Istanbul, Turkey

June 6 – Day 56

I had a wonderful time in Istanbul! We visited the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar, and the Spice Bazaar. We took a cruise on the Bosphorus River, shopped til we dropped, visited a Turkish bath and ate wonderful food! Istanbul is so different from any city I have ever been to. It is the only city in the world located on two continents (Europe and Asia). Walking down the street you would see people dressed in clothing similar to any city in the US and then the next person you would see would be a woman with everything covered in black cloth except her eyes and nose. The prayer calls come over load speakers in the city at set times each day (I think it is 5 times a day). To enter the mosque you had to have everything covered but your face and you had to remove your shoes.

Heather, one of the girls I was travelling with, was ecstatic to see all of the glass lanterns. She has always wanted a chandelier of lanterns and she was able to build one herself with exactly what she wanted. 7 lanterns later, she had an amazing chandelier, but it was quite a challenge to get it back to Ireland! The grand bazaar has over 4,000 shops and is like a city in and of itself. The shops sell a lot of ceramics, scarves, leather goods, Turkish rugs and lots of jewellery. I of course did some shopping and I think my most exciting purchase was a beautiful tablecloth in red and cream/gold that I think will look really cool in my house in Denver.

We stayed in a hostel in Istanbul and I made a rookie mistake. I didn’t bring a towel. It never even crossed my mind. On our first morning there, I asked my friends where to get a towel and they looked at me funny and said they brought them. I thought they were joking and so I asked again, then I realized they were serious. Heather and James, the married couple, were incredible generous and shared a towel so that I could use one of theirs. Needless to say, the first thing I bought in Turkey was a towel. I guess you live and learn. Hostel travel is very different from hotels! The room that we had was probably 6 feet by 8 feet and included 2 sets of bunk beds. There was barely room for all 4 of us to stand up at the same time. We shared a bathroom (single toilet, sink and shower) with about 20 other people. The beds had a sheet on the bottom and that was it. No covering sheet. We also had quite a fright our first night when Heather and I opened the bathroom door. The bathroom was occupied by the largest roach I had ever seen. Apparently they grow them even bigger in Turkey than Mexico. We screamed and made James, the only guy travelling with us, make it disappear. It was wonderful to have a guy travelling with us! Not only did he deal with the bugs, but in Turkey the shop keepers are very aggressive and when there is a guy with you, they back off quite a bit, which is very helpful.

It was a wonderful trip and I would highly recommend adding Istanbul to the list of places you want to visit!