Istanbul

Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Istanbul
October 4th 2011

Published: January 18th 2013

. Upon arrival in back in Istanbul, we caught the ferry from the Asian side to Sultanahmet. While trying to find our way to the hostel, we happened to wander through the spice market, so we checked that off the list. Then we were on to the Haggia Sophia. I have been waiting years to see this church/mosque/museum, and it was amazing! The mosaics were so impressive; it was hard to believe that the muslims plastered over them. In the evening, we went to café mescale to watch the whirling dervishes. Well, it turned out to be only 1 dervish whirling next to the pepsi machine…. So….. not as interesting as expected. While we were sitting there, the Turkish man whose hookah smoke kept blowing in our faces got up to go to the bathroom and asked us to watch his briefcase. Mom immediately turns to me and says, “He probably left a car bomb in there.” Hilarious! Today was a pretty quiet day. I woke up early to run to Galata Tower and back. On my way home I passed several soaking wet men running on the running path next to the water. I decided to investigate and found one that spoke English. They were a group of swimmers who swim down the bosphorus and then run back up every morning for exercise. He told me to join them, so I’m going tomorrow. I’m a little nervous because it’s cold enough for a coat outside. I can’t imagine how miserable the water will be, but I’m sure I will survive. Plus, I’ve been dying to swim in the bosphorus. So, I arrived at 7:15 to join in, and my English speaking friend wasn’t there. I just decided to do a little miming and try to get my point across. The guys that were there understood, and welcomed me into the group. I took off up the path with an older man and we jumped in to swim and float down to the meeting spot. I thought the water would be freezing, but it was really warmer than the air. When we got back, the guy I had met the day before, who spoke at least a few words of English, had arrived. I headed out with him and a couple of other guys to run up the path about a ¼ of a mile and then swim back down. We did about 3 of these loops, but it wasn’t a great swim for me. There were large waves because we had to swim far away from the land to avoid the fishermen. We had large boats on both sides of us and there were actual ships not far away. Oh, and on the first lap, when we got pretty far out, the guy who spoke some English told me “this water very jaws”. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but all of the guys started laughing. Finally, I figured out that he meant that there were lots of sharks in the water. Luckily, he was joking, and laughingly said, no no, only dolphin. So, my swim in the bosphorus was at least somewhat successful, and I was soooo glad I did it. After getting ready for the day, there were a few more errands to run, and a little more shopping before heading to the airport and preparing to leave for india.

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