Now that I'm back in Berlin (hello again, dear computer), I can actually blog about what I did in Istanbul. I will say now though: it's going to be a long blog post chock full of good pictures (85 to be exact).
On our first full day (Saturday), we took a stroll up the street and ran into Gülhane Park, which was a big open park with lots of benches, nice fountains, plenty of trees, grass, and simply greenery. It was quite pleasant to stroll through it.
We found a cafe at the far end of the park and decided to blend in with the locals by drinking chai tea and eating meatballs. I must've drunk six cups of tea in that sitting (not even my record for one day).
After the palace, we made our way through a gate on the far end and passed by the Hagia Sophia without even realizing it (I have never prepared less for an international trip in my life). So in this picture, our focus was not on the Hagia Sophia (behind), but rather on the grilled corn we picked up on the street. Salty, but not all that good. I hate having food stuck in my teeth.
I also have to say that döner kebabs are way better in Berlin than they are in Istanbul. Sorry to my friends in Turkey. :)
After nibbling on our food, we headed to the Blue Mosque, which was right across from the Hagia Sophia (again, we did not know that). We ran into a guy outside who told us that we only had 40 minutes or so since the Mosque would be closed for prayer at 3 PM. So we went in quickly. You have to take off your shoes and put them in a plastic bag to carry in...that's a lot of plastic bags.
The architecture was beautiful, but I have to admit: it smelled in there. When you've got so many people taking off their shoes and walking in...well, you get my point. The guy who brought us in ended up meeting us at the exit too. I'd seen this ploy before, so we were trying to avoid him. He wanted to show us his carpet shop, and we decided "what the heck" we'll just walk with him a bit.
At the shop, we went in, and he started pulling out carpets, even though I had made very clear that we were students and could not afford any. In fact, I said "we're not going to buy any, thank you." It turned out fine though, 'cause the boss came by soon after and, in chatting with him, I found out he was just in Seattle three weeks ago. One of his colleagues studied at Everett Community College. They spoke flawless English. I shouldn't be surprised, but I was certainly impressed. They gave us some free maps and suggestions for places to see/visit. Gotta love meeting new people.
After walking through the Arasta Bazaar as they recommended, we headed in a random direction and found ourselves on the southern coast overlooking the Sea of Marmara. The weather was really pleasant, and it was warm enough to sit along the water, so we found a table and played checkers while drinking tea. There were also jellyfish in the water!
On our way to dinner, we saw one of several exercise squares. Naturally, we had some fun.
There's also an ancient wall around the city. Many were built by Constantine. So yeah, they're old.
We wandered through several neighborhoods, looking for a restaurant recommended to us. Sadly, we did not find that one. Luckily, there are tons of great restaurants around. Reminded me of Athens.
We passed through the Grand Bazaar on our little trek. There are over 3,600 shops inside! Ridiculous.
There are also over 2,000 mosques in Istanbul. I love the architecture. I'm such a nerd.
For dinner, we had some mixed grill plates, and boy, they were delicious. The lamb wasn't my favorite, but otherwise I enjoyed the food very much. Especially my Coke.
On Sunday (Carissa's last full day with us), we went to the Hagia Sophia. The original building was built by Constantine to be a church. That one burned down, and the replacement building also burned down. The current Hagia Sophia is the third version and was built by Justinian I. Later, it was turned into a mosque and finally a museum.
Personally, I like the outside of the Blue Mosque more, but I do think the inside of the Hagia Sophia is more impressive. After our 45 minute meandering through the Hagia Sophia, we went across the square (which has free WiFi, by the way!) to a very famous little restaurant. Apparently, every tour group stops by. In fact, when we had seen it on Saturday, it had a long line stretching out the front door. Based on our simple but delicious lunch, I can see why.
Based on our new Turkish friends' suggestions, we'd also booked a tour around the Bosphorus, including a boat ride. Since we had an hour to kill before our tour, we just chilled in front of the Blue Mosque.
Our tour ended up just being for the three of us. A private tour for 35€ a person. Not bad! Plus our tour guide was actually a retired guide, who called himself Professor Zeki. He was awesome! The son of the tour agency owner drove though, and although I admired his deftness at weaving through Istanbul's mad traffic, I was thankful to be out of the car quickly. Zeki laughed at me when I was the only one in the car wearing a seatbelt.
Our first stop was supposed to be a cable car ride up to a viewpoint called Pierre Loti, named for a French naval officer who spent lots of time there. In fact, his old house is now a cafe up there. Due to a long line though, Zeki suggested we just drive up to the hill. He has some mad skill with navigating Istanbul. I was impressed. He also walks very fast.
At the top, I told him we needed a picture together, and he responded with, "Ach ja, mit deinem türkischen Großvater, ne?" I now have a Turkish grandfather. :) Oh, side note, when he found out we were all students in Germany, he decided to do the entire tour in German, since he'd lived and worked for 11 years in Hannover before returning to Turkey. It was great. I chatted him up the whole time.
The boat tour was also nice. Seriously, rolling with Professor Zeki has great perks. He expects VIP treatment everywhere, so we just followed along. He also told us where best to sit for comfort and for pictures.
Once we passed the first of the two large bridges, the land on one side of the water becomes Turkey on the Asian continent with Turkey on the European continent on the other side. Pretty neat eh? Windy on the water though.
On our way back, we saw the military school where Gaddafi went...makes sense that the Turkish government has had some success in talking sense to Libya. This same building was also formerly a hospital, where Florence Nightingale worked as a nurse during the Crimean War.
The last stop on our tour was the Spice Bazaar (also known as the Egyptian Bazaar). I bought some ridiculously good Turkish delight, which I overpaid for (even with the tour discount). But whatever, Turkish delight is simply delectable.
That evening, James arrived from Berlin after seeing his girlfriend off back to America. So we met up with him and then headed to dinner. I really wanted the green beans that I'd seen on menus and had had in Greece, but apparently it's not the right season. Sad. The food we had was incredible anyway though.
On Monday, Carissa headed back to Germany. I dropped her off at the airport and then met up with James to wander around Sultan Ahmet, the area where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are. After a quick lunch at that one famous place again, we went to the Basilica Cisterns, which were built by Justinian I and held tons of water underground. The pictures didn't turn out well, with flash or without flash, but it was a neat experience. 10 Turkish Lira might've been a bit much though (a bit less than 5€).
In the afternoon, we just chilled. James and I went to Gülhane Park to have tea, and I must've drank another six cups at least. That spot is definitely my favorite spot in Istanbul though. Very peaceful, and for 6 Turkish Lira, you can milk out a cup of tea per lira at least.
We then headed back down to the water to meet up with Nick, who had saved us a table with a checkerboard. James decided to teach me how to play backgammon though, and as it turns out, I won!
Then Nick and I started a game of checkers, which took 90 minutes to complete. Notice the sun in this picture below.
By the time, I finally beat him the sun was nearly gone. Why did it take us 90 minutes for this one game? Because when it became clear (quickly, I might add) that I was going to win, Nick "filibustered" every one of his moves by telling stories, humming a tune, or reading out of his chemistry book. He took nearly 10 minutes per move, which followed promptly with my move in about 15 seconds.
We definitely enjoyed the evening though, and we ended up meeting up with my faculty mentor from Seattle, Dr. Stan Chernicoff, and his wonderful wife, Dr. Julie Stein. Their good friend and my good friend, Mary, also joined us for the evening, and we had some food and then some beers. It was nice to see them all and also meet another one of Stan's many mentees from the UW, Casey, and her boyfriend, Paul, who are both also living in Germany. Fun night for sure.
On Tuesday, Nick and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head out to one of the Prince's Islands. We chose Büyükada, which is the largest island and whose name literally means "big island". The ferry took about 70 minutes and only cost 5 lira.
When we first arrived, my first impression was, "Crap, it wasn't worth it to come to this island." There are no cars allowed (like Hydra in Greece), and you can only get around on foot, via bikes, or in a horse carriage. We decided to save our money and simply walk. I saw this school on the island, so naturally I took a picture.
The higher we climbed, the more nature I saw. Like this rooster.
Or horses and chickens grazing on this soccer field high above the houses.
Or the three horses that suddenly climbed over a ridge and trotted in our direction before climbing further up a path.
We also saw a cow cross the path and march down into the trees, where it promptly mooed to make sure no one invaded its space. The view was certainly nice though.
We also found these disgustingly long centipede like insects. I did not like them at all, but you can see how long they were next to Nick's shoe.
We both napped on the way back, though I thankfully did not have to deal with the young Turkish boy who kept banging a Turkish 1 Lira coin on the window right next to Nick's head. I had my music blasting away with my hood on, and I could still hear the clacking of his coin on the glass.
We met up with Paul and Casey that night though, along with James and his friend from Ankara, Alper. We walked along the large street from Taksim Square, and it reminded me a lot of Grafton Street in Dublin. Good energy for sure.
For fairly decent prices, we got a ton of food to eat at this one place. Just look at all this!
After walking through some rain, we had a beer at a place before calling it a night. On our way back, we passed the Galata Tower, which looked really cool at night.
On Wednesday (our last full day), I was pretty ready to head home to Berlin. I felt like I'd seen everything I wanted to see in Istanbul, and I felt slightly like I was wasting time not doing something productive. But we definitely had a few more things to do—Stan brought me a new DP crewneck from Seattle, so I went and took pictures with it on since I'd forgotten my DP t-shirt in my last minute packing.
Then we met up with Stan, Julie, Mary, Paul, Casey, and their group to visit the Archaeology Museum. Julie is an archaeologist, so it couldn't have been any better. However, since I'm more like Stan (quick in museums), we strolled into one building for all of about 5 minutes and then just sat out in the sun to chat for an hour. Felt like all the many times we sat on a bench outside Mary Gates Hall at UW, discussing Dream Project and life in general. I am a lucky guy to have such a great mentor, that's for sure.
After the museum, Stan took us to lunch, and we had a nice time eating outdoors across from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. From there, we parted ways as they had more sights to see, and I was ready to just chill. I had also run out of cell phone minutes and had lost Nick at the museum, so I went up to Gülhane Park by myself to have more tea.
I outdid myself this time. I milked 8 and a half cups of tea out of that pot. For 6 Lira, that's brilliant. Somehow, Nick figured out I was there too based on one of my last text messages, so he joined me after about 30 minutes. It was very relaxing to just sit and admire the view. We also played a game of a chess on his brand new travel set, which he had bought in the Grand Bazaar. I won. :)
In the evening, we met up with James and Alper again to get dinner. First though, Alper showed us some local specialties. Like these Istanbul hamburgers. They were delicious. Hamburgers soaked in some sort of tomato sauce. As Alper described, it's great food when it's the wee hours of the morning and you've had plenty to drink. :)
Then he stopped to pick up some local chocolate.
And we followed Paul and Casey's advice and ate at this restaurant four floors above the street. It was good stuff.
Our final night would be fun as our friend from our Marburg language course days, Elena, was also in town to visit friends. So we arranged to meet up for drinks. Alper's friend also came by, and he told us about a place that had beers for 1.50 Lira. Unbelievable. That's like 70 Euro cents for a drink.
The night ended when Alper had to head to Taksim Square to take the overnight bus back to Ankara. We walked with him to the bus, and then Nick, James, and I split a taxi to get home. Great end to a wonderful trip.
This morning, we woke up at 5:30 AM to go to the airport and catch our flight. We flew Turkish Airlines, and since Kobe Bryant is their new spokesperson, his picture was on the magazine. Awesome.
We arrived late Friday night in Istanbul after the nearly three hour direct flight from Berlin and met my friend from Marburg, Carissa, at the airport. With the help of a guy who spoke no English and some email instructions from James, we navigated the Metro system.
By the time we finally found our hostel after wandering in a few circles and having to ask at least three or four people for help, it was already 1 AM. We woke up to find a bunch of construction in the street out front. For 10€ a night though, we couldn't have had a better spot.
On our first full day (Saturday), we took a stroll up the street and ran into Gülhane Park, which was a big open park with lots of benches, nice fountains, plenty of trees, grass, and simply greenery. It was quite pleasant to stroll through it.
We found a cafe at the far end of the park and decided to blend in with the locals by drinking chai tea and eating meatballs. I must've drunk six cups of tea in that sitting (not even my record for one day).
After the park, we made our way up to Topkapi Palace, which was jam-packed with tourists. I go through exhibitions quickly though, so Carissa and I finished in about 45 minutes.
After the palace, we made our way through a gate on the far end and passed by the Hagia Sophia without even realizing it (I have never prepared less for an international trip in my life). So in this picture, our focus was not on the Hagia Sophia (behind), but rather on the grilled corn we picked up on the street. Salty, but not all that good. I hate having food stuck in my teeth.
I also have to say that döner kebabs are way better in Berlin than they are in Istanbul. Sorry to my friends in Turkey. :)
After nibbling on our food, we headed to the Blue Mosque, which was right across from the Hagia Sophia (again, we did not know that). We ran into a guy outside who told us that we only had 40 minutes or so since the Mosque would be closed for prayer at 3 PM. So we went in quickly. You have to take off your shoes and put them in a plastic bag to carry in...that's a lot of plastic bags.
The architecture was beautiful, but I have to admit: it smelled in there. When you've got so many people taking off their shoes and walking in...well, you get my point. The guy who brought us in ended up meeting us at the exit too. I'd seen this ploy before, so we were trying to avoid him. He wanted to show us his carpet shop, and we decided "what the heck" we'll just walk with him a bit.
At the shop, we went in, and he started pulling out carpets, even though I had made very clear that we were students and could not afford any. In fact, I said "we're not going to buy any, thank you." It turned out fine though, 'cause the boss came by soon after and, in chatting with him, I found out he was just in Seattle three weeks ago. One of his colleagues studied at Everett Community College. They spoke flawless English. I shouldn't be surprised, but I was certainly impressed. They gave us some free maps and suggestions for places to see/visit. Gotta love meeting new people.
After walking through the Arasta Bazaar as they recommended, we headed in a random direction and found ourselves on the southern coast overlooking the Sea of Marmara. The weather was really pleasant, and it was warm enough to sit along the water, so we found a table and played checkers while drinking tea. There were also jellyfish in the water!
On our way to dinner, we saw one of several exercise squares. Naturally, we had some fun.
There's also an ancient wall around the city. Many were built by Constantine. So yeah, they're old.
We wandered through several neighborhoods, looking for a restaurant recommended to us. Sadly, we did not find that one. Luckily, there are tons of great restaurants around. Reminded me of Athens.
We passed through the Grand Bazaar on our little trek. There are over 3,600 shops inside! Ridiculous.
There are also over 2,000 mosques in Istanbul. I love the architecture. I'm such a nerd.
For dinner, we had some mixed grill plates, and boy, they were delicious. The lamb wasn't my favorite, but otherwise I enjoyed the food very much. Especially my Coke.
On Sunday (Carissa's last full day with us), we went to the Hagia Sophia. The original building was built by Constantine to be a church. That one burned down, and the replacement building also burned down. The current Hagia Sophia is the third version and was built by Justinian I. Later, it was turned into a mosque and finally a museum.
Personally, I like the outside of the Blue Mosque more, but I do think the inside of the Hagia Sophia is more impressive. After our 45 minute meandering through the Hagia Sophia, we went across the square (which has free WiFi, by the way!) to a very famous little restaurant. Apparently, every tour group stops by. In fact, when we had seen it on Saturday, it had a long line stretching out the front door. Based on our simple but delicious lunch, I can see why.
Based on our new Turkish friends' suggestions, we'd also booked a tour around the Bosphorus, including a boat ride. Since we had an hour to kill before our tour, we just chilled in front of the Blue Mosque.
Our tour ended up just being for the three of us. A private tour for 35€ a person. Not bad! Plus our tour guide was actually a retired guide, who called himself Professor Zeki. He was awesome! The son of the tour agency owner drove though, and although I admired his deftness at weaving through Istanbul's mad traffic, I was thankful to be out of the car quickly. Zeki laughed at me when I was the only one in the car wearing a seatbelt.
Our first stop was supposed to be a cable car ride up to a viewpoint called Pierre Loti, named for a French naval officer who spent lots of time there. In fact, his old house is now a cafe up there. Due to a long line though, Zeki suggested we just drive up to the hill. He has some mad skill with navigating Istanbul. I was impressed. He also walks very fast.
At the top, I told him we needed a picture together, and he responded with, "Ach ja, mit deinem türkischen Großvater, ne?" I now have a Turkish grandfather. :) Oh, side note, when he found out we were all students in Germany, he decided to do the entire tour in German, since he'd lived and worked for 11 years in Hannover before returning to Turkey. It was great. I chatted him up the whole time.
The boat tour was also nice. Seriously, rolling with Professor Zeki has great perks. He expects VIP treatment everywhere, so we just followed along. He also told us where best to sit for comfort and for pictures.
Once we passed the first of the two large bridges, the land on one side of the water becomes Turkey on the Asian continent with Turkey on the European continent on the other side. Pretty neat eh? Windy on the water though.
On our way back, we saw the military school where Gaddafi went...makes sense that the Turkish government has had some success in talking sense to Libya. This same building was also formerly a hospital, where Florence Nightingale worked as a nurse during the Crimean War.
The last stop on our tour was the Spice Bazaar (also known as the Egyptian Bazaar). I bought some ridiculously good Turkish delight, which I overpaid for (even with the tour discount). But whatever, Turkish delight is simply delectable.
That evening, James arrived from Berlin after seeing his girlfriend off back to America. So we met up with him and then headed to dinner. I really wanted the green beans that I'd seen on menus and had had in Greece, but apparently it's not the right season. Sad. The food we had was incredible anyway though.
On Monday, Carissa headed back to Germany. I dropped her off at the airport and then met up with James to wander around Sultan Ahmet, the area where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are. After a quick lunch at that one famous place again, we went to the Basilica Cisterns, which were built by Justinian I and held tons of water underground. The pictures didn't turn out well, with flash or without flash, but it was a neat experience. 10 Turkish Lira might've been a bit much though (a bit less than 5€).
In the afternoon, we just chilled. James and I went to Gülhane Park to have tea, and I must've drank another six cups at least. That spot is definitely my favorite spot in Istanbul though. Very peaceful, and for 6 Turkish Lira, you can milk out a cup of tea per lira at least.
We then headed back down to the water to meet up with Nick, who had saved us a table with a checkerboard. James decided to teach me how to play backgammon though, and as it turns out, I won!
Then Nick and I started a game of checkers, which took 90 minutes to complete. Notice the sun in this picture below.
By the time, I finally beat him the sun was nearly gone. Why did it take us 90 minutes for this one game? Because when it became clear (quickly, I might add) that I was going to win, Nick "filibustered" every one of his moves by telling stories, humming a tune, or reading out of his chemistry book. He took nearly 10 minutes per move, which followed promptly with my move in about 15 seconds.
We definitely enjoyed the evening though, and we ended up meeting up with my faculty mentor from Seattle, Dr. Stan Chernicoff, and his wonderful wife, Dr. Julie Stein. Their good friend and my good friend, Mary, also joined us for the evening, and we had some food and then some beers. It was nice to see them all and also meet another one of Stan's many mentees from the UW, Casey, and her boyfriend, Paul, who are both also living in Germany. Fun night for sure.
On Tuesday, Nick and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head out to one of the Prince's Islands. We chose Büyükada, which is the largest island and whose name literally means "big island". The ferry took about 70 minutes and only cost 5 lira.
When we first arrived, my first impression was, "Crap, it wasn't worth it to come to this island." There are no cars allowed (like Hydra in Greece), and you can only get around on foot, via bikes, or in a horse carriage. We decided to save our money and simply walk. I saw this school on the island, so naturally I took a picture.
The higher we climbed, the more nature I saw. Like this rooster.
Or horses and chickens grazing on this soccer field high above the houses.
Or the three horses that suddenly climbed over a ridge and trotted in our direction before climbing further up a path.
We also saw a cow cross the path and march down into the trees, where it promptly mooed to make sure no one invaded its space. The view was certainly nice though.
We also found these disgustingly long centipede like insects. I did not like them at all, but you can see how long they were next to Nick's shoe.
We both napped on the way back, though I thankfully did not have to deal with the young Turkish boy who kept banging a Turkish 1 Lira coin on the window right next to Nick's head. I had my music blasting away with my hood on, and I could still hear the clacking of his coin on the glass.
We met up with Paul and Casey that night though, along with James and his friend from Ankara, Alper. We walked along the large street from Taksim Square, and it reminded me a lot of Grafton Street in Dublin. Good energy for sure.
For fairly decent prices, we got a ton of food to eat at this one place. Just look at all this!
After walking through some rain, we had a beer at a place before calling it a night. On our way back, we passed the Galata Tower, which looked really cool at night.
On Wednesday (our last full day), I was pretty ready to head home to Berlin. I felt like I'd seen everything I wanted to see in Istanbul, and I felt slightly like I was wasting time not doing something productive. But we definitely had a few more things to do—Stan brought me a new DP crewneck from Seattle, so I went and took pictures with it on since I'd forgotten my DP t-shirt in my last minute packing.
Then we met up with Stan, Julie, Mary, Paul, Casey, and their group to visit the Archaeology Museum. Julie is an archaeologist, so it couldn't have been any better. However, since I'm more like Stan (quick in museums), we strolled into one building for all of about 5 minutes and then just sat out in the sun to chat for an hour. Felt like all the many times we sat on a bench outside Mary Gates Hall at UW, discussing Dream Project and life in general. I am a lucky guy to have such a great mentor, that's for sure.
After the museum, Stan took us to lunch, and we had a nice time eating outdoors across from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. From there, we parted ways as they had more sights to see, and I was ready to just chill. I had also run out of cell phone minutes and had lost Nick at the museum, so I went up to Gülhane Park by myself to have more tea.
I outdid myself this time. I milked 8 and a half cups of tea out of that pot. For 6 Lira, that's brilliant. Somehow, Nick figured out I was there too based on one of my last text messages, so he joined me after about 30 minutes. It was very relaxing to just sit and admire the view. We also played a game of a chess on his brand new travel set, which he had bought in the Grand Bazaar. I won. :)
In the evening, we met up with James and Alper again to get dinner. First though, Alper showed us some local specialties. Like these Istanbul hamburgers. They were delicious. Hamburgers soaked in some sort of tomato sauce. As Alper described, it's great food when it's the wee hours of the morning and you've had plenty to drink. :)
Then he stopped to pick up some local chocolate.
And we followed Paul and Casey's advice and ate at this restaurant four floors above the street. It was good stuff.
Our final night would be fun as our friend from our Marburg language course days, Elena, was also in town to visit friends. So we arranged to meet up for drinks. Alper's friend also came by, and he told us about a place that had beers for 1.50 Lira. Unbelievable. That's like 70 Euro cents for a drink.
The night ended when Alper had to head to Taksim Square to take the overnight bus back to Ankara. We walked with him to the bus, and then Nick, James, and I split a taxi to get home. Great end to a wonderful trip.
This morning, we woke up at 5:30 AM to go to the airport and catch our flight. We flew Turkish Airlines, and since Kobe Bryant is their new spokesperson, his picture was on the magazine. Awesome.
Overall, I found Istanbul to be one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. It was like a mix of Athens, San Francisco, and Vancouver, BC, all rolled into one megapolis. With over 13 million people, Istanbul is the third largest city in the world behind only Shanghai and Mumbai (as of 2010). I had no idea. Not only was the public transportation superb (crowded for sure, but runs very frequently), but the urban development was also very impressive.
Everywhere around the waterfront was green space, whether in the form of a park, a sports field, an exercise square, or simply trees and benches. I had expected the green space to be confined to only certain sections along the water, but during our boat tour and car ride, I saw it stretch all the way around the Golden Horn and every stretch of waterfront I could see.
Alas, I failed in one of my traditional new country exploration agenda items: picking up a mini flag from the country. It wasn't for lack of effort either. We scoured the Grand Bazaar, souvenir shops on small streets, and anywhere that looked remotely like it might have a mini flag. All they had were larger ones that didn't quite fit what I was looking for. Oh well. There's a flag shop I know in Berlin, so I'll just pick one up there for 2,50€. Besides, Berlin has the largest Turkish population outside of Turkey, so it counts, right?
Ok, apologies for such a long blog post. As Nick just called it, it could be the "blog to end all blogs." But, of course, with more adventures just around the corner, I will be blogging again very soon.
Till then,
Sam
2 comments:
awesome adventures, Sam! It's great hearing about your experiences, so no worries about writing long posts.
I need to write mine - it will be interesting to see what I end up saying about the culture - but I will agree it was one of the best places I have been to!!!
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