Chopsticks Times 6: Turkey

What a beautiful view from the sky!

We had the opportunity to take the kids to a homeschool conference in Antalya, Turkey. The weather was beautiful and the views amazing. There are cats literally everywhere! They are so cute and sweet.

This is how you kill time in an airport...these two listening to music or watching shows...Katherine and I went window shopping.

We had a super short layover on the way, but just enough time to get a bucket of fries to go. Katherine is my fry girl so she was super happy about that.

Checking in at the hotel and saying hello to the cat who greets all of the customers

We had some serious culture shock, not know the language or what to order or how to eat what we ordered...but it was a lot of fun and we figured things out quickly!

I have no idea the names of things...but we will call this one similar to a pizza

we got 3 different dishes to share. We really didn't know portion sizes or even how much we were paying for things because the exchange rate was like 1:38 or something close

We had no idea this was our view from the hotel until the next morning because we arrived at night

Our daily breakfast borek, veggies, pickled peppers, water, coke, and tea.

The borek on the left is meat and the one on the right is cheese

cool little walkie talkie...if you want a taxi just press the button and one will show up.

At first we were like, what is everyone looking at? Then we realized....oh Roman ruins is not the norm in every city. haha

pretty cat

Antalya follows the coastline

walking around town

beautiful rugs! (and expensive too)

fun souvenir shopping

trying different Turkish teas

We so enjoyed the food!

I have videos of the kids getting ice cream

local tram (and birds)

We tried this drink (Ayran) because we heard it was really good. We were not fans. tasted like salty yogurt

some of the restaurants pour butter over your dishes after they bring it to you!

My first time to try baklava...it was good. The top right was a kind of rice pudding that was really sweet...we liked it, too. The top left was a hashbrown type dish out of wheat...I could pass.

I asked what the barrels on top of all of the buildings were. It's the hot water for your apartment. It is heated by solar power. Once you use it up, you have to wait for the next sunny day for warm water again.

My first time to eat at a Uyghur Restaurant. We love all kinds of Chinese food. It was delicious!

splurge

This was our waitress every day. She was so sweet and knew a littel bit of English. She was so sad when it was time for us to leave. We plan to keep in touch.

The name of the restaurant (so I don't forget)

Probably THE BEST MEAL we had the entire trip...

Look at those lamb kebabs!!! They just melt in your mouth

We left Antalya heading back to Rome and had a long layover in Istanbul. It was fun to leave the airport and experience the city. We arrived in late afternoon and attended a class for making the traditional mosaic lamps. How interesting and fun...and left with a souvenir!

adding the glue and the glass pieces

None of us knew how they would turn out, but we had so much fun experimenting and creating our own lamps.

That's one way to keep people from going down a one way street!

The Blue Mosque

inside

the cat

outside Sophia Hagia

inside Sophia Hagia (built as a church, then turned museum, then turned mosque)

yep, another cat :)

When it turned into a mosque they tried to remove all Christian things but did not want to damage the historical building, so they just tried to cover this up so it cannot be seen from most angles

Also, the seraphim on the walls....in muslim tradition no face can be depicted in the mosque, so they are in the process of covering up the faces (one on left already covered)

We went to a museum about the Hagia Sophia and it was really good. It went through the entire history of the building in an interactive way and then we could walk around the museum part and see all of the things removed from teh building.

This was a letter written a long time ago

Turkish people love their cats. You can pay a coin to feed the strays

grilled corn

I tried the cinnamon bread...but should have gotten the corn ;)

look at all of the Turkish delight!

standing on the Europe side with the Asia side behind us

Hudson needed more corn

walking the street markets

early morning walk to a nearby market for a last minute souvenir before our flight back

We got to the market as they were opening...now we know what this is used for. ALL of the shop owners were mopping outside of their stores

Lauren got ice cream in Istanbul because the guy in Antalya ran out of the flavor she asked for so just gave her the tiniest amount you can imagine and skipped the fun try to take the ice cream from me. So, we got one more

cow cat

The last minute souvenirs! They had them picked out at teh very beginning but wanted to make sure before they bought them. I love the bags and different styles. THey fit each girl perfectly

Traditional Turkish tea is black tea and served at the end of every meal. On the last day, the waiter noticed that she wasn't drinking it and offered her pomegranate tea instead. It was kind of a running joke because literally every tea shop offered her pomegranate tea.