Istanbul, Turkey; Vacation 2012 part 1

Abu Dhabi Airport Security

For us it has always been cheaper to go back to the States for vacation, but since we've only been in Abu Dhabi for a little over 2 months (except Ben) and it's very expensive to get everyone back we decided to go to Spain and Portugal. It sounds weird to us when we say it's cheaper to go to Spain than back to the States; we've never been able to say that before.

Apart from price, we also wanted to reinforce Talia's Spanish since she's been away from a Spanish-speaking country for a year.


The trip started with a 4-5 hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul... where we had a seven hour layover. Ben chuckled at the Abu Dhabi security driving BMW's.

Pide with Turkish Sausage

During the layover we got to try "Pide" which is like the Turkish version of pizza, and strong Turkish tea. 


A guy in a chef's hat with a huge metal crushing tool was smashing pistachios to make a special kind of Turkish ice cream. I didn't try it, but it looked interesting. The store also had a lot of pistachios and hazelnuts for sale.

Strong Turkish Tea

We saw lots of beautiful tapestries, glass work and things for sale in the "bazaar." I wondered if the peacock had some sort of significance because many things in the bazaar were decorated with peacock feather designs and colors. These are some of the pretty colored glass lanterns:
I was a little confused when I saw a group of older men all dressed in what looked to me like white bath towels until I figured out it was some sort of of cultural or religious group... But when I saw the first one out of context it was really confusing.

Colored Glass Lanterns in the Bazaar

Getting to experience a small part of Turkey was a nice, unexpected start to this trip.