Day 1

Today is August 25, 2009 – the day when our La Sierra Honors group landed in Istanbul, Turkey. Nikki, Hayden and I (Ivan) spent a fantastic time in Russia and flew into Istanbul approximately five hours earlier than the rest of the group. Since there was only one hour difference between Moscow time and Istanbul, which meant that we didn’t have to suffer from jetlag, we immediately decided to explore the city. Since I am the first one to make the contribution to this blog I will say this – Istanbul is a great place! Being prejudiced, I did not expect that this city would capture my heart entirely the minute we drove away from the airport. I used to think that Istanbul would be more like Southern California, but much older. Well, there is a lot more to it than that. First, it is a lot greener; Second, as I already mentioned, it is MUCH older than SoCal; Third, people are extremely friendly and talkative; and finally, this is just a whole new world in which every corner of a building can tell you something fascinating about the past civilizations. In our free time we went to see the Blue Mosque (which is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel) and as we arrived to the site there was only one word left to say – wow! What is more fascinating though is when you look at the Hagia Sofia church and think to yourself: “Man, this building has been there for 1,500 years…” As I’m writing this blog, the rest of the group has arrived and has been safely taken to the hotel. I bet everybody is tired and needs to get some sleep. After everybody dropped their bags at their rooms we went to a Turkish restaurant and had a variety of delicious Turkish dishes. This was the summary of our first day in Turkey, and I’m sure my colleagues will write more about our exciting trip so keep checking for the updates.

For all those parents reading this blog and worrying about your kids here is some info: everybody looks somewhat alive and made it to the hotel. We were placed in a touristy area in a (from what I can tell) safe place with lots of little shops and cafes. The hotel has extremely small rooms due to the age of this part of the city but they are renovated nicely with AC, a small flat screen TV, 50X50cm shower cabins, and comfortable beds. Also there is unlimited wireless internet so, if your dear child doesn’t email you for a few days (like I tend to do) please don’t blame it on someone else :)