Reese Family

Dear Friends and Family, the first week of September we were fortunate enough to go to a Humanitarian Conference in Istanbul. We were there for 4 days and had a fabulous time. This post is a little long - so get out the popcorn and soda and hopefully you can stay awake!

We opted to go to our hotel by way of the metro/trolley. It was clean and quiet - but cost almost double our metro!

We stayed at the Grand Plaza Hotel - very nice accomodations and the breakfasts and lunches there were excellent. We also had our conference here. We arrived before our room was ready, so we joined our buddies from the MTC - the Maxwells. He spent some time working on my computer. Thanks again E. Maxwell - I know you're reading this!

The 4 of us set out for a couple of hours of exploring the neighborhood, doing some shopping and had a yummy lunch along the way.

Here's a close up of the food. It was a chicken kababe, french fries, cooked tomato, rice and a peper. Their salad was a little different, but good. You can see that the food is normal!

Our next adventure with all the senior couples was the Sultan's Palace. The place was huge, with lots of different buildings. We saw all the jewels, clothing, carriages and weapons. Below is Sis. Maxwell and I in one of the rooms.

There were many beautiful stained glass windows and tiled floors and walls. These were my favorite.

We had a wonderful dinner that night at a very elegant outdoor resturant and then headed in for the evening. Tuesday was our first day of conference and they started at 7:59. There were 17 humanitarian couples and about 8 people there as presenters. It was an excellent day - lots of inspiring messages and a lot of helpful material. I kept thinking that I wished I had this info when I first started my mission, but realized that I wouldn't have understood it nearly as well as I do now with some experience to draw from. The only picture we have from the conference is E. Reese eating the VERY BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE EVER!!!

We were able to do a little siteseeing on Wed. and headed to the Blue Mosque. There are a lot of Mosques in Turkey, but this is the most famous. It is being used as a Mosque and so we had to take off our shoes and cover our shoulders.

It was beautiful on the inside - and was tiled and painted in soft blue colors.

Sitting in the park just outside the Mosque - we saw this corn vender serving an interesting man.

Next we headed to the Hagia Sophia - a one time church turned mosque turned museum.

This now museum was huge. There was some interesting old artwork on some of the walls.

Again we saw a beautiful ceiling.

While E. Reese contemplates the grandure of the building... S. Reese is saying "Take a picture of me here - I love the color of the marble - if I ever have a home that I get to decorate - this is what I want to use!"

This is the view out of one of the upper windows - the Istanbul skyline!

All of our meals were amazing. This picture is taken in one of the cisterns that has been converted into a resturant. They were originally built to store water for the palace and are huge! We really enjoyed our meals because we got to sit next to different couples and get to know them - it's so nice to know that there are others going through similar experiences as ours.

You hardly notice this small building during the day - but at night it shines!

We had all day Thursday to play before catching our plane that night. We started in the Grand Bazaar!

It went on for blocks and blocks. Some of it was covered indoor shops. Lots of color - every spot was filled!

Notice the flags hanging down - we saw lots of flags! Lots of things to buy - I bought 2 summer skirts. E. Reese was disappointed - they didn't have any chocolate - no wonder we were called to Georgia and not Turkey!

Lots of the Bazaar was out on the streets.

We had a fun time - you can easily get lost! We were trying to find the spice bazaar!

Just taking a good guess - we thought about 8 % of the women were dressed totally covered in black. There were about 30% that had their heads covered with beautiful scarves and wore light coats that covered them - they were dressed very nicely. 5 times a day there would be a loud singing prayer heard over the loud speakers.

We did find the spice market - it smelled wonderful!

Here are some interesting pictures taken while out exploring the city. This inventive guy takes his stereo along to play the songs he hopes you'll buy.

We found an opening into a courtyard - very pretty.

We did have lunch at Burger King - E. Maxwell really wanted a hamburger - then E Reese saw this place - Burger Turk. Looks just like the Burger King - I just don't think I could eat at a Burger Turk.

Our last adventure was going on a Bosphorus cruise through the waterway seperating the two continents, Europe and Asia. We saw lots of Palaces, Fortresses and old and modern homes. Istanbul is located on 2 continents.

We really enjoyed our trip to Istanbul - what a great memory it will be! We also learned many things that we will be able to apply to the rest of our mission here. We felt very loved and appriciated. We were very impressed with all the thought and care that went into this excellent conference.