Istanbul

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From Greece there was another overnight train to Istanbul, Turkey. The first sign that I wasn’t in a more mainland European city was that there was no sign of graffiti tags. The second sign are the prayer chants blaring over the loud speakers 5 times a day from the many mosques. Istanbul is another city where you could spend weeks and hardly scrape the surface of the sights, the history and the museums. At the forefront are the two giant churches … the Hagia Sofia and The Blue Mosque. Hagia Sofia was at the epicenter of the Roman Catholic Church during the Byzantine Empire, completed in the 6th Century. It was later converted to a mosque after being invaded by Islamic Conquerors and is now a museum. The Blue Mosque was completed in the 1600s and is the national mosque of Turkey, with an enormous central tower with mosaic tiled ceilings.

The people of Istanbul were incredibly nice to me. They get a lot of European visitors, but apparently not many Americans. When I told a waiter that I was from America after he had asked, he came back and told me the owner of the restaurant requested that I come and shake his hand and drink Turkish tea with me. Turkey also had really incredible food .. especially if you enjoy meat cooked over fire. All kinds of kebabs and meat casseroles cooked in clay pots to choose from. Their national desert of sorts, is an incredibly rich pastry covered in syrup called Baklava, and there no shortage of tourist stores selling “Turkish Delight” a sort of coconut covered candy that Europeans love. There are fishermen with rods and reels catching fish from the main river that cuts through the middle of Istanbul, cooking them up on charcoal and on the spot and serving them up on flatbread with cilantro and onions as garnish, and even that smelled good even if it looked like a bad case of Hep B in the making. On another side note, Ive even managed to get remotely interested in soccer. Usually I just go to the sports bars to watch the events because it’s a great chance to meet a big concentration of fellow travelers and native English spearkers, but now I find I actually inadvertently know some of the players and am picking up on some of the intricacies of the sport. I found myself raising my hands in disbelief with everyone else as FC Barcelona scored a goal in the final minutes of the Championship League to defeat Chelseain the European Champions League semifinal. Now that Im somewhat invested Im actually looking forward to watching the Championship against Man U on the 27th. Lord knows I wont be able to get the NBA playoffs or baseball.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Sweet. sounds like your eating some good stuff. any cases of the green apple quick steps yet? Man u is how u should route for!