^^ gotta love asking others to take your photo. at least the other lady is in focus.
oh man, what a whirlwind trip. we went way back in september and crammed in one day what most people would do in probably a week. good thing is, the main things we wanted to see in istanbul were relatively close to eachother and we could get to them by walking or an easy train that went down the main street. bad thing is, i felt SO sick during this whole trip. i was approaching my 8th week of pregnancy and my "morning sickness" was a full blown 24 hours. jet lag didn't help too much.
we arrived saturday evening and after dropping off our luggage in the apartment we were staying in, our host brought us to istiklal street for dinner. it was a fun night life area with lots of shopping and restaurants.
we had a nice little breakfast the following morning outside of a cafe and then went to the top of the galata tour to see a beautiful view of the city. we then ventured to the main area and visited the blue mosque, hagia sophia church, basilica cistern, and topkapi palace. we really wanted to go to the grand bazaar but it was closed since it was sunday. everything we saw was so beautiful and i loved that it had a mix of european culture and middle eastern. i am glad we got to go when we did. i feel like whenever i turn on the news (which is rare) there are more issues with ISIS and terrorists in turkey and surrounding countries. my dad was worried about us going but we were safe and sound without any issues.