Istanbul, Turkey – by Anna

Istanbul was an unforgettable few days. Hagia Sofia was a church until 1453, when they changed it into a Mosque. Mosques cannot display any images of people on the walls so when they wanted to convert the church, they had to cover everything up. Hagia Sofia aka “Ayasofya” is now a museum where you can walk around and see some of the faces and people starting to show as the paint wears off. The Blue Mosque was beautiful with all the handmade tiles on the ceiling and the big pillars with blue designs. Istanbul is divided in two continents, Asia and Europe. We were staying on the European side so we had fun exploring the Asian side. We tried mussels with rice inside. They were actually pretty good. The Grand Bazaar is a huge market filled with clothes, spices, soaps, leather, traditional Turkish lamps and Turkish delights. We spent a whole day in the bazaar and eventually, we got a little overwhelmed. Turkish people are so lovely. They will invite you in for apple tea and ask you questions. The Hammam was so relaxing! A Hammam is a scrubbing spa. My parents did one in Morocco so we wanted to try it here. They started off by putting us in a salt room. It looked like Christmas! They then put us in the sauna, gave us a foam soap massage and gave us tea! It was great! Turkish delights are jelly candies with different nuts and spices in them. My favourite were the plain ones covered in icing sugar. In the Grand Bazaar, there would be tonnes of different delight stores with samples. Go to the Bazaar hungry! Another delicious snack that we tried when we were in Istanbul was the Turkish ice cream. This ice cream is different from all the others because it was thicker, strechier and takes longer to melt. They will serve you the ice cream once their done their mini show! I’m definitely coming back to Istanbul!