A short story by Stephanie Hitchins.

Once upon a time, we woke one morning with the decision to go to the island right off of Istanbul. We set out with high hopes and great dreams of visiting this small island and all that it had to offer us on our adventure. We decided a boat was our easiest and more desirable form of travel and so we came aboard a boat in search of our goal.

On our way, we spotted beautiful views of Istanbul

And then we arrived across the way and realized that we needed to get onto another boat. That boat took us to another piece of land, but not the IsLAND. Then when we finally found the right location for where the correct boat was located, it was too late (or like hours earlier) for us to make it to the Island. So we made the best of our situation and took another boat for a tour! And we saw things like that tower we had seen previously the night before! Where all those drunks were!

A beautiful and very large Mosque...

Another really beautiful and large Mosque...

See all those Steeples? Those are all Mosques..

We saw a grand view of the Topkapi Palace. ( We will visit there tomorrow). It is the lonnnng building looking thing on the right. And more Mosques on the left..

John took a nap on the boat...

 We saw this tower that is placed out on the water like a mini island. There was a Sultan who was told that his daughter was going to die very soon. He feared her death and wanted to protect her so he built this tower out on the water so no one and nothing could get to her. One day she was delivered her normal food in a basket and there was a poisonous snake in the basket. So she ended up dying anyway.   Kind of a sad story, but an awesome piece of architecture.

Once we made it to land, we went and saw the park area where Ayse played as a little girl. Her father would bring her here while there was bazaar's going on and she really enjoyed that time with him and the memory of it. It was neat to see how happy it made her to be there.

Then we walked home... on our usual walk...

Even though we never made it to the Island, we ended up having a fantastic day with 4 boat tours and seeing some really awesome places in a more grander view! We loved it! The end.