We left for Istanbul on Wednesday evening, (theoretically) sleeping on the train during the night before arriving at 7am on Thursday morning. I'm not the type of person who can function on four hours of broken sleep, and so I was considerably delirious for a large portion of the day. When we got off the train, we took a ferry across to the European side of the city, walked to the hotel, and, as it was still too early to check in, tried to change and get ready for the day in the hotel lobby bathrooms.
After breakfast, I split up from the group (which was going to the old part of the city to visit the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, etc) with two other friends who had also already been to the big landmarks. We wandered up a busy pedestrian street (Istiklal Caddesi) and had amazing cappuccinos at a local cafe before slowly walking across the city to meet up with the group on the other side of the Golden Horn. We ate lunch near the Blue Mosque, and I spent the rest of the afternoon making my way back to the hotel with a few friends, stopping to buy spices (which I now know how to use!) and a half pound of pistachio lokum (Turkish delight) in the spice bazaar. I ate most of it in our hotel room before napping and getting ready for the evening. We met up with one of my friend's Turkish friends to get dinner and a few drinks before calling it an early night.The next morning, we went down to the Bosphorus as a group to get a guided tour of Dolmabahce, an Ottoman palace built in the mid-19th century. The building is a bit ostentatious, but the waterfront gardens are gorgeous. Also, Ataturk died here in 1938 (his bed is covered with a Turkish flag and the clock in the room is still set to his time of death) and so it remains a very important landmark for the Republic.
After leaving the palace grounds, we caught a ferry up the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavagi, a small town located just south of the Black Sea. The program paid for our lunch, which consisted of fresh calamari, mussels, and fish, and we stayed long enough to walk up to the nearby castle ruins, from which you can see the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. The view was breathtaking, and well worth the hike even in the hot and humid July heat.
We took the ferry back down to Istanbul, rested for a bit in the hotel (where I finished the Lokum from the day before), and went out in Istiklal for the evening. I ate dinner with a small group before meeting up with the rest to figure out our plans. After an awkward and difficult discussion in the middle of the road, we decided to split up into smaller groups and planned to meet up later on. I ended up in Balik Pasaj, a very busy and narrow street filled with fish vendors, souvenir shops, restaurants, and bars, with a group of about 8 people, including one of our Turkish instructors and some of her friends. We managed to find a table on the 4th floor of a bar (the rooftop patio), where the center area was eventually cleared to make room for a dancing. The DJ played a great mix of oldies, pop, salsa, Turkish folk music, and even humored my requests for Michael Jackson. The atmosphere was amazing, as was the view of the street from our table.
On Saturday, I took my time getting ready, had another cappuccino, and grabbed a ferry with one of my friends out to the largest of the Prince Islands, located in the Sea of Marmara. We were supposed to meet some friends of ours and were envisioning a relaxing day on the beach to eat and nap in peace. When we got there, we were confronted with crowds of tourists (most of them Turkish), many of them overweight and unecessarily under-clothed, and could find no place to get out of the 90 degree heat. Eventually, we met up with our friends and had some lunch and ice cream before leaving the island. The experience overall was disappointing, but it was a very beautiful place (apart from the crowds) and I'd like to go again some day to get a better impression.
I spent the last few hours of the day wandering around near the hotel and trying to rest. I bought some more pistachio lokum and devoured it as quickly as the last bag. (I've fallen in love with the fresh (by the kilo) lokum and plan to bring as much as I can back to the US at the end of the trip. If you'll be in New York and you have any requests for flavors, let me know.) We caught the night bus back to Ankara, on which I spent another sleepless night before getting back home at 6am and collapsing for the better part of the day. I've slept about 10 hours of the last 16 (although I did manage to make this album of the trip), and I'll probably be heading to bed fairly shortly.
After leaving the palace grounds, we caught a ferry up the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavagi, a small town located just south of the Black Sea. The program paid for our lunch, which consisted of fresh calamari, mussels, and fish, and we stayed long enough to walk up to the nearby castle ruins, from which you can see the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. The view was breathtaking, and well worth the hike even in the hot and humid July heat. 
We took the ferry back down to Istanbul, rested for a bit in the hotel (where I finished the Lokum from the day before), and went out in Istiklal for the evening. I ate dinner with a small group before meeting up with the rest to figure out our plans. After an awkward and difficult discussion in the middle of the road, we decided to split up into smaller groups and planned to meet up later on. I ended up in Balik Pasaj, a very busy and narrow street filled with fish vendors, souvenir shops, restaurants, and bars, with a group of about 8 people, including one of our Turkish instructors and some of her friends. We managed to find a table on the 4th floor of a bar (the rooftop patio), where the center area was eventually cleared to make room for a dancing. The DJ played a great mix of oldies, pop, salsa, Turkish folk music, and even humored my requests for Michael Jackson. The atmosphere was amazing, as was the view of the street from our table.
On Saturday, I took my time getting ready, had another cappuccino, and grabbed a ferry with one of my friends out to the largest of the Prince Islands, located in the Sea of Marmara. We were supposed to meet some friends of ours and were envisioning a relaxing day on the beach to eat and nap in peace. When we got there, we were confronted with crowds of tourists (most of them Turkish), many of them overweight and unecessarily under-clothed, and could find no place to get out of the 90 degree heat. Eventually, we met up with our friends and had some lunch and ice cream before leaving the island. The experience overall was disappointing, but it was a very beautiful place (apart from the crowds) and I'd like to go again some day to get a better impression. 
I spent the last few hours of the day wandering around near the hotel and trying to rest. I bought some more pistachio lokum and devoured it as quickly as the last bag. (I've fallen in love with the fresh (by the kilo) lokum and plan to bring as much as I can back to the US at the end of the trip. If you'll be in New York and you have any requests for flavors, let me know.) We caught the night bus back to Ankara, on which I spent another sleepless night before getting back home at 6am and collapsing for the better part of the day. I've slept about 10 hours of the last 16 (although I did manage to make this album of the trip), and I'll probably be heading to bed fairly shortly.The trip overall was exhausting, but I was extremely happy to be back in Istanbul. The city is beautiful and fascinating, and it wasn't until we got there on Thursday morning that I even remembered it's most of the reason I decided to learn Turkish. Since then, of course, I've added many other reasons. But it was on my second day visiting city two years ago that I first thought to start learning the language. And as we were leaving, I decided to add living Istanbul to my to-do list for the next five years. The list isn't very long, but it already includes living in Berlin, and I'm starting to realize that I make most of my life decisions based on where I want to be and not what I want to be doing with my life. But then again, I think living in these cities is what I want to be doing with my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment