Well, Istanbul, you're just so much fun and amazing, I'm not sure I can do you justice, but I'll try!

After 30 plus hours of traveling from Sri Lanka and up through Kiev, we landed in Istanbul. Immediately, we fell in love with the city. Coming in on the metro at dusk was a real treat. All the lights in the city were coming on, illuminating the thousands of mosques! After all the temples we've seen in the last two years throughout Asia, this was a welcome sight.

Our first full day, we woke bright and early, due to jet lag and excitement to be on a new continent. Our first stop was at the Grand Bizaar. Istanbul is freezing, and even the locals say that it is colder now than it was last year. The Bizaar is, I believe, one of the oldest in the world, and boasts over 5000 stalls. Unsurprisingly, we immediately got lost in the crowd and after 20 minutes, everything started to look the same. We made a few "cold weather" purchases- shoes, shirts, and scarves, and then were better prepared to handle the cool winds outdoors.

After having our second Kebab, we continued our walk around town, and saw the New Mosque, Spice Bazaar, Galata Bridge and Tower, and spent a few hours in the Taksim Square area. All the small alleys created a maze, so we spent most of the day wandering and soaking in the scene, as well as taking many pictures!

Our second day, we did more of the tourist activities, starting with the Blue Mosque, just down the road from our hostel. This was very impressive, as it was our first mosque. However, it paled in comparision to Hagia Sophia, which we explored later in the afternoon. Absolutely stunning, and the pictures will never really capture the size and grandeur ofone of the worlds largest and oldest mosques. We again nearly got lost among the over 800,000 artifacts in the archelogical museum, again, just across the street from our hostel basically. We couldn't be in a better location!

So in total in two days, we've walked a combined 20 hours around town, seen about 15 mosques, 2 museums, thousands of street side cafes and kebab stands, and many, many tourists, which we've tried our best to avoid by getting out and exploring the "real" Istanbul. We're not sure how long we're going to stay, but there's still plenty more to do and see in this amazing city!