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pretty good sleep in Trains (weird dreams though)So we finally arrived in Istanbul after our 15 hour train ride of getting man-handled, screamed at, and woken up numerous times from the Turkish immigration officers. But hey, at least we had beds for this one... we actually caught up on some sleep on this journey so all of us took the ride generally well. When we arrived in the city, we (once again) went on a search for our hostel by metro and was able to ride one of the oldest metros in the area. It was a little odd riding this because there were no stops, just one straight line to the end. We made it to the hostel in a semi-timely manner and was able to take showers (this is becoming an important event for us) and get ready to go look around the city since we only had 1 day here. Our hostel name was the "Chillout Hostel" and the staff there definitely portrayed that. The guy at the front desk tried to scam us on our price which was our first experience of many money-scamming tricks in Turkey but we were able to negiotiate a price with the front desk and make it up to
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tight space our room. After getting ready, we went down the street from our hostel to get something to eat. It was a classier restaurant (which we are not used to these days) and we were anxious to try some Turkish food. We had fried meatballs, turkish pizza, chicken kabobs, and ice cream which were all really good but it was there that we realized the waiter/customer etiquette was somewhat lacking. This waiter brought us stuff we didn't ask for and tried to make us pay, charged extra for things we asked upfront for, and had a generally bad and creepily leering attitude.
The first place that we went to in Istanbul was the Blue Mosque. All of the women who enter the mosque have to have their shoulders, neck, legs, well basically everything covered and everyone had to remove their shoes. So we all got dressed up in our blue sheets and went in. The place was beautiful inside but it was very crowded. We witnessed Muslims praying in the windows and it was quite a different experience then the other holy places we have visited. We all enjoyed seeing the different culture though. After we were finished with the mosque,
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Train on the way to Istanbul we headed towards the Grand Bazaar, which was an enormous shopping area/flea market which seemed to cater to both tourists and locals. We were able to get a lot of great deals on souvenirs and gifts for people at home but the experience of walking through hoards of men yelling different celebrity names at us was a little overwhelming (ex: hey! hey! Spice Girls! you want some special jeans?!?; Hey! J-Lo! New sunglasses right here! I give you special price!) We were able to get a lot of stuff; everything we bought was negotiable, even if they started with a low price. After doing some shopping, we left and went back to our hostel to relax for a bit. Later during the evening, we went out in search for some dinner and a turkish style hookah bar. This was another interesting experience to say the least. When we walked up, we immediately got harassed by the "host" of the restaurant to sit down and eat. We saw they had hookahs, so we stayed. After ordering our drinks and tobacco flavor (we tried the cappuccino flavor) we listened to the loud Turkish band and attempted to enjoy our night. However, the
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our sleeper cabin to Istanbul waiter/host was constantly coming by being obnoxious and even so generously helped himself to our peanut mix and hookah. When the bill was brought to us, we were charged for the peanuts (that we didn't ask for) and extra for the hookah! So we had to once again call out the waiter on the bill and we left early as our flight to Switzerland was at 7am the next morning. Turkey was definitely one of our favorite places to visit so far on this trip because the culture was so different than many of the other places in Europe we have travelled. However, next time we all have agreed that having a male with us would have avoided some of the experiences we encountered.
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Brigid
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I want to go back to Istanbul!
HA!HA!HA! Your stories of Istanbul remind me of when L and I were there! Harrassing shopkeepers, men's creepy stares, and getting overcharged for EVERYthing! :) How hot is it there? Because I think I lost 5lbs of water weight last summer! A tip if you are going elsewhere in E. Europe: ANYthing set on your table that you didn't ask for ISN'T free! They don't believe in giving you some salty snacks with your beer. :(