Istanbul

We left our new friend behind and took an early morning train to Thessaloniki with the intent of then taking a night train to Istanbul, Turkey. When we arrived at the Thessaloniki train station we went to the ticket window and requested two tickets to Istanbul for that night. The woman behind the counter simply replied, "Strike, no trains today, no trains tomorrow." At that point we tried to ask about other options but she was clearly unsympathetic. We decided to condense our stuff to one pack and leave the rest in a locker at the train station and headed out in search out in search of a bus to Istanbul. We walked out of the train station onto the busiest road in the city during rush hour in a neighbourhood that seemed to consist only of strip clubs and army navy surplus stores. Finally, after a few hours we found a bus station and bought tickets to Istanbul for that night.

After a very poor nights sleep (spending 2 hours in the middle of the night going through customs) we arrived in Istanbul. We caught a shuttle to Sulthinament Square which was near to where we we staying. The square sits between the Blue Mosque (see pic above) and the Hagia Sofia, the two biggest tourist attractions in Istanbul. We walked through the square in search of our hotle and were supprised to find a dozen police officers armed with AK-47s. We thought, shit, more protests or riots? We later found out that the cops were there just to control the massive amounts of tourists that would decend on the square later in the morning.

Our first stop after dropping off our stuff was the Spice Bazar which consited of an open building the size of a train station packed full of market stands selling spices, dried fruit and candy. All the venders were hasseling us, " Come my brother, you can spend your money here. Where you from." We had a great time sampeling all of the candy and dried fruit. We also went to the Grand Bazar which is also a covered market but seemed to be more like the size of Boulder, selling anything you could think of, again everyone hasseling "My friend, I will take your money."

Istanbul was amazing overall, but exhausting and hectic to say the least. Everywhere you went you were being hasseled to buy somthing. To add to the confustion, five times a day was the call to prayer (Turkey is a Muslim nation) when every mosque would have some melodic chanting blaired from load speakers on the minurets on the mosque. The problem is that there are so many mosques at any one time you are in earshot of five or six different mosques, all very out of sync. We did however find the mosques to be a great place to get away from the confustion for a few minutes. Another one of our favorite places was the Helic Bridge which connected the two European sections of the city. The bridge offered a great view of the skyline of the old part of the city. The top of the bridge was full of fisherman packed in shoulder to shoulder dropping thier lines into the sea and the bottom was lined with colorful seafood resturates serving their catch.

Istanbul is the only city in the world to be on two continents, sitting on both Europe and Asia so one morning we took a 20 minute boat ride to Asia for lunch! The street food in Istanbul was worth the trip on its own. There was everything from sesame bread to grilled fish. Ice cream made with orchid root to make it strechy and mussles cooked with rice, served in the shell that are illeagle due to lead in the water but delicious non the less! The other great thing was the tea called çay that they drank all day served in little glass cups.

One thing that struck us as a little strange was that in a culture that expects women to have their heads, arms and legs covered, there were cheap lingre stores everywhere and half of the channels that we got were nothing more than ads for sex hotlines.

Our last full day in Istanbul was interesting. We spent the moring just wandering around the city. The owner of our hotel, Omar, invited us to dinner and asked us to submit a favorable hotel review online. Of course there is no way to refuse a dinner invitation when you can hardly understand each other. Lisa asked him about a Hamam (turkish bath) and before she knew it he had booked one for her to be back in time for dinner. That afternoon Lisa went to her Hamam and I went to buy our return tickets.

After her Hamam, bruised and sore (see next blog entry for Lisa's account of the Hamam!!!) we went to the hotel for dinner. We walk into the dining room and nothing was cooking and there was no sign of anyone! After a half an hour Omar's wife came in making no mention of dinner. She said somthing about Omar being at McDonalds. We decided to go have our usual picnic in the square and to go out to a hooka bar. When we got home, Omar came barreling down the stairs and started appologizing profussly waving his arms around to keep the motion lights on. We assured him it was no problem but he insisted that he would make it up to us anyway.

The next day we were taking the bus back to Greece so we lelft our stuff at the hotel and went for some last minute sight seeing. When we returned we found Omar and his entire extended family sitting down to dinner. He insisted we join them even though we had a bus to catch. We obliged as we really had no choice. Dinner was very good but cold (Greeks and turks do not care what temp their food is) and a little rushed.

Overall Istanbul was unbelivable and I would reccomend it to anyone with extra energy!