Back to Topkapı Sarayı

R and I visited Topkapı Palace when we lived in Istanbul during our internship, but we didn't even see half of the palace! So when I went with our school group, I made sure to journey to the other areas. Pictures weren't allowed in many places, like the treasury, which houses jewelry, swords and gold- and jewel-encrusted junk. But if you've seen one glittery egg, you've seen 'em all, right? Anyway, pictures and videos were absolutely allowed in other places, so enjoy:

We had some preeeetty nice weather that day.

Old City Walls and Dolmabahçe Palace

Below are pictures of the old walls built around Istanbul during the Byzantine era. They are mostly original, but the government has added new stone and mortar to the existing walls while trying to preserve them so it's kind of hard to tell where the original walls are.

 

Below are pictures of Dolamahçe Palace, an incredibly opulent palace built by the Sultans in the 19th century and which we passed just about everyday since it's just south of Beşiktaş and we lived in Ortaköy.

As you'll see in the map above, the purple circle outlines Ortaköy more or less, and the green is Beşiktaş. The yellow star shows Dolmabahçe, so it was visible whenever we drove to/from Ortaköy and from the Bosphorus whenever we took a ferry.

Two Alumni Dinners for the Price of Zero!

While in Ankara, we organized dinners with SPEA MPA alums who live in Ankara and work in the government. Both dinners were for Iftar, which breaks the fast at sundown during Ramadan. The first was on a Sunday night and was prepared by the family of the wife of one of the alumni. The food was incredible. Here are some pictures of us sitting at a table and standing in the living room.

The second was at Hacettepe (Haa-JEH-teh-peh) University. We alternated seating students and alumni so everyone could chat with an alum, and we had a great time discussing Islamic philosophy, Turkey's history and SPEA. Hacettepe is on a hill, so we had a beautiful view of Ankara around us.

Since it was Iftar, we had to stand around and chat before eating at sundown, which was at about 8:30 the whole month.

The Iftar meals we ate in Ankara were all pretty similar. There is a salad with carrots, lettuce and what I think is purple cabbage. And soup, bread, some kind of main course and dessert. The fast is traditionally broken with dates, which is what Muhammad ate. There are also walnuts and cheese.

SPEANs young and old in Turkey!!

And this beautiful photo shows very well how lovely it was seeing Ankara at night.