Before Arriving...

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I totally freaked out before the trip. It just complicated things. True, I haven't traveled solo for a while. But I should only be more poised, prepared and relaxed with time. I guess I overwhelmed by myself with too much information. Nowadays with all the travel sites, blogs, reviews and homepages of almost every city, bus company, restaurant, hotel you can find on a guidebook. In the old days, a guidebook was pretty much all the info I had, everything else I just had to play by ear, or ask around once I was there.

For example, I gathered all the information about how to get to Sultanahmet from the airport, copied and pasted them and printed it out: step-by-step instruction with photos at every turns thanks so some bloggers who actually documented their transportation to such detail. Actually, it wasn't complicated at all.

Then, with all the warning and horror stories I read from the internet after googling "horrible travel stories Turkey", I only made myself more nervous about all the touts bugging tourists, female particularly. Well, it turned out some men had nothing better to do than trying to make conversations with me. Annoying maybe, but it wasn't of any danger at all.

So the lessen learned was stop obsessing about the worst before a trip. Read an objective guidebook and let the imagination soar.

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Photos

Obelisk in Hippodrome
The bottom of the Egyptian obelisk is broken and only the top one third is still standing. It looks just like a dwarf. Nearly there is a serpentine column, of which the heads are missing as well..

Blue Mosque
It's quite an amazing experience to see it with my own eyes for the first time.