Turkish Delights: Our First Visitors

Scott’s good friend from TSI had a work conference in Thessaloniki, Greece. Does anyone know what country is just an overnight train-ride away from Greece? Yep, it’s Turkey! Boy, were we excited when Jim & Rachel decided to join us in Istanbul for a few days of sight-seeing. They were our first real visitors! Since we had only been in the country for 5 1/2 weeks, we hadn’t been to any of the sight-seeing locations yet . We packed in quite a bit during the short time we had together. Day 1 included the Hagia Sophia (was a church, then a mosque, now a museum), Sultanahmet Mosque (also called the Blue Mosque), and dinner on top of a big hill overlooking the city. Day 2 included the Archaeology Museum (which houses over one millions objects that represent almost all civilizations in history), Hippodrome Area with Egyptian Obelisk, the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar. Day 3 included the Basilica cistern (built by Justinian in 532 to supply water to the Byzantine Palace, a trip to the Süleymaniye Mosque, which unfortunately was under construction, and the Yeni (new) Mosque. We enjoyed our share of Turkish foods – Adana kebaps, tavuk durum, acı ezme, poğaça, lahmacun, köfte, pilav, and of course Turkish coffee and Turkish delights.

It was a very fun three days, and we were sad to see them leave.