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Published: June 28th 2007
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Lachlan and Ernst sleeping in Luton airport
We found a semi-dark and quiet corner and made a little bed. Started journey to Turkey 'sleeping' in Luton airport. Had a pretty nice EasyJet flight sitting next to a chatty Polish women. Arrived in HOT Istanbul, although not really...actually arrived in Sabiha Gokcen airport, a THREE hour bus ride to Istanbul center and our hostel: Cordial House. Funny name for a hostel because after no sleep, HOT weather with no AC anywhere, and a search for food, we weren't very cordial travelers.
Spent the first evening sitting in front of the Blue Mosque listening to the 'call to prayers'. It was very settling listening while watching the sky darken. However, it was very UNsettling hearing the next morning at 4:30AM!! I could never be Muslim if you have to get up to pray before it's even light out! Thank Allah I'm Catholic I guess... 😊
The first full day in Istanbul we went to the Grand Bazaar--a shopping experience!! It is all men that work in the shops and restaurants. They work long hours, but working seems to consist mainly of drinking tea hand delivered to them by the nearest tea shop, reading the paper, and (sometimes heated) discussions that are probably about politics, sports and how best to
rip off the next tourist. We happened upon the Istanbul stock market as well, which consisted of a group of men yelling into their cell phones and at each other in an alleyway. We were told they were selling/buying gold. Typically chaotic. The shopkeepers are ruthless and they know to speak English to any westerners. Most are pretty good at English, but say, "Hello...yes, please?" and "you see something you like?" to get you into their store. They'll even follow you down the street if you respond. We quickly learned to ignore English spoken at us. After a day of getting totally annoyed by the shopkeepers, I learned a tiny nuance of body language they use. The simple act of raising your eyebrows at them gets them to back off IMMEDIATELY!! HA! Brigid: 1 point, Turkey: 0 points!!!!! I don't know if they were just surprised a "white" girl knew to do this, or maybe raised eyebrows means more like, "F off!". I don't care, we were left alone a lot more after that!
EDIT!... Brigid's forgot to include the best line we heard in Istanbul... one of the store-scammers actually came up to me and said in a
voice like melted chocolate; "Hello fine sir... and how may I be helping you to dispense of your money today?". Classic. I actually stuck around after that one... but of course... didn't buy a thing.
The Grand Bazaar is organized in sections: jeans, jewelry, leather, souveniers, etc. Each section has the same stuff in every store so you can just walk the line getting price quotes. Lachlan had his eye set on a small hand made box with tiny brass dominoes in it. One stall quoted us 35 lira ($20), we didn't take that one, but when we went to the next stall the guy quoted us over 130 lira!!!! They add up their prices on calculators with determined looks on their faces and show you the finished total with pure genuine looks. Scammers! He obviously just put in one number and just hit the multiply key multiple times! Within three minutes we had him down to 20 lira and we ended up buying it. He probably still made plenty of money on it. That's the problem, no matter what you pay for things (including food and water) you always feel like you're getting ripped off. The shopkeeper even
gave me a "gift" of an evil eye pin. They have their evil eye to ward off...well...evil. They put it on their doors to their shops and houses and they sell them everywhere. He told me, if you wear the pin on your right side, it gives you luck in money. That's right where I put it on my backpack. It must actually work, beacause every time we took the backpack out, no one (seemed) to overcharge us!
We did try Turkish tea and Turkish coffee. The Turks are addicted to sugar! They have so much sugar in their drinks, it almost has reached its saturation point! And a lot of people have rotten teeth from it too. Otherwise, Turkish food isn't much to write home about...
One more funny story about Turkish culture. We kept walking around the city seeing little boys anywhere from 8-11 yrs old dressed in sultan/prince outfits. See the pict. We kept wondering what the hell it was all about and finally took a pict of one and asked our friendly restaurant man who worked next to our hostel. He saw the pict and was clearly searching for tact in his response--a rare
thing in a Turkish man. His reply was, "Ahhh, it is for only little boys...before they become men...it is when the schnippy-schnap the...ah...pennis". This was accompanied by a two-finger scissor gesture. Ummm...11 year old boys---ouch!!! The poor boys have no idea what's coming to them! He also said when he was 11, his dad did it to him and he was in bed for a week!
Lachlan wants you all to know that Istanbul is infested with cats. Mangey scraggy dirty little scratchy gits of cats. They're everywhere. They really are narsty... and the local kids seem to be deathly afraid of them... clearly they are evil....
That is all for now. We have been staying at the most awesome hostel in Varna, Bulgaria--a beach, resort town. More on that later...
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Brendan
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Schnippy-schnap
WOW! Sounds um... uh.. interesting. I defintaly would not want to be an 8-11 yr old there. No thanks! Or Muslim for that matter. Glad to hear that you two were not the Americans attacked by the bear in Romania. So is mom for that matter. She called me yesterday (wed 6-27) morning panic-y wondering if I had heard from you cause she hadn't and was worried. FYI- you guys owe me for this. :-p