Istanbul

Kelly and I went on a little vacation last week. Kelly's mom came to stay with the girls (hallelujah!) and we went. We left Sunday afternoon right after the primary program. I love the primary program. I always cry, I just can't help it. Those kids just glow when they are singing. Back to our vacation. We flew all night in business elite which means tons of room, fancy schmancy food and Kelly's favorite, ice cream sundays at 35,000 feet. There are also on demand movies which are awesome. The only reason that we like to travel without the kids is that we can ride in business elite, you can't do that with kids younger than 8. Jannica can come with us, but she has that whole school thing. It is a nice little date where we can watch different movies, get a free meal and then roll over and go to sleep. I think I talked to Kelly 5 times in the whole 10 hour flight each way. Aren't we soooooo romantic? Ahh, the hazards of an overly practical husband. I love it though. It is refreshing.   

A few highlights:

The Hagia Sofia is this cool church that was built in 500 AD. It started out

 as a Christian church, but then when the Muslims took over, it became a mosque. This building is huge and it only took

 5 years to build. Almost all of the pictures of Christ were removed, except for a few. It is now a museum and the old frescoes are being uncovered. It was kinda weird being in a Muslim country and seeing all of these pictures of Christ. 

The Blue Mosque is a beautiful huge mosque. It

 has 6 turrets (most mosques only have        

     one or two), that the religious leaders would climb and then call people to prayer. Now they have speakers. It is cool to hear some guy calling everyone to prayer in his sin

g-songy voice. Not so nice at 1 am, but hey I won't complain. 

We went to the Bazaar where people are trying to rip you off

 any chance they get. I got to use my haggling skills, I think I did pretty well, but the guy probably thinks we are stupid Americans. 

The Spice Market  was a beautiful array of colors and sounds. I wanted to buy all of the spices, but I would not known how to use them. Oh, well.

This is a picture of an asian toilet. That's right, squat, point, and shoot. Not real fun, but when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. 

This next pic is of the inside of one of the mosques. They were all so beautiful and well taken care of. These people seem like they are very dedicated to the sanctity of their religion. 

This is all that I am going to write for tonight, maybe I can get Kelly to fill you in on the rest.  This was one of the best trips that we have been on. I love that I get to travel. I would have never dreamed that this is what I would be doing with my life. Man, I married well!