Sunday, November 29, 2015

Adventures 2015 - Istanbul

As with any trip as I sit down to trip to write about, I become extremely overwhelmed at the idea of capturing the trip.  So I'm going to break this up into a few posts rather than attempting it all at once. I can guarantee that it'll be a bit of picture overload.  

First of all, when many people asked where my next trip would be and I said Turkey, I often got very confused looks accompanied by some utterance of WHY?  My theory with most of my trips is WHY NOT? Istanbul had been the setting for a book that I had read a few years ago, and that initially caught my attention. After which my uncle had passed through and visited Istanbul, which also peaked my curiosity. In addition to the fact that it is the only city that spans two continents; I love weird details like that. Also, I wanted something different.  I did not want a typical tourist destination. Somehow I managed to convince Michelle it was a good idea, and after months of procrastinating, we were off along with our friend Kelson.

The way we set up our flights, we ended up with a 10 hour layover in New York City.  It was a fun detour on our way to the our main destination.  We had breakfast at Rockefeller center, went to top of the Rock, walked to Times Square, and manged a brisk walk in Central Park. We also quickly established rules on when and where Michelle was allowed to whip out her selfie stick. :)

Upon arriving in Istanbul, admittedly the first thing I noticed upon exiting the aircraft was that the airport wreaked of BO. Luckily that first impression of the country did not persist throughout the remainder of our visit.  The second impression was that we did not belong, and I loved it.  There were very few other tourists that were American or even European.  The airport was filled of people from the Middle East. Most women wore the hijab, but there were many in burkas as well.  I did have a hard time not staring, I wasn't trying to be rude it was simply taking it all in, and really coming to terms with the fact that I was the one out of place.

We managed to figure out the subway/light rail system to get to the old sector of Istanbul.  I was fascinated passing all of the mosques on our ride there, and then stood in awe as we got off at our stop and We were  practically in front of the Hagia Sofia, a building that I had been studying pictures of for months.  Unfortunately the google map that I had printed for directions from the stop to our hotel was not as clear as I would have hoped.  We ended up wandering up and down several cobble stone streets.  Unfortunately my luggage and my water bottle did not handle the cobblestone very well, and one wheel became useless and my water bottle shattered.  Luckily a man reading his newspaper on a shop step took some pity on us and offered to help us figure out where our hotel was located.  After a few more turns, we made it.



After some much needed showers we went out to explore the nearby surrounding of our hotel.  We wandered down to the Bosphorus and found people gathered spending their evening enjoying roasting clams and oysters, shooting balloons with BB guns, laughing and enjoying themselves.  I loved that for as large of a city that Istanbul is, the old sector of town felt calm and peaceful. In contrast to many cities I've traveled to, there were more stray cats than dogs. 

We finished the night with a Turkish bath.  Now as much as I thought I had read about a Turkish bath, nothing can quite prepare you for the experience until you're there being taken care of by a fat Turkish lady being worked on a marble slab in all of your naked glory.  To say the least there was more nudity involved than I had anticipated.  

1 comment:

Cardiganwearer said...

Ha! This trip sounds like it was great so far. Sorry I missed out. Where are the pictures!?!?!?