We made it to Istanbul yesterday! We got out of the airport at around six, and arrived at our hostel at about 8pm, via public transportation, walking and some helpful, sometimes animated, directions. Apparently, getting to downtown involved a lot of swopping. Today we visted Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Grand Bazar, and the Turikish Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts. Hagia Sophia was a church built during reign Justinian I of the Byzantine empire, it was later converted into a mosque, and is now a museum. When it was a converted to a mosque the Christian mosaics were plastered over. This perserved them to the present day. The remnants of the mosaics are beautiful, as are the stones, and collums of this huge building. The Cistern was also a byzantine project. It was an
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