo! It was HUGE inside! There were these flower-shaped light chandeliers hanging down all over, and there were two floors, and it was gorgeous! We got to hear about its history, and then we got free time to walk around. We also learned about this hole in one of the pillars- if you made a wish and put your thumb in the whole, your wish would come true if you could rotate your hand 360 degrees. So we did it. :) We didn’t have to wear headscarves in here because it is technically considered a museum. It was so cool that it used to be Catholic, and then taken over by the Muslim people. I took plenty of pictures, and finally it was time to go. Then we went to the Blue Mosque. Here, we had to remove our shoes and wear headscarves to cover our hair and shoulders. Those who didn’t wear long enough pants or dresses were given paper scarves to cover all the way down to their ankles. I didn’t have to have a paper scarf this time! One of Kristin’s friends at home wears a headscarf and taught her how to tie them correctly, so the three of us looked pretty legit! Inside was beautiful. The outside isn’t blue at all, but the inside has gorgeous blue tile work all over. We ran into the rest of the girls in there who had come on their own! We got to walk around there for awhile, then had to leave. On our way home, we stopped at one more mosque, the Sehzade Mosque. This was very empty, so we got to sit on the carpet for awhile while we were told about it. All of the mosques have fountains in front for ablutions before people pray, and we got to see those. All the mosques we saw were so gorgeous! Then our tour was finally over and we headed back to the ship. We were so exhausted, so we took naps until dinner!

After dinner, we were just walking around the ship and discovered an outside deck we didn’t know existed! It was right above the gangway, so we could be little creepers and say hi to people leaving and returning to the ship (and watch people skip the mandatory hand sanitizer!).

Because we were so tired, none of us really felt like going out. A couple girls had FDP trips in the evening, and the rest of us went up to the front of the 7th deck to hang out. This was the best idea in the whole wide world. I’m telling you—our ship’s location was IDEAL in Istanbul. There was no better view than from our ship…seriously. We were smack dab in the middle of the heart of Istanbul. We could see the bridge behind us, lit up and doing it’s lightshow constantly, changing colors and dancing with light. We could see the city skyline all around us, filled with flags and mosques lit up beautifully at night. We could see both the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia…oh yeah, AND Topkapi Palace! There were ferries that would pass right next to our ship with Turkish dance music playing. And to top it all off, there were about 6 sets of fireworks that randomly went off throughout the night, illuminating the beautiful lit mosques all around. It was incredible!!! We seriously had the best view of Istanbul. One of the girls eventually started playing music, and soon enough we were all up dancing around on the deck, in the heart of Istanbul, on deck 7. We danced to everything from Love Shack to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun to Jump On It…and the list goes on. It was a BLAST! We were all alone and nobody could see us (except for maybe a few professors in the teacher’s lounge…but we didn’t care). It was sooooo much fun! This was definitely one of my favorite nights. :)