Day -14 Istanbul

 

Hi - Here I am, partaking in my first shisha (hookah) with new friends my first night in Istanbul.  (I know you miss the hat and sunglasses, but it was night.)   

Noor is a very nice 26-year old from Pakistan.  We got connected through the TravelBuddy website because we would be in Istanbul at the same time.  The three lovely ladies are (L to R) Irene (Ee RAY neh), Katia, and Ivana, all from a small town near Warsaw.  Noor and Ivana met on line four years ago and decided to meet face-to-face in Istanbul for tea.  Ivana teaches math and her two friends teach Phys Ed.  Noor just took the exam to get into the foreign service, and is just being lazy for a while.  His English is very good, Ivana's is pretty good, and Irene and Katia speak better English than I speak Polishh.  We spent the evening and into the wee hours of the morning in this lovely outdoor restaurant.  

Because Irene is a character, we became close friends with three of the waiters, and they joined us to share the shisha after they got off work.  When the little "band" was playing a set (Turkish music, go figure!) they turned off the fountain.

The four of them walked me back to my hotel, accompanied by a couple of dogs that reminded me of Lady and the Tramp.  I was beat - too much fun.


Fast forward to 5 PM Saturday...

Transcription:

I'm writing this by hand first, sitting in a lovely tree-shaded garden patio at a restaurant called "House of Medusa," just around the corner from my hotel.  There's a classical Spanish guitar CD playing, and soft romantic vocals, and it's comforting to hear something familiar.  The breeze is heavenly.  There's an impressively large Camellia next to my table.  See the sign to my right?  It says, "Japonica Camillia Since 1970."  I slept almost all  afternoon, after I got them to give me a different room because the air conditioner didn't work.  I'm having a light snack of Puree de Fava, bread, and a Pepsi Light (hey, tourists can't be choosers) before meeting up with my next two new friends, Lucia (Lucy) and Valentina, a single mom and 16-year old daughter from near Venice (Italy).  

Lucy and I met this morning when we were both complaining about how skimpy the breakfast was.  A little later, when I went down to complain about the air conditioning, she and Valentina couldn't get connected to Hot Mail to let family know they arrived safely (they also came in at 3 AM).  I brought my laptop down to the lobby and they were able to send the e-mail.  While getting settled into my new room, there was a knock on the door and it was Lucy and Valentina.  She wasn't able to get cash with her Visa card and she asked if she could borrow some money till Monday.  I was impressed that she was willing to ask in spite of feeling very embarrassed, and happy I had lira to loan her.  They were going out to see the sights near the hotel, and we arranged to meet back at the hotel at 7:00.  When the waiters brought my soda and water, they also brought a cute little silver ice bucket with tongs, and it's so wonderful plunking the cubes into my drinks :)  I can hear seagulls, which reminds me I'm on the water (no sighting of the Bosphorus at this point).

Flashback to my flight to and arrival in Istanbul ...I sat next to a man who turned out to be an archeologist who specializes in ancient Greek sites.  He's a professor at the U of Kentucky and reminded me of Indiana Jones (though I didn't mention this to him).  He was very interesting, and the flight seemed to go very quickly.  We landed at 4:30 PM and it took half an hour to get through passport control.  Turkey isn't as welcoming (at least not to English-speaking visitors) as Greece is.  Very few signs have English as well as Turkish (as opposed to Athens, which is very bilingual).  After figuring out how to get a Metro token, I began the arduous journey to Sultanahmet, where I'm staying.  My first decision was whether to follow the hotel's or the guidebook's directions to the hotel.  It seemed reasonable to choose the former.  BIG mistake.

[A begging Muslim crone just came to the entrance to the patio.  One of the waiters took a coin to her and she left.  Probably a daily ritual.]

Back to the Metro...either choice involved a transfer to a tram.  As it turned out, going the hotel's route required me to lug myself and bags up 30 steps to the walkway spanning the tram tracks, then 30 steps down to that platform.  It's 100 degrees.  Going up, I carried the suitcase by its handle.  Going down I let the wheels bump down each step.  I hope they're built to last like Samsonite with the orangutans throwing cases around.  The tram ride was an experience in itself - rush hour, you know.  When I got off at my stop, I thought I was following the map, but after dragging the suitcase 1/4 of a mile over cobblestones, I asked two policemen for directions and they pointed me back to the tram stop.  I almost started crying, but opted to take a taxi instead.  The driver gave me a story about having to go a long way  around because roads were closed to cars.  At this point, he could have driven me back to the airport and then to the hotel.  I saw a labyrinthine section of Istanbul for 15 lira.  Best $8 to go three blocks I ever spent.

From the outside, Hotel Albion looked as charming as its photos on the web site.  My room had about three too many pieces of furniture for its size - sort of like having to stand on a toilet to get bags into a stall and close the door.  Oh, well...

So that's what I wrote; now back to the present.

Lucy, Valentina, and I walked toward the Blue Mosque, not having a plan for where to eat dinner.  When we came to an intersection with a little side street, it looked so inviting we walked up and ended up finding a wonderful restaurant.  It even had a 3-star bathroom (which has become the highest rating possible).  

We walked leisurely back to the hotel, admiring the Mosque at night and Pashminas on a rack at one of the ubiquitous shops.  The plan for the next day was to visit Topkapi Palace.  BIG mistake.  To be continued...