Istanbul Continued

Greetings! I'm writing you now backstage in Moscow.  Trying to recap the rest of what we saw in Turkey feels like such a mountainous task.  Turkey is forever ago in my mind!

I've got many things to tell like what it feels like to sleep for 5 hours, then fly to the Ukraine and see it for the first time.  To run through a seemingly deserted, old, dusty building and then find a pretty remarkable performance space at the a darkened hallway's end.  About taking an overnight train for 12 hours from Kiev, Ukraine, to Moscow.  To drive around and realize you can't even pretend to know what anything says.  

BUT before I forget, I must show you the pictures of the places we saw in Turkey.  A guy who was a family friend of Rob's was kind enough to give us a whirlwind tour of Istanbul's old city center.  We crowded ourselves into a train and slowly made our way into the thick of it.  This walk was a reminder of just how young America is.  We saw a monument decorated in hieroglyphs that the Byzantines moved from Egypt to Istanbul and erected once they took control of the city.

 Afterward, we walked to the Blue Mosque.  It was Prayer time so we couldn't go in, but the courtyard was pretty beautiful.  Just a 3 minute stroll from that was the Haggia Sofia.  It is a huge mosque and incredibly beautiful.  Each time I told someone I was going to Turkey they said I absolutely had to go in there.  But the lines were too long and the sky had darkened to the prelude of a storm.  So we decided to see the sights underground.

As it was told to me, around the 1950's a family was digging in the ground to begin construction on a well for their home when the stumbled about something quite unusual and remarkable.

Sitting below the city is a giant cavern that once functioned as a Byzantine well.  Rows and rows of columns fill the darkened space, and in the back corner there are two chunky, large Egyptian sculptures of Medusa's head.  The ceiling is high, the floor is wet.  People moved through slowly.  I think it takes a slow walk to process that you are walking through something so incredibly old.  

The sistern.

We took the train back to our part of the city, ate lunch in a traditional Turkish restaurant and headed to the show.  Very rarely to do we get to see more than 10 minutes for a city we're in.  Two hours felt like two days.  I'm sold.  I loved it.  Istanbul, hope to see you again some day.

The Blue Mosque.

Courtyard at the Blue Mosque.

The Haggia Sofia Mosque.