Miniaturk

First of all, I learned how to type Turkish characters on my keyboard. In addition to the English alphabet, Turkish contains other letters, like ı, İ, ü, Ü, ğ, Ğ, and several others. So now, I can spell things correctly. Yay!

So at Boğaziçi (bo-AH-zee-chee) University, there is this group of students called the xChange commission. They are basically a bunch of great guys that helped the exchange students get settled in, and they are also showing us some of the cool things around the city.

This past Saturday, they took us on a trip to several places. First, we went to this mosque where we looked around and then had a huge brunch. The brunch was 16 lira (about $13), but it was definitely worth it! I have to say, Turkish food has not disappointed me yet.

Here are some pictures of the mosque:


After that, we went to this place called Miniaturk, where they had miniature versions of Turkey's best landmarks. Most of my friends here seemed to think it was going to be pretty unexciting (and a lot of them didn't go), but I think it's the best thing that I've seen here so far. Here's an overhead shot:


There were somewhere around 100 different miniature models, and I took at least one picture of each one. However, I have selected some of the best ones to post here:



I like this place (1) because I think miniature models are cool in general and (2) because it gave me a chance to see Turkey's best locations all at the same time in one place. People have said that Turkey has a lot to offer, but up to now, I haven't had a great idea of what they meant.

Furthermore, it makes me think of the United States, and how there aren't nearly as many culturally interesting landmarks. I'm glad that I will be in Turkey for a whole semester and will be able to see a lot of those things here!

Also, in the areas surrounding Miniaturk, there was a great view of some real buildings. I think one of the neatest things about Istanbul is that all of the buildings are very colorful. I took the following picture using my camera's PhotoStitch feature, which allows you to take a whole bunch of pictures in a row and then put them together to form a panorama image:



Finally, we went back to the area around the mosque, where we had started out the day. However, this time we climbed the steps of this large hill, and at the top, there was an outdoor restaurant:


I only had tea there (Turks drink A LOT of tea), but I thought the best part about this area was the view of the Bosphorus:

Overall, it was a great day, and after seeing the miniature versions of all of Turkey's best spots, I want to see them in real life!

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