It's been a busy week. I saw family and friends, visited a few more cities in Israel, and saw another movie.
I'm just going to talk about today. Elana and I woke up before 7 in Tel Aviv. After getting a little bit lost, we took a bus to the train to the airport. I slept through the whole flight.
The plane touched down in Istanbul at half past noon. We made it through customs quickly, double checked that our bags were checked through to our next destination, and got a taxi to our hotel.
After checking in and putting our stuff down, we took a bus to a train to another train so we could see the Hagia Sophia. (Elana would say that we crossed between continents, but everyone knows there's no reason to consider Europe and Asia to be 2 continents.)
I've seen some pretty buildings in my life. Very few of them compare to the awe-inspiring structure that is the Hagia Sophia. The outside of the building is formidable, with an enormous dome and minarets at each corner. The inside gave me chills. It's decorated in mosaics depicting Jesus as well as Islamic art, all old and all beautiful. I'm so lucky to have been able to see it. Here are some pictures (scroll through to see all 3):
Other than that, we did a little shopping, tried Turkish falafel, and did the same complicated journey in reverse to get back to our hotel. We leave tomorrow morning for our next flight.
I've never had such a long layover before, but I'm glad we ended up with this one. Turkey is not a country I would have thought to go to and part of me wishes I could see more of it. The rest of me is excited to see the next cities on our list!
See you next week for countries that are entirely within Europe!
