Bursa Trip

Today we headed to Bursa the first capital of the Ottoman Empire.

We started very early in the morning. We took our first quiz of the seminar and then got right on the bus heading to the ferry station to cross the Sea of Marmara. The ferry was a huge ferry that took an hour to cross the the sea and then we loaded the bus again and headed to Bursa. On the way we started the movie TROY starring Brad Pitt and my personal favorite Eric Bana in proportion for our trip to the actual Troy. 

When we reached Bursa we immediately unloaded the bus and went to a mosque. This mosque was beautiful! It had a completely different feel then the Blue Mosque and it is still a fully active mosque so we walked through while people were praying and such. The mosque had a fountain in the middle that most mosques don't have anymore, they are meant for the people to wash themselves before they pray. The mosque was beautiful and it was a lot more moving to me to experience the mosque with the patrons of it as well. 

We then walked through the bazzar in Bursa, because Bursa is a more conservative area they had many silk/pashmina scarves for sale and I was seriously tempted to buy all of them... but I resisted. We walked by many shops that had wedding attire (apparently wedding are a huge to do in Turkey). We learned that if you get married in Turkey the groom must buy his future wife a medallion made of completely gold. I also thought that it was really interesting that the dresses these women ware are huge flashy dresses that can at times be really revealing! its quite interesting.... but besides that we also saw bakeries full of fantastic looking treats that I wanted to eat up!

Our next stop was a tomb that held a Ottoman sultan and his family. The colors were amazing and just from stepping in one could tell that the Ottomans lived a very luxurious life!

We then stopped at a cafe for some coffee because it was so freezing and I got my favorite drink of Salep!

That night we went to our hotel which had a hot spring Hamam that we all went to and experienced.... my feelings are mixed... a lot of people liked it but it was very very hot for my likings... they have Hamams in Istanbul so I will try it again I suppose but my original feeling is .... TOO HOT!

My friend Dev from NYC

One of my most favorite pictures thus far

All of us trying to get our shoes back on

Adam surfing outside the bazaar 

National icon

Oh boy look at those scarfs 

The gold medallions husbands to be must buy their wives to be

the suits that little boys wear to their circumcision 

Gumdrops 

Sultans Tomb 

My favorite drink! Salep! it is soooo good

Turkish Lamps.... I am certainly coming home with one or many!