Istanbul and Christmas Continued!

Sorry this couldn't be one post, my blog is being a little crazy so be sure to read the post below this one to read more about my trip to Istanbul! :)

After our short visit to the Topkapi Palace we decided to go back to the Spice Bazaar to pick up some souvenirs.  We bought tea, glass tea cups, Turkish delights and tacky key chains with the evil eye on them.  In Istanbul you will see the evil eye all over the place, the eye is supposed to protect you and ward off evil spirits.  The reason they used an eye is because of the Greek mythological monster Medusa.  If you haven't heard of Medusa she is able to turn anybody to stone who looks her in the eyes.  Yep, pretty crazy.  Anyways, after searching around the Spice Bazaar for a while we began walking over to Galata Tower.  Galata Tower was the highest point in Istanbul when it was built, standing 219 feet tall!  This stop was definately one of my favorite places to visit.  You can take an elevator up most of the way but there are a several flights of stairs at the top.  At the highest point of the tower there is a restaurant and the option to walk around the perimeter of  the tower.  The view is amazing, I think it scared my friend Sarah, but not enough to make her regret the experience.  You can see all of Istanbul from there, it's really spectacular!  The elevator encounter we had shortly after walking around was much more traumatizing for everybody then the height. A couple very loudly kissing, eww!  No need to go into detail but it was quite disgusting.  Any how, after seeing Galata Tower we walked over to the pedestrian street to get ice cream.  I got goats milk ice cream which is very popular in Istanbul, it's actually really good.  It tastes pretty similar to regular ice cream but creamier.  After we finished eating we headed back to our hotel with one last magical walk down the pedestrian street.  It really was a great adventure and I would love to go back someday!!  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog! :)
  The End!!<3 p="p">

Istanbul and Christmas!!!:)

The Blue Mosque

Three weeks ago I ventured into the fantastic land of Istanbul.  I can't really even describe what it was like!  European? Check!  Foreign? Check! Strange? Check! Friendly? Almost too friendly..then again most people just wanted us to buy stuff.  Our trip began at the airport, we hopped on the plane and headed to Istanbul Constantinople.  The Istanbul airport smelled spicy and we couldn't understand anything.  After going through customs we got in a van to take us to the hotel, the drive was amazing, all of the houses were built on top of each other, not literally but there were a lot of houses built in one area.  We dropped our stuff off in the hotel room and walked over to the pedestrian street near Taksim Square.  We found a restaurant with authentic Turkish food, the food consisted of meat, veggies, fries and other things I've never tasted.  As we finished eating a huge crowd of chanting citizens walked by, they were protesting something but since we couldn't understand them  I'm still not sure what it was.  While walking around later everybody wanted us to buy things some people would even follow us, they were really persistent.  After a good night sleep we had breakfast at the hotel, just breads and little danishes.  We decided to get a lot of stuff done, starting with the Grand Bazaar.  We took a cab and were dropped off a short distance from the market, I'm pretty sure when I walked in my eyes grew to the size of Anime characters.  It was amazing, there were hundreds of stalls selling almost anything you can imagine! Tea, food, scarves, rugs, furniture, clothing, and places to eat.  You basically had to bargain just to get the price at a reasonable number, if somebody said fifty lira we would offer twenty five.  Sometimes they would agree but other times we had to walk away because they wouldn't put the price down enough.  After the market we walked over to the Blue Mosque, as it slowly came into view our amazement grew.  On the outside of the mosque all of the dressing requirements were posted, long skirts and head scarves for women and long pants for men.  We walked into a small room where you took your shoes off and put them in a bag, the reason for doing so was not just for keeping the floor nice but also a sign of respect.  Inside the Blue Mosque there were domes and sparkling lights, there was a large area roped off where people were worshiping.  That's one very interesting thing about Istanbul, they probably do this in other places too, several times a day they have a call to worship.  I will put a video on of what it sounds like, it's not my own footage though.  After the Blue Mosque we found a place to eat nearby.  The food I ordered was pretty normal, just green beans and mashed potatoes.  By this time of the day I had to use the bathroom, not to go all TMI on you, I walked up to a very scary restroom.  The lights were automatic and while I was in the stall they freaking turned off!!  That had to be one of the scariest moments of my life, I yelled my friends name because I thought she was messing with me, nope she wasn't.  Meanwhile my friend, Sarah, pressed the wrong button on the toilet which caused it to spray water all over the place.  I later found out that a lot of toilets do that instead of toilet paper... or maybe both, I just thought that was different.  Didn't mean to write a whole paragraph about my Istanbul bathroom experience. :)  After eating we decided to go check out the Spice Bazaar, this market is similar to the Grand Bazaar but much smaller and sells less products.  We decided it was about time to go get some sleep and the fastest and cheapest way was the train.  If you've ever been to New York, Chicago or any other big city (and ridden the train) you know how crowded it usually is!!  Luckily the ride was pretty short, but to our disconsolateness we discovered there was a big trek up a hill to our hotel.  Eventually we made it, it wasn't easy haha we almost got taken out just crossing the street.  One very important lesson, we learned from books before hand but didn't believe it was true, was that if you're going to cross a street DO NOT STOP!!  It's amazing there aren't more accidents, but everyone seems to have street crossing down pretty well.  Just look for a stop in traffic and then run, I don't believe I saw any stop lights either.  Moving on, the next day was also very busy beginning with Hagia Sophia.  Hagia Sophia is another big tourist attraction because of it's vast history beginning in 537 A.D!  Crazy, right!? :O  We were lucky enough to arrive early because as we left the line had grown to triple the size it had been.  When this amazing structure was first built it was an Orthodox church, when Constantinople was conquered in 1453 it was ordered by Mehmed ll to become a mosque.  Late it became a museum and remains that today.  Inside Hagia Sophia there is a huge dome and several smaller ones with amazing mosaics and artwork all around the inside.  In the center of the ceiling there are four angels, three have there faces  covered and one was just recently unveiled in  2009.  The faces had been covered and unseen for 160 years because Muslim churches don't believe in having the human body depicted in church.  Once we had been all around the museum we decided to go check out the Topkapi Palace.  I honestly did not enjoy this stop because, one there were long lines and two most of the time was spent in a line staring at jewels and clothing. I'm sure many people would enjoy this stop but I didn't have the temperament for walking into five rooms that looked exactly the same, especially the circumcision room, that was great. <---sarcasm font="font"> data-blogger-escaped-font="font">data-blogger-escaped-nbsp="nbsp" data-blogger-escaped-sarcasm--="sarcasm--">

Istanbul Call to Worship

Fall!!!:)

AHH I'M SO HAPPY!! It's Fall, Fall is DA BOMB DIGGITY!!:)   It smells so good...all the time:D!!!!  Oh, I also got ze braces.  They don't hurt anymore....but they're pretty icky:O

Umm, I'm also homeschooling for 8th grade haha....I'm really skipping around here...

I'm gonna put a list of songs on here sometime....I guess they won't be awesome for long though....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!
   Bye!! I'm going on a photo walk tomorrow, so maybe I'll post some Fall pictures!!

BYC PICS

BYC Just got there this morrrrning

Alrighty, so Sunday through Friday I have been at the most awesome, cool, amazing camp ever! BYC!  So despite any sadness or problems I have had this summer BYC was able to instantly turn that into happiness and love.  BYC stands for baptist youth camp and takes place at Laurel Ridge, North Carolina.  This camp is so welcoming and excepting you could be anyone and feel like you were at home.  The camp starts by playing ice breakers, breakin the ice games, which of course aren't the funnest but they weren't horrible.  Although I probably didn't make any life friends while standing in a group with the same shoe size as me it was still a fun way to start the week.  Ahhh I don't even know where to start!  Well the food I guess, it made me sick on several occasions, but I think it might just be the grease is most of the food.  They do have salads!  After dinner every night we would go to worship.  Worship was very spiritual and made you feel happy every day.  You would take your shoes off and sit on blankets and have an amazing time.  It was also very emotional as people would talk about their sadness they had experienced. Now to a different subject, the cabins. So everyone walks in and I'm of course like TOP BUNK and so is my frieeend Sarah. So later every one's talking about the new mattresses and how they are dark green so I dramatically flip my hair and look at my bed. And guess what?  IT'S LIGHT GREEN NOO!  Yes I had the only light green mattress and ya know what that means? No, you don't unless you are Anna.  Let's put it this way every morning when I woke up too early for the others I would be holding my breath to be quiet...of course my stupid bed was like eeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhh urrrrrr when I got up or moved an inch. So I would just awkwardly smile when every one's angry eyes stared at me.  The showers also had some gorgeously large spiders...that didn't make sense ahh I'm tired, OK?  OKAY so we had exodus groups every morning after worship and announcements. We would read scripture and sometimes play a game. It was usually not super fun but I met some cool people.  Like Coke.   Okay so Sarah and I were watching a game of basketball and were giving people nick names and one guy was wearing a coke shirt so we called him coke.  Hehe he was my age so yeah he was in my exodus group.  I'm such a creeper...in a uncreepy way.  After lunch we would go to an interest group we had picked out. I picked Fun with Fur. And it was some serious fun! I got to dry felt, wet felt, spin yarn and cover a bar of soap in wool haha.  And may I say this week made me love photography even more!  I definitely want to make a living doing that.  Here's a picture of broccoli, it's at the top.... its good though, right!?  Well anyways after interest groups we have 3 hours of free time where I would mostly write letters to people and play games with my friends.  :)  Okay so we had a activity after worship every night like a talent show, bonfire, sundaes, skits, stuff like that. My favorite was the talent show! It was really fun and I loved a lot of the acts.  One boy sand Yound Wild and Free! It was HILARIOUS!  He was a small sixth grader and he asked if he could cuss hahahahahaa.  He was all "I'm 17 and I got peach fuzz on my face and so what if we go crazzzyy" it was awesome!  Bottom line is I met awesome friends and can't wait to go back next year!

Summer 2012

Okay so a friend has finally inspired me to write a new post...you know who you are.  Well summers out but middle school drama always finds a way to leak into everyone's lives somehow, right?  Not going into detail on that either cause most people who bother looking at my blog would know.  Sorry creepers who wanted to find out more about my life...don't cry.  Well my life has been pretty good, the age 13 is a little complicated sometimes but if it's possible I'm okay with that.  I'm gonna start running for cross country tomorrow so hopefully I won't have to start awkwardly speed walking. So I volunteered at VBS last week. Okay so am I the only one that thinks we shouldn't even TRY relay races with 4 year olds? Okay well for some reason we did and I'm not sure if it's my lack of being able to tie a stupid tool belt around a 4 year old fast enough or if it's just the kids lack of understanding but we lost every single race.  Well the kids weren't focused on anything but doing exactly the opposite of what I told them to do so I don't think they noticed.  So hey only one fail this summer so far right? WRONG! Many more!  I can't talk about everything because you know some people I'm talking about read this and don't automatically single yourself out because it probably is you! Just kidding.  Okay so what else HANG ME UP TO DRYYYYYY YOU'VE RUNG ME OUT TO TO TO MANY TIMESSSSS.  Okay so what the heck does that mean? What is it laundry singing or something? I shall reference the googles.  Okay so it means emotionally done and just through I guess like a wet towel....I can totally relate sometimes! Not like in a depressed way but in some situations it's like ughhh I'm done with you or this!! And not like a wet towel.  Okay moving on got a little side tracked there.  Lets see um so this makeup stuff is pretty crappy...hehe random but seriously are we girls supposed to put this rainbow stuff on our face to be beautiful? Um I think not? And then look like a demented rainbow when you shower? I double think not! And I triple think not about it because girls are using it to be gorgeous and please guys when it can increase skin cancer! Parabens uh hello!!!  Guys really need to understand they have it WAY easier than girls. Okay so one more thing on my mind then I will be done.... umm how bout music haha.  Oh yeah great idea there. Well lets start with some lyrics that are stupid okay "Hey I just met you and this is crazy but here's my number so call me maybe" this song is encouraging creeping! Are seriously buying these songs! Yes I bought this! We should not be encouraged to give out numbers to possible murders!  Yeah that's all I have on music not gonna lie...although that Nicki Manaj definately should NOT be famous...lets go to the beach each lets go get away they say what they gonna say?  Umm okay yeah I think not.