istanbul

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My first impression of Istanbul was as we were landing. The city is enourmous, incomprehensibly big. All the bulildings looked the same from the air, just rows and rows and rows of red roofs with tiny narrow streets in between. There was a thick layer of brown smog covering the city unlike anything I have ever seen before.

The trip was uneventful, just an hour by train to Basel airport then a 3 hour flight. My first mission when arriving was to find the place where I was staying. I had 3 pages of directions and 2 maps but finding it was not the difficult part. After catching two buses I was dropped of about a 20 minute walk from the house. On the way I passed a fairly empty looking stadium surrounded with hundreds of police, all decked out in helmets and riot screens and I wondered what all the police were for. As we went past the stadium all along the road were masses of people dressed in black and white all chanting and waving flares. It took the bus about 30 mins to go maybe 1km along the road. It turned out that my stop was right in the middle of the crowd and I had to make my way through the crowd moving in the opposite direction.

More than 2 hours after I left the airport I finally made it to Orhan's place (a couch surfing -CS- host). He had a wedding to go to but he had arranged for another CS host to take Kevin (my colleague from work who also came to Istanbul but splashed out and stayed in a hotel) and I to the Hıdrellez Şenlikleri (traditional spring festival). Orhan wasn't coming until later but he so he arranged for a friend of his to meet me and take me the rest of the way. Orhan dropped me off where I thought I would be meeting his friend but instead it was a ferry terminal where he got me a token and said get on! I had absolutely no idea where I was headed or how to get back to Orhan's if I needed to. It all worked out though as his friend was waiting for me when I got off ferry. We got the train and met up with Kevin the got a bus the rest of the way to the festival. Had an awesome time at the festival, lots of tiny roads and alleyways, packed with people, bands and musicians playing everything from traditional music to a "bring your own and join in" percussion orchestra.

saturday
getting there, football crowds
spring festival -getting there, bus back
sunday
aya sophia, blue mosque, cistern
monday
grand bazaar, spice bazzar
tuesday
archeology museam, hamam

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Photos

Soccer crowd
From the pedestrian overbridge where the bus dropped me off. The crowd was actually fairly contained here due to a fence and many police keeping them off the road. I had to go through it on my way to where I was staying.

Orhan's view
View from the place where I was staying

Comments

[Kirstin Olsen]

wow!
WOW! it looks like a very busy, always on the go place!!! Looks like you have had fun hun!!!!! I cant believe how busy it looks lol!!!!!!