Thanksgiving Trip to Istanbul, Turkey!

Thursday, November 25th through Friday, November 26th

With no plans for the Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to go on a somewhat last minute trip to Istanbul, Turkey! Ha ha, going to Turkey on Turkey day! We started our journey Thanksgiving morning with our flight through Chicago and Frankfurt on our way to Istanbul. We arrived Friday afternoon and took the train from the airport to our hotel. It took us a while to find the hotel since there are no street signs there! We were on the right street all along, but after making a big circle we realized we needed to walk further down the hill to our hotel. After a quick shower and change of clothes we wasted no time and headed out to the Grand Bazaar for our first meal and first cup of tea. We walked through the indoor bazaar and saw lots of cool lamps, clothes and trinket souvenirs. Connected to the bazaar is the Spice Market. Here you can find all sorts of spices, food and drinks. It was here I bought some apple tea and chai. They even vacuumed packed it so it would stay fresh!

After leaving the Spice Market we walked down to the river and got another quick snack of a fish sandwich from a boat floating on the river.

After our snack, we made our way through the winding streets, listening to the call to prayer from the minarets and found our way to the Valens Aquaduct. We got there after the sun set to find it all lit up! It's amazing how the modern ways of travel fit through the existing structure. And yes, we were standing on the side of this road for about 20 minutes taking pictures! Crazy tourists! We then made our way through some neighborhoods back to the area of our hotel. It was time for another snack! We found a cozy neighborhood restaurant and had another small meal. By this time we're pretty tired and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our busy day tomorrow!