H is for Hagia Sophia’s History

 

Let me tell you about the Hagia Sophia! First of all, there has been a church on this site since 325. That first church was built by Constantine (I'm sure his people did the actual work!). That original church was called Megale Ekklesia. It was destroyed in the early 400's and rebuilt and destroyed again in the 500's. The Hagia Sophia was built between 532 and 537. The Emperor was Justinian 1.

Hagia Sophia means Holy Wisdom and this was the main church for Constantinople - which is now Istanbul.

When the Ottomans took over Constantinople in 1453, the beautiful church was turned into a mosque. Then the building became a museum for a while and was then converted back into a mosque. A lot can happen in 1700 years. Wow!

Per Wikipedia, The church has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world” and as "an architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization"

In Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) there is a lot of "East meets West."

Many of the gorgeous Christian paintings had been painted over but there has been restoration work to uncover some amazing art.

It was a truly beautiful place. The architecture has been used as a model in many other houses of worship.

look up on the wall - do you see the angel?

This chandalier was amazing.

What is the biggest or oldest or most beautiful place of worship you have visited?

 

I'm joining up with Joyce for the weekly hodgepodge!!

1. What's a lesson you've learned from a mistake? Which one? haha! I have made so many mistakes in my life and learned a lot of lessons the hard way! When I was MUCH younger, I remember drinking too much . . .and then later in the evening . . . being sick. It took me a few times to catch on. I rarely have more than one drink a WEEK these days! I'm not sure that drinking too much could be considered a "mistake" . . .but maybe it was. 

2. Do you salt food while you're cooking or let diners add their own?  What's a food you think must be salted? Do you like pepper? I do salt when I'm cooking because I feel like salt brings out the flavors. I love black pepper, too! I think tomatoes,guacamole, and eggs need salt. We rarely add salt at the table. I'll share a pepper secret with you. When we make guacamole, we add a LOT of black pepper. I've never measured, but I will almost coat the surface with black pepper and then mix it in. You don't taste the pepper but it makes the guacamole so tasty!!

3. What was the last gathering you attended and what did you do there? How big a gathering are we talking about? I taught our Sunday School class yesterday and there were about 45 or 50 people in the room. We went to a play last week and there were probably 50 or 60 in the room.

4. Your favorite shade of purple? What's your favorite purple flower? Purple is not my favorite color at all. I don't know if I own anything purple. I think an Iris might be my favorite purple flower, though I do like a purple pansy, too. I borrowed this photo from Brecks.com.

I borrowed this photo from Woodies Garden Goods website.

5. Share a favorite spring travel memory. I don't know where I've traveled in the spring. Most of our trips have been in February or early March or in the summer or September or October. If I were to travel in the spring, I would need to go to a place that had less pollen!!

6. Insert your own random thought here. I made the mistake (har har) of googling memes about making mistakes and I went down a huge rabbit hole! Do you ever do that? I finally decided to go with this one (though there were a lot I could have chosen!). Just so you know, when I do make a mistake . . .I beat myself up mentally!!

G is for Greece

 

Greece has always been on my bucket list . . .especially Santorini! I've always loved seeing those pictures of the white houses with a blue roof atop each one with the water glittering in the background. Greece was so much more than I anticipated.

The U.S. is such a newbie compared to the history in other countries.

Mark and Duane have been in a weekly Bible Study together
since 2000 - 25 years of study together makes
for a good and trusted friend. We have been
in a supper club together for many years.
Good friends.

The port was lovely in the moonlight.

Here are some of those iconic buildings on Santorini.

Mark and my friend (and co-worker) Laura took

a taxi to the other side of Santorini which

is where all of the white houses/blue roofs

are located.

It had been a rough night on the ship and we

were getting ready to board a sailboat

and I wanted to walk around on

my two feet.

I was so glad they took photos.

We did board a sailboat. I love this picture of Mark!

The scenery was beautiful. Look at that blue water and blue sky!

You an see those waves (below) - they were HUGE at times.

While Mark and Laura were on the other side of the island, Lu, Dave and I were walking

around. We went in this lovely church and after I took the photo, I saw the sign . . .

no photos.

This was our view of Santorini. We woke up and opened the curtains to look outside and I asked Mark if there was snow on that mountain. He said, "look again. It isn't snow." I had no idea that Santorini was up so high!!

I would go back to Greece again. There was so much to see and do.

Have you ever been to Greece?

What was your favorite part?

Weekend in review

Thursday night was theater night! The Homewood Theater is owned by our friend, Kyle, and we have season tickets. It is a small black box theater and it is cozy and they serve free wine and beer (because they can't sell it). One patron provides York Peppermint Patties for each show. Our tickets are always for opening night and there is always an "opening night reception" immediately following the show. They always have a food item that has a tie to the show, which is rather clever! They had homemade oreo sandwich cookies shaped like a tombstone with RIP on them. They also had some sort of sandwich (I think!) and maybe something else. Mark grabbed a cookie on our way out. This may have been my favorite play they have ever performed. I laughed so much!!!

This is a picture of the cast and crew for this play that I snitched from their facebook page.

The theater is in a non-descript building in downtown Homewood. It is within walking distance of several restaurants and you can even get a margarita to go and walk it from the restaurant to the theater.

We met two other couples for dinner at Urban Cookhouse. We have found that it is almost impossible to go to a nicer restaurant and get seated and waited on in time to get to the 7:30 show. The six of us have been friends a long time and try to go out to eat before the shows.

Friday morning was my drive to Columbiana for a haircut and root color. There are lots of farms along the way and I swear . . .don't these look like Bison? I stopped typing and googled it and lo and behold . . here is an article about these bison and their owner.

After my hair appointment, I hopped back into my car and drove to Homewood to meet my three friends for lunch. One of the four of us is so thoughtful. She brings us a surprise quite often. Look at this tiny dish. I've been putting my rings in it!

Saturday night was Auburn basketball and we lost. We made it to the final four . . .and lost. We were heartbroken. I made tortilla burgers again. Mark loves them.

While we were watching the game, I was ironing! We are hosting our neighborhood supper club next Saturday night and I washed our bedding (pillow shams and duvet cover) and of course, they are cotton so what does that mean? It means I iron them! I had the ironing board behind the sofa so I could use the sofa to hold the duvet cover off the floor. After I ironed all of the bedding, I ironed five dresses for work this week. We were so churned up over the game that Mark couldn't even watch it and finally went upstairs so he couldn't hear me cheering and moaning.

Sunday was a horrible weather day. It rained so hard that it was hard to see. It rained pretty much all day. I worked the Welcome Desk and taught Sunday school. Mark went to worship and Sunday School. We were supposed to go to his sister's house for lunch but at 11:00 a.m. a tree fell and took down their power lines. We ate a hodgepodge/mix and match lunch of things in the house and took a rainy Sunday nap. I cooked for Tuesday night and we both rode our stationary bikes. I did some homework and some writing. Mark was bored. I had lots to do so I was good!

What did you do this weekend? Anything fun?

F is for Food on our Travels

F is for the FOOD we eat when traveling! I must admit that there are a million pictures below and some are my own plates. If the plate is full of desserts . . .odds are that plate is in front of Mark!

These first few photos are food from Germany.

I loved Schnitzel!

The bowl below is full of fresh fruit . . . and I can't remember

if that is ice cream or gelato or . . .

I also love gravy but I have no idea what some of the things on this plate actually are!

I loved the pretzels in Germany!! I was eating one in the airport as we were preparing to fly home!

The next section of food pictures is from Egypt, Turkey, and Greece.

The gyro below was ONE of my favorite foods -- I think we were in Athens.

We did have a great selection of vegetables on the cruise ship!

We had pastitio several times in Egypt and I loved it. I think the photo below was not in Egypt though because we didn't eat any fruit or raw veggies in Egypt.

Here is one of Mark's dessert plates. 

I LOVE pita bread and feta cheese.

I loved the peas and carrots we had at one of the restaurants.

Guess who had gelato? Not me!

I love seeing food and spices in the markets.

We were in Istanbul and I think I may have eaten a hamburger that day!!

We were served rice in almost every restaurant.

Rice . . .and more chicken kebobs!

In many of the lunch restaurants, we had "salads" to share.

You know that if the opportunity presents itself, Mark is going to order the whole fish!

The food below is what the private chef cooked for us on our 3 hour sailboat tour in Santorini.

The photo below was at the David Citadel in Jerusalem. The food is amazing!

The food is displayed beautifully and there is always plenty.

In Israel, there is a lot of chicken and rice, too PLUS wonderful hummus.

All sorts of good stuff on the plate below!

There is always an amazing bread table with homemade granola, too!

Here is a dinner plate (below). Israel has great fruit and vegetables.

Once again -- a whole fish -- guess whose plate? Not mine!

I think this next section of photos is from Italy and Austria.

The pesto pasta below may have been one of our favorite dishes. Mark doesn't even like pasta, but he liked this!

Just about anywhere in the world, you can grab a sandwich! This was at our first stop after we got off the plane in Rome!! We split it and it was yummy!!

This was a thick soup with a swirl of cream -- we were at our quaint hotel in Austria.

Yum!

One day, Mark and I walked down to a local restaurant in Austria. This was one of the best burgers and fries -- delish!

While we were in the same village, I walked to the local grocery store which is one of my favorite things to do. We actually had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a pretzel roll. It was great!

Are you an adventurous eater when you travel? Do you order the whole fish? Do you stick with the safe choices?

An interesting thing about me is that I always come home at least 10 pounds lighter -- we walk a lot and I think the food is often healthier!