Breathtaking Istanbul

What an experience; Istanbul was truly enlightening in all aspects. Since my family is from Turkey, I truly felt at home. The people were warm and very inviting; as I walked along the shops and through alleyways, I got invited for Turkish tea and coffee countless times, had some drinks with the locals and impressively learned how to cross the streets. 

Turkey is such a beautiful country and I appreciated the beauty of all of the Mosque’s and hearing the call to prayer five times a day. I also loved seeing modern Islam and the way in which modern Muslim’s move about their everyday life. I also found that not many people spoke English, as I was often mistaken for speaking in Arabic and tried to reply to them with my broken Turkish/Arabic. Our group was such a great group of people and Azlan and Astrid made the experience all that much better.

I have travelled outside of the country many times before and Istanbul is truly the one city that I felt was very inviting and I cannot wait to go back; it was by far my favourite. My heart is definitely still in Istanbul!

I bought a really cool hair piece that I wanted to share. It was pretty unique; I’ve seen people where them in magazines and on TV in movies but I never knew where to find a nice one. I finally spotted one in Istanbul and had to get it. I’m not sure where I am going to where it yet and I probably don't have it on correctly but it is definitely one of my most favourite purchases from Turkey!