Long first day

Winding down our first full day in Istanbul. We walked about 8 miles today, and tomorrow may be more grueling. The weather was perfect for walking tours, though! Our hotel, the Richmond Istanbul, is right on Istiklal Caddesi, the heart of the shopping and entertainment district. (It's a nice place and fairly convenient location, but it's very loud at night.) We walked all the way up to Taksim Square to meet our tour guide Claire, who brought us all the way back down Istiklal, with side trips to see an Orthodox Church, an Armenian church, and St. Anthony's Catholic Church, plus a few other notable sites including former embassies, schools, museums, hospitals, a synagogue, and Galata Tower.

At the conclusion of the tour we took the world's second oldest subway train, the Tünel, back up the hill to Istiklal and got some lunch at the deliciously American Shake Shack. Next up we had student presentations in the hotel about some of the cultural sites we are seeing this week. I was interested in the topics but had a very difficult time staying awake. Following the presentations we headed back down the hill via the Tünel and then took the tram across the Golden Horn into the old part of the city. There we toured the 6th-century Bascillica Cistern and got a group photo in silly sultan costumes.

After the Cistern, we visited the centuries-old Hagia Sophia, which was built originally as a huge cathedral during he Byzantine era. It late became a mosque under Ottoman rule, but was converted to a museum shortly after the founding of modern Turkey. According to our student presentation today, if it were still a church, it would rank as the third largest church in the world. The site and the structure itself have undergone a number of expansions, renovations, and restorations throughout the centuries, and it's quite an interesting mix of architectural styles and building materials. It's not surprising that about 1/3 of the interior was closed of with scaffolding for the latest restoration efforts. Still, it was quite an amazing site. Outside the Hagia Sophia we posed for pictures with the Blue Mosque as a backdrop, before taking public transportation back to the area of the hotel.

I enjoyed a nice relaxing drink with my colleagues before several of us caught a quick, tasty, Turkish dinner and retiring to the hotel.

I will hope to go to sleep soon, but on the street I can hear throngs of people conversing, an occasional street performer (sounds like pan flute), and some REALLY annoying music being piped loudly from the record store across the street. There is a street cleaner that goes back and forth the length of the street all day long. It's super loud and has gone past three times since I've been back; I hope it's done for the night. Fortunately, I bought new batteries for my noise-cancelling headphone in the Amsterdam airport yesterday, so I just might break those out.

Camera battery died just as I wrapped this up, so you only get one photo, from my phone.