Turkey!

Here goes... I'm gonna split our trip into two posts, because I just could NOT for the life of me narrow down our pictures any more. We went to TURKEY! and Greece. But ever since I was 13 and read an Indiana Jones book set in Turkey, that's been my #1 travel destination. These 2 days in Istanbul rushing around didn't quite satisfy it, but it was still really awesome to finally actually be there. Oddly, the semester of Turkish I took at BYU 8-1/2 years ago didn't really flood back to me. Not as helpful as I was hopin'. I'll brush up on it before we go back, because go back we will!

My sister, Erin, and her cute family flew in from Poland for the Thanksgiving break. They got in the Friday night the week before Thanksgiving, and Sunday after church we headed out on our rockin' road trip to Istanbul and Greece. After a Thanksgiving dinner with 19 people (including 6 missionaries..they eat a LOT!) on Saturday. Above, you can see the cute kiddos who kept us rockin'. Bran, Nuala, Brigit, Colin, and "big boy Liam." Sorry, Erin, this was the only pic we had of all of them looking and smiling at the camera. It was this weird Liam smile (though of course he still looks handsome!) or the one with his finger up his nose...that one was actually very tempting.

My beautiful sis. She's due 9 days after me. We're gonna hang out at our parents' house for 3 months starting next week, with all our kiddos. My youngest sister is already living there with her 6-month-old while her hubby finishes up training with the Army. Pray for my parents.

The steps at the Nevski cathedral in downtown Sofia are really, really fun to play on. Aren't those 5 little rascals so cute?!

Nuala randomly started doing all these karate moves. It was pretty funny. We took a million shots (okay, only 5) and got a cute little series. What a natural!

We stopped in Plovdiv for a leg-stretching break on our drive to TURKEY! How adorable are these two? Nuala and Brigit are basically best buds. They both love pink, and that's pretty much all that matters when you're this age. It was so fun watching them hang out and play.

The Blue Mosque. In Istanbul on Monday morning.

There were loads of cats everywhere. That made for some happy children. Happy cats? Sometimes. Lots of squealing, etc. was involved. But also ear scratching and tummy rubbing.

Beautiful place, the Blue Mosque. The inside wasn't as interesting as we were hoping. I already knew not to expect paintings, statues, etc. in the mosque, and the decorative calligraphy was really lovely, but you can only look at that for so long. Especially with 5 small children.

To the Basilica Cistern! We really liked it here. Nuala's question, as we were going down the stairs: "Indiana Jones live here?" No clue where that came from! I promise, we only let them watch SOME scenes from Indy...apparently they made an impression, though...how could Indy NOT?

There were 2 statues of Medusa's head in there. One was upside down. It was a cool place, lots of fish swimming around in the water...nice and dark...the water wasn't very deep, maybe 2 feet.

Inside the Grand Bazaar. I had heard, and it was true, that the Turkish people love children! Everyone was so friendly, and not in the jerkish Cairo sort of way. Seriously, in Egypt, everyone would be your "friend" and try to get you to their shop, or their "sister's" or their "uncle's" and then totally disown you when you refused to buy anything. Not like that in Istanbul. They were really genuinely friendly. Sure, they tried to get us to buy stuff, but not at all to the degree we experienced in Cairo. (We did wise up that month in Egypt...after the very first day. It took us several hours to walk about a mile because we kept letting people talk to us, we kept being too nice back. After that...whatever. We just kept going, finally figured out they weren't really interested in us, just in our (perceived) $$). The lamps in the bazaar were really gorgeous. We didn't buy anything, just some bracelets and little trinkets for the kiddos, but those lamps...maybe when we go back.

At the pet/misc. bazaar. Get your fresh leeches here!

This nice fellow was selling pet bunnies, and took this little guy out for the kiddos to pet.

Ooooh...the Spice Bazaar! It was soooo fun to walk around, so colorful! We did have to buy a bunch of Turkish Delight.

The Hagia Sophia. This is right across the street from the Blue Mosque.

Fountains = Kid Magnets

Looking out a top window of the Hagia Sophia towards the Blue Mosque.

I loved those huge wooden circles hanging on the walls. I don't really know the significance of the symbols/writing inside, but they were very impressive.

Z, Bran, Nuala, and Brigit beside a big marble jar. I don't know why I'm admitting this, but when I read the info card for this, it said, "Marble Jar" and I seriously was like, "Wow, that would hold a LOT of marbles." Then I clued in. I blame pregnancy brain + sleep deprivation. yeah...

Going up, up, UP the ramps to the upper level of the Hagia Sophia.

A partially restored painting of Christ with his mother and John the Baptist. The Hagia Sophia was originally an Orthodox basilica, then when the Ottomans took over, they turned it into a mosque and plastered over all the images. Now it's a museum and they're bit by bit removing the plaster from the paintings.

Aaaaand, Topkapi Palace! This I was very excited about. Too bad Nuala was a pill and a half. Z talked some sense into her and and she finally started behaving herself once we got to the Harem.

Rob is so excited to carry his almost-6 and almost-4 year olds around. What a guy!

Z is also excited. Can't you tell? He especially likes how Nuala steers. This is outside the Harem -- so pretty!

Cute Bran and Colin.

And...about to enter the Harem. This is OUR domain...

The tilework was beautiful! It was a tad dark inside, and "creepy", as Brigit announced. But it was really interesting to imagine it in its heyday.

Nuala liked all these low little sinks. Just at her level!

The girls were so cute on the way out. Running, squealing, charming everyone! A guard gave them each a flower, which made them quite happy :) Brigit tried to trade her white one for Nuala's pink one, but that was a no-go. Finally we got them to compromise by breaking a blossom off each and trading those.

And, our Turkish food! It was quite yummy. Of course! Especially after what I consider the low point of the trip: going to McDonald's for lunch. Just for the kids, but still. I'm embarrassed to write that. Bran's happy meal light saber didn't even work. grumble, grumble. We did get street food, too, and then this stuff...delicious! The kiddos all liked the food, too, of course. They're pretty good about eating lots of different stuff.

Oh, we also LOVED waking up at 6am to the muezzin calling the devout to prayer. That is not sarcastic. We really did like it. It sounded so other-worldly, the sing-song Arabic. And the guy had a wonderful voice, in the mosque near us. It was lovely to just lie in bed, listening to that, and kind of wake up slowly...so nice.

Thus ends the Turkish portion of our trip...at least for the blog...wow, it was great! Just too short. Stay tuned for...Meteora, Greece!