Turkey Travel Abroad

As I said in my previous post, I went to Turkey.  I traveled with the same professor I went to Egypt with and had another amazing adventure.  We traveled all over, started in Istanbul, went to Ankara, Bursa, Cappadocia and ended back in Istanbul.  Let me get into my favorite part, the pictures!  I'll start with our time in Istanbul, since that's where we spent the beginning of the trip.  The mosques were incredible, the detail work was mind blowing.

The professor arranged for us to take a boat ride, which gave us a fantastic view of about 15 different mosques.  As we went under a bridge we were told that the land on the left was Europe and on the right it was Asia, which I was so excited about.

 Earlier that day we visited many mosques including the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, which is now a museum, formerly a mosque.

I had to do a lot of stretching to get this picture out of a high window facing the Blue Mosque from Hagia Sophia. 

Amazing view for our meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. 

Spent the entire day at the Grand Bazaar. You can't even imagine how much I purchased, I had some great barterers with me and walked away without spending too much.

I bought a few of these, the blue ones in the middle were mine after a few minutes of back and fourth with the owner.

I loved these strands of colorful elephants. I bought
some for the kids to hang in their rooms.

Rules and regulations for entering the Mosques.

On the outer deck at the Chamber of Commerce.

Bursa/Ankara

Meeting in the Prime Minister's office.

In Ankara we stayed at the dorms on the
TOBB University of Economics and Technology campus. 

Taking the ferry on our journey from Ankara to Bursa.

The sufi dancing was easily one of my favorite parts of the trip. The passion in their eyes, the focus as they twirl, it was mesmerizing. 

Add caption

He became a good friend while on the trip.  Joey shopping at the Bursa silk market in the same store that Queen Elizabeth bought her silk scarves from when she went to Bursa.

Walking through the silk market.

Cappadocia

 First of all, the hotel was so cool, I mean, it was literally built into the side of the mountain.  It was like sleeping in Batman's cave, but in a comfortable, soothing way.

 We decided to take a long hike to see some of the larger, more detailed carvings.  Within a few steps of getting off the bus I slipped on sand and scarped my leg….classic.

 We took a tour through a long cave system, it was an entire city built into the lower portion of a mountain.  It was incredibly claustrophobic, but worth it.

Love you, Lisa, but this was my view as we went through the connecting tunnels.

This was one of the professors on the trip, also the Dean of Students, whom is about 6.5 feet tall!