Day 15 & 16 - Istanbul

Istanbul turned out to be one of my favorite cities we visited. I did not know what to expect and again it's beauty surprised me. We were going to take a 10 hour night bus to get to Istanbul, but after the last 2 night trains and hearing the bus sometimes takes 14 hours we decided to hire a car and a driver to take us. We ended up finding a great deal and got to Istanbul in 6 hours. The drive was insane...the roads were full of potholes and the driver didn't slow down, just swerved to miss them!

Right before we got to the Turkish border we stop for a break at a gas station and we were surprised to find another Lauder group.

We were able to see a lot on our first day in Turkey.

{first stop was the spice market. the sellers were very "friendly"....we received several nicknames...i was charlie's angels and max was superman}

 

{this lady made my lunch. it was a type of quesadilla but with bread instead of a tortilla. really yummy}

 

{in front of hagia sophia}

 

 

{the blue mosque}

{inside the blue mosque which is still an active mosque. we have to cover our heads and shoulders upon entering. it was interesting to see the men praying. the women had to stay behind a wall, while the men prayed up front}

 {after the mosques we visited the basilica cistern. it was built in the 6th century as a water storage. it has the capacity to hold 100,000 tons of water}

{the last place we visited was the Grand Bazaar. i had been waiting the most for this and was in heaven once we got there. the grand bazaar has over 3,000 shops and everything is so beautiful. it was so hard to not buy all of the pottery and lamps and purses. i knew i wanted some bowls so we started asking for prices and bargaining. after visiting 4 shops we finally got a great deal }
 










{we went to an interesting performance of the whirling dervishes. pretty much all they did was spin for an hour and a half...but very cultural}

{on our second day in istanbul they had a lecture at the home of a wharton alumni. so me and one of the other partners went back to the Grand Bazaar. we shopped all morning and had a blast. we did some more bargaining. my friend researched how to bargain so we tried the tactics. i found a ring i really wanted. i asked the price and it was 50 lira..a little too much for me so following the advice to bargain i said "i can get the same thing at home for that price" and he said how much will you pay. I said 25 lira. He said that is too low and we said okay we will just look at home and started walking out. as we were exiting he said "wait...i'll give it to you for 25". It was awesome! We were so glad the tips we read about worked :) }

 

 After they got back from the lecture we had a closing ceremony for the Culture Quest. They announced the winning team...it was not us...we tried but we also tried to just have fun! 

After the ceremony we made it for a rive cruise on the Bosphorus. it was absolutely beautiful. the homes on the river were incredible. it was a great way to end our time in Istanbul.

 {early breakfast before we left istanbul. so beautiful}