Thanksgiving in Istanbul

I am still way behind on blogging! This Thanksgiving we went to Istanbul to spend time with our good friends from Jordan, Victoria and Brett. We drove over from Ankara on Thanksgiving morning and arrived around lunch time. Victoria cooked a ham and other traditional Thanksgiving sides, and I brought a pumpkin pie. It was a delicious meal and so nice to spend the holiday together with friends who are like family to us.

View of the Bosporus River in the distance from their house.

The next morning we rode the metro downtown and walked around the Sultanahmet area.

Nathan, the boys, and I were in Istanbul in 2014 for vacation from Kuwait, when Caleb was Eliza’s age. It was fun to walk through the same squares, watch Eliza petrify the pigeons, as the boys did when we came many years ago, and see the area again. Istanbul is such an impressive city with its history, architecture, and liveliness. The city seems like it never sleeps!

We didn’t go inside the Aya Sofia or the Blue Mosque on this trip, we just admired them from outside. Since our last trip to Istanbul, the Aya Sofia was re-converted to a mosque. It was built as a an Orthodox Christian church over 1,500 years ago, then converted to a mosque in 1453 when the Ottoman’s conquered Istanbul. In 1934 it was converted to a Museum and then became a UNESCO site. Then, in 2020, the Turkish President Recip Teyyip Erdoğan announced it would be converted back to a mosque and Muslims held the first prayers there on 24 July. Big change in history for this historic place and another show of Erdoğan asserting his power in the region.

The Blue Mosque was under construction during this visit, so while you could go inside, the beautiful blue ceilings were covered by scaffolding. The last time we were here, we toured the inside of this beautiful mosque.

It is so neat to hear the call to prayer in the square. They alternated it between the Blue Mosque and  the Aya Sofia.

Always a treat to eat Turkish ice cream :).

The big thing we wanted to do that day was go to the Grand Bazaar and eat good Turkish food. Our friends took us for a delicious lunch at a small restaurant tucked into a corner. It was frequented by many workers, confirming this was a legit place. The kids tried a few new foods and we all left with full bellies.

The Grand Bazaar is s such an impressive place to visit and it was just like we remembered. Massive, colorful, busy, lots of scents, and sounds. The bazaar sits on almost 31,000 square meters of land, it is the largest bazaar in the world, has more than 61 streets inside and 3,000 shops. The bazaar was commissioned in 1455 by Sultan Mehmet II, was fully opened by 1461, and has been thriving ever since.

It surprisingly wasn’t too crowded when we got there, but that changed quickly after afternoon prayers.

You can literally find everything here! It’s like Walmart....but MUCH BIGGER.

Eliza took a nap during Friday prayers, so Nathan and Brett drank tea while she napped, and Victoria, the boys, and I roamed around for a bit.

I especially love the colorful Turkish lamps and really want to get one while we are living here.

There are just too many styles and colors to decide on!

After leaving the Grand Bazaar, our friends took us to another outdoor bazaar to show us one of their favorite carpet shops. While we looked around, the kids loved on this cat with her new baby kitten.

Nathan and I had been looking for a runner and we bought one while we were there.

It was getting dark, so we began the trip home, first in a very crowded cable car where we were smushed like sardines.

Then a 20 minute metro ride and then a mile walk home.

The kids were great walkers and explorers that day, especially little Eliza. They were pooped at the end of the day and everyone slept well!

The next day we took the metro downtown and then hopped onto a 90 minute ferry ride to Büyükada, the main Princess Island. We had about an hour to kill before the ferry left, so we went to the Spice Market while waiting. Like the Grand Bazaar, it was very lively and crowded!

Turkish delight galore!

Ferry terminal 

Getting ready to board

We found a table by a window on and the kids enjoyed looking out. It was a busy ferry port with boats traveling all along the Bosporus River.

The kids adore Victoria and Brett and love spending time with them.

Nathan really wants to learn how to sail. We are hoping to do this while living here. It’s such a great place to learn and sail along the coast.

We made it to Büyükada! It was such a quaint little island with narrow streets, cute shops, and cafe’s lining the streets. And like any good Turkish city, there were plenty of stray cats and dogs for the kids to play with. This was the restaurant were we ate lunch. Eliza played with the kitty while we waited for our food.

Wandering the streets and browsing the shops.

The main square

While we enjoyed Sahlep, a traditional Turkish milk and cinnamon drink that is popular in the winter, Eliza and Benjamin found more birds to terrorize. There was a man selling bird feed and people were posing for pictures with the flock of birds, so their terrorizing didn’t last for long and they quickly conformed and fed the birds without scaring them away.

Kitties and ice cream. It doesn’t get much better than that.

After wandering around for a few hours, we headed back to the ferry port to go back to Istanbul.

Sweet friends. I adore her!

As we approached Istanbul, the sun was setting. It is such a beautiful place and was a lot of fun to travel on the Bosporus and Sea of Marmara by ferry boat. Istanbul from the water. Truly amazing!

Arriving at the ferry port.

We started our journey back home. It was a nice walk along the Bosporus and onto a bridge to catch the metro, then walk the rest of the way home.

Hearing the impressive call to prayer one last time.

The kids became expert metro riders on this trip.

Amazingly the they still had energy when we got home, so we went swimming at our friends’ pool and ate pizza.

Then we all crashed!

It was great to experience Istanbul again and see the Princess Islands, but even  more fun to be with our friends. We are so thankful that they opened their home to our family for a few days, and for the time we all spent together. They needed a well-deserved vacation after our visit!