Turkey Vacation - day 6: New Year's Day in & around Istabul

I finally got to have Turkish coffee! It was delicious! It tasted like thick dark bitter chocolate with a muddy bottom.

Christine and Rosza being fancy with their makeshift monocles ;op

After finishing the Turkish coffee, you're supposed to turn it upside down on the saucer to let the muddy grounds run down, then you wait 5 minutes and turn it right side up again and then look at the abstract markings on the side of the cup that the grounds made and read your future...kinda funny...they saw all kinds of pictures in mine, including an alien...?

Traditional Turkish breakfast: Menemen - eggs with tomato, onion, & peppers.

Hagia Sofia. From its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.

Rosemary, Nate, Christine, and Rosza taking in the view from above.

Squampous had to take a peek too!

The view from one of it's windows.

Lunch time! We went to a little hole on the wall known for it's fresh fish sandwiches and overloaded backed potatos!

They have bottles of lemon juice on the tables, which was the perfect addition to this sandwich! I haven't had fresh, non-fried fish since the States, so this was a nice treat! I MISS GOOOOOOD FISH!!!!!!

The loaded baked potato...has EVERYTHING in it...not my fave, but interesting. Thankfully i only ordered sandwich and was satisfied with it!

This is a famous Turkish Delight/dessert shop in Turkey.

More delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice! YUMMERZ!

Gotta get my hot chocolate fill in when i can...we all got one :o]

In the foreground is my pistachio chocolate pudding (one of the highlights of the various desserts we got). In the background is Chistine's flan...tasted just like flan.

Rosemary's baked rice pudding. This was everybody's favorite!

Annnnnndddd...saving the weirdest for last: chicken pudding...that's right... Rosza was brave enough to order it. We all had a bite and that was enough, but she was a trooper and actually finished it (with the help of Nate eating 1 more bite)! It wasn't bad, per se, just odd.

You can see in these 2 bites the stringiness from the chicken...just weird.

Nate got the vanilla raspberry cake and it was very good!

Turkish Delight galore!!!

Then we went shopping...almost every store looks like this! I want my bedroom to look like this! It's so beautiful!!

The Blue Mosque at night.

Turkey Vacation - day 5: New Year's Eve in Istanbul!

Sign at airport in Kayseri going to Istanbul..."Dear Passengers, Please inform us regarding your special attention cases mentioned below, this will help us serve you better." Hmmmmm...which one of the below doesn't belong...

Arrived in Istanbul to rain and wind! SOOOOOOO cold!!!!! It had snowed there the days we had been in Cappadocia.

This is the same pic i took on my 1st night in Turkey...looks a little different in the day, but still has a San Francisco vibe, i think.

AAAhhhhhhh...my 1st beer in Turkey! Not great, but hey, it's beer! Money is tight, so the cheaper the better.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...Turkish pizza w/mint yogurt sauce...DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!

The Blue Mosque

New Year's Eve in Taksim Square with Rosza, Rosemary, Christine, and Nate. It was raining and we were all soaking! I guess I should've brought a water-proof winter coat...live and learn.

Fresh roasted chestnuts!! So tasty! As Nate describes them, they taste like slightly sweet mashed potatos! 

Out 1st stop of the night. They tried to rip us off, so we paid what we owed and left..thankfully we're not in a Turkish prison somewhere!

Beer and damp TP... sigh

After we quickly snuck out of the place that tried to rip us off, we found a super chill hookah bar about 45 minutes before midnight. It was a great place with super friendly people! We sat in the back and were cold so they put the barrel of hot coals near us so we could get warm...by the end of the night, Rosza had melted one of her boots and the hood to my already non-waterproof coat had a hole burned through it...oops!

New Year's shots! Here's to 2015!!!

Turkey Vacation - day 4: exploring Love Valley

For our last day in Cappadocia, we hiked around the infamous Love Valley!

We ate a fantastic dinner made in traditional Turkish clay pots.

Our waiter let Rosemary do the honors of slicing off the top of the pot with a sword ;o]

Inside is a mix of vegetables (& meat) in a stew that you pour over rice or dip the delicious pita bread into. It was a great meal to end the Cappadocia portion of our trip on!

Turkey Vacation - night 3: traditional Turkish dancing & dinner

This is where the owner of the hostel drove us too for dinner and traditional Turkish dancing. It was in a cave-like setting, and we were all the way in the back. But we could still see a lot of it and a lot of people that came in tour groups left early, so we were able to move closer.

The dancing started with the Whirling Dervishes, which is a ceremonial Islamic prayer dance. It's very interesting. They hafta practice a lot, cuz i'd get so dizzy! 

Then karma came for Rosemary and she got to partake in being married off...

Her 1st bachelor was middle-aged Asian Harry Potter...soooo cute and such a great sport, but the crowd told her "NO!"

Her next suiter was younger and in decent shape. So he had to do push-ups...

...and arm wrestling to win Rosemary's hand... he ended up winning due to the crowds support...not by what Rosemary wanted...she would have rather had middle-aged Asian Harry Potter...but i guess it wasn't up to her.

More traditional Turkish dancing.

Belly dancing, of course.

The main attraction belly dancer...

And he's back! Middle-aged Asian Harry Potter! And still being a good sport, despite being dumped by his potential future wife!

The end of the show. 

It was really cool show. It reminded me of a Turkish version of Medieval Times. Not great food, but still entertaining and worth seeing.