My mom is here! She’s our second visitor and we’re having a blast showing her our home away from home. She arrived last Tuesday, and we traveled to Istanbul after school on Friday. She partly schedule her trip around the Istanbul Marathon. We wanted to show her the hot spots before race day.

First stop: Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was a church, then a mosque, and now it’s a museum. (Watch a video about it on Ted-Ed’s Youtube Channel!)

We stood in line to see the view of the Blue Mosque from Hagia Sofia:

Next up was the Grand Bazaar. It has become our tradition to eat at Fes Cafe. We love their sandwiches and coffee:

After a little shopping, we visited the Blue Mosque. Its actual name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, but it’s nicknamed the Blue Mosque for the beautiful tiles on the inside. It is an active mosque, hence the headscarves.

And after the Blue Mosque, we went to the Marathon Expo Center to pick up Mom and David’s race packets. More on that soon!

Where we stayed
We spent two nights at Serdivan Hotel. We stayed there during last year’s race, too. I didn’t recognize it because they had done some major renovations. Our room was in the new addition and we were very pleased with the location, breakfast, WiFi, and service.