My trip to Istanbul

When I finished high school, I went on a trip to Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, the most crowded city in Turkey. I went with my classmates, especially with one of my best friends. 

I had been to many places by plane, but this flight was the longest flight I've had in my entire life because we were on the plane for six hours. In spite of had been to different places by plane, I get very nervous at the takeoff and at the landing in every single flight, and I think that it would be like this for the rest of my life!

When we arrived at the airport, we felt a little bit disconcerned because everybody was staring at us... maybe because we were a huge group of teenagers, our way of dressing, our haristyle... 

The first day was quite good. We visited many places and monuments: hagia Sophia, Topkapi palace, The Basilica Cisterm (the largest underground cistern)... but Hagia Sophia was the place that impressed me the most. Once it was a church, later a mosque and now a museum at the Turkish Republic. This museum has a very strict rule: woman must wear clothes that didn't let people (especially man) see certain parts of their body, such as chest, shoulders, legs... even sometimes woman had to cover their hair before entering. It suprised me as well the way muslim pray: they have five prayers each day that take place at very specific times, they have to cover their bodies, raise their hands and move up and down praying at the same time. I have to say that in every church that we went smelled like cheese, because they pray barefoot.

With the pass of the days, we felt more and more uncomfortable because everybody was staring at us because of the way we dressed. For them, seeing woman without veil was something unusual, but for us it was really shocking seeing woman covered from head to feet with a black dress. We could just watch their eyes.

The food was awful for me. I hate kebab and spicy food, so the supermarket and some fast food restaurtants were my favourites allies. Due to this, something that impressed me as well was that turkish man offer woman to have a cup of tea as someone that in our country asks for your number or your Facebook, so you have to be careful if you say yas to an offer like this.

I enjoyed very much this trip and I highly recommend it, but watch out this little things if you want to go!