Istanbul - Day 3

Day 3 was our last full day in Istanbul, it started off a bit rough as we were out at Reina until 5 am the night before. We got home just as they were sounding the first call to prayer for the day. Our hotel had complimentary breakfast of the roof terrace from 8-10, so we woke up at about 9:50 went and had some breakfast and then headed back to bed until about 2 pm. If you haven't caught onto the trend yet, we did a lot of sleeping in Istanbul. Luck for us this town never shuts down, it is open 24 hours! On today's hit list was actually going inside Hagia Sophia and then relaxing at the Cemberlitas Hammam. I will go ahead and tell you a little about the hammam since we obviously weren't allowed to take pictures. You should definitely go check out their website for some pics of what it looks like. It is a pretty cool experience though, they have the men and women separated and you strip down and they give you this little towel to wrap yourself in. They you can go into the hot tub and steam room and hang out there for a bit. Then you take a quick dip in the cold pool to cool off. Then in the main room they have this huge marble slab in the middle of the room that is really hot! You lay down on it and then a fat Turkish lady comes over and scrubs you down with a loofah, then suds you up and then throws a huge bowl of cold water on you to rinse you off. She takes you over to a basin and washes your hair then you get to go to another area and get a hot oil massage! It was an awesome, relaxing experience! Except, like I mentioned earlier, when my lady called me a dirty, dirty girl b/c I had so much skin coming off when she exfoliated b/c of my sunburn. haha! Onto the photo montage!

Us at breakfast, before our mid-day nap!

Lunch at this great little place. These women were in the middle making the fresh bread, some were stuffed with cheese, spinach and potatoes or you could get meat. They were really yummy. This is also the place where Annie did a little midday belly dancing.

This is the outside of Hagia Sophia

The inside was gorgeous! All of the ceilings were painted this yellow color with amazing designs

Looking down from the upper gallery down to the alter. It used to be a church built by Emperor Justinian and then was later a mosque when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks. So it still has both Christian and Islamic features.

Looking out a window from the upper gallery of Hagia Sophia you can see the Blue Mosque

Looking down onto the main area of Hagia Sophia, this place was huge!

more Christian relics...a Byzantine mosaic still on the walls

more mosaics

Hagia Sophia had some amazing patterns on its walls and ceilings here are some of my favorites

This is one of my favorite pictures I took...I loved the low hanging chandeliers in the mosques.

Being a little artistic! The guy in the middle took my spot! I wonder if there is something about the number 3 in their culture, everything seemed to be grouped in threes.

Another grouping of three...we couldn't resist having a little photo shoot. We didn't feel too badly about it as this is a museum now and no longer a place of worship :)

The Blue Mosque from the stairs of Hagia Sophia

Our friendly night manager at the hotel suggested we go out to an area called Taksim that night. We had a BLAST! He joked asking if we would be home at 5 am again, we laughed at him saying no way! When we got to Taksim we wandered around and then heard some loud live music up one street and saw a huge crowd dancing out in the street. We decided we must go check this place out! This is right when we got there, we got our very own tower of beer, it wasn't the only one either!

Our new Turkish friends..

We ran into a Stag do...what the English call a Bachelor Party.

Probably my favorite picture of the night...it totally captures the spirit of the night. We danced in that street until the sun came up!

Another great shot, doing some dance that all of the Turks knew, so it must be popular there!

A shot of the street, you can't see to much, but it was packed with people dancing all night to the band.

Now I know really this picture should be included in the Day 4 blog seeing as it is taken at 6 am the next morning, but as we hadn't been home or slept yet it is still in Day 3. Our friend, the night manager, was laughing at us when we came rolling up to the hotel at 6 am the next morning!