Istanbul - Day 1

Finally found my USD wire...right next to my computer under some papers :)  I took so many pictures in Istanbul, so I am going to break it up into 4 blogs for each day to try and keep it to a bearable length!  The first post is the day we arrived in Istanbul.  We had to wake up really early to catch our morning flight to Istanbul.  Even though the flight was only 3.5 hours, they are 2 hours ahead of London so we didn't get there until about 4 pm.  When we got to our hotel we were exhausted from our day of traveling, so we decided to take a little siesta since the day was pretty much over for any sightseeing.  This was a common thread throughout our trip!  After we woke up nice and refreshed we got a recommendation from the hotel for dinner.  We told him not to tell us where he tells tourists to go, but where he would go for dinner.  Alas, we ended up at Amedros, where I am sure is where he and every other hotel tells tourists to go since the restaurant was filled with all tourists!  Oh well, it was a really good meal!  It was on this really cute alley ways that was lined with little restaurants, it had a lot of atmosphere.

This was my meal, it doesn't loo

k very appetizing, but it was delicious! It had pomegranate syrup....amazing!  Look at my cute roses they cut out of tomatoes!

Annie and Mary shared the house specialty, which they like to make quite a production of!  See the video below...they fill up this clay pot with meat and veggies and cook it in the clay pot then break the top off at the table to serve it...pretty cool.

After dinner we were entised by the sign and their promise of Mystic Water Pipes!

It was so cute inside! it was a big tea garden with an open air courtyard.  They had all of these beautiful lamps hanging everywhere! This was where we first fell in love with the lamps, we all came home with one!

Aren't the lamps gorgeous! 

Our very own Mystical Water Pipe! Filled with Strawberry tobacco.  Everyone likes to stay up late drinking tea and smoking hookah.  The local tea is ca

lled Elma Cay, it is apple tea...so good! It is more like hot apple juice than tea.

That's all for day one in Istanbul...short and sweet for today!