No Spain, No gain: Opposites attract… the same two American tourists: Part 1

In the typical fashion of arrival in a new country, it took about 10 minutes for me to become completely confused in Istanbul. The metro works on a plastic coin system that was very hard to figure out on our own. Chuck E. Cheese is more legit. After that trouble, we took a LONG ride to Sultanahmet, the old part of town where we were staying. If you go to Istanbul, take the 10 or 15 euro shuttle from the airport. It´s worth it.

On the second leg of our trip to the hostel, a random man asked where we from. He asked where we were staying... and I told him, immediately realizing my error when his creepiness started to emerge. He said he was from Libya and working on his PhD there. He seemed to be trying to impress us, which totally confused me since he was middle-aged and unattractive. Dude, I am 21. I am not interested. My sister is gorgeous, so she is not interested either. He wouldn´t stop talking to us and asked again where we were staying and I knew well enough not to tell him again. He kept pushing and pushing and we got more and more nervous. We were two foreign girls, American no-less, with backpacks and no clue about our surroundings. At the Sultanhamet stop, our stop, he got off and asked us to come to his hotel with him. WHAT??? No, thank you sir. I squeezed my sister to indicate not to get off at that stop even though it was near our hostel. We went to the next stop and turned around, catching the last tram of the night. When I asked a police officer to help with directions, I realized when I pulled out the reservation that I told the guy the WRONG name of the hostel! I screamed with delight and Fuddy did too. The creepy Libyan would have had to go to Budapest if he tried to find the hostel that I originally mentioned to him. A huge weight was lifted, but the ones on our backs remained. The backpacks were like targets on our walk, causing every man we passed to taunt us and attempt to solicit us to go into their restaurant, bar or shop. The voices of creepy Turkish men yelling at us became the soundtrack to our Turkey trip.

We had the 7-bed room to ourselves, but the next day two more girls came, one from Sweden and another incredibly annoying girl from northern Californian who thought she was cool because she had a uniquely heinous lisp and “the only Europe (she) had been to was this side of Istanbul.” There was one point that I almost beat her up, but realized a Turkish prison would be no fun at all; the streets were rough enough.

We woke up the next day to go to the famous Blue Mosque, only about 60 meters from our hostel, but it was closed for prayer time. Istanbul was my first experience in a place where they have a call to prayer and although the prayer music is nice and I don´t want to be culturally insensitive, it is easy to get sick of it when it is blasting throughout the streets five times a day. We went to see the Hippodrome, a sort of ancient athletic complex built in 203 AD when Istanbul was Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, but it was kind of a disappointment.

Obelisk erected in 390 AD... so it is fairly old.

Fountain given as a gift to Sultan Abdulhamit from German emperor Wilhem II in 1901.

Next was the Grand Bazaar. The bartering is insane, almost as insane as how much we were solicited to buy things and probably less insane than the sheer amount of STUFF in this city. One store-owner with a championship unibrow (which says a lot, because most of these guys had unibrows) befriended us and gave us free apple tea, a staple in Istanbul. He was nice until he tried to get us to go out with him that night. He may have meant well, but after the first night, we did not trust any man in Turkey again. This same thing happened three more times that day, apple tea included.

Are you overwhelmed by all the pictures you just saw?

Yeah. Imagine being there. There are over 4000 shops.

Fuddy and I and our free apple tea (the locals call it "tourist tea")

Silly little sister

Silly big sister

The activity of the night was the Blue Mosque, commissioned by Sultan Ahmet I in 1609. It is unique for it's six minarets, whereas most mosques have two or four at the most. The pictures do not display nearly how beautiful it is on the outside.

Blue Mosque excitement

Blue Mosque interior

The next day we went on a Bosphorous cruise, where we got to cruise along the Bosphorous strait and go to the Asian side of Istanbul. We got a really great deal with an overly friendly guide. He let my sister and I sit up front and gave us personal Turkish lessons. I learned how to say everything from “sisters” to “thank you” to “adventure.” The lessons were much more welcome than the incredibly strong drinks he gave us.

Europe side...

...Asian side. So different!

Unfortunately, our experience on the Asian side was… culturally unsatisfying. After we were haggled by 5 men at the same time to go their waterfront restaurant we chose one that offered us a deal on fish. We decided how much we wanted to spend and ordered accordingly, accounting for the fact that they would probably charge us for bread. We ordered a spicy tomato puree for the bread as we waited for our fish. The waiter brought out tea as well. When our fish did not come for an hour, we told them we had to leave to catch our tour group, they brought out the check that should have been for about 8 Lira, and the total read 22 Lira, charging us for the tea that is ALWAYS free, water glasses (with no water in them) and the bread. I was furious. Screaming and castigating does no good when the two parties do not speak the same language, but I did it just the same. The waiter at the adjacent restaurant laughed to himself as he looked on as if to say “this would never happen at MY restaurant.” The owner played dumb, but I played bitch. We left a pile of euros and lira equaling around 15 Lira, only because Fuddy insisted we compromise. I was so enraged during the entire trip about being scammed that day. It was not because of the 7 Lira I lost, of course, but because of the complete lack of business integrity I experienced. This will be one of my vivid memories of the trip and I could not be more upset about it. Things did get a little better once our captain gave us free gigantic fresh seafood sandwiches when we admitted we were hungry.

We were so ready to have our relaxing Turkish bath to wind down and went to the famous Suleymaniye Hamam to get our spa treatment. It was relaxing, but they were serious about the scrubbing, and I don´t even want to think about the cleanliness of the tools they used.

Inside of the Turkish Bath

SO relaxed post-bath

After that we went to Rumist Café, a restaurant featured in the New York times and recommended to us by the owner. He gave us two recommendations for meals so we decide to trust him. We did the same for dessert. All good decisions. We met a bunch of Americans there, a huge black guy from DC, a recent graduate from Ohio, and two students from Walpole. It was such a homey place with authentic and quality food, not to mention the great people who work there; it turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip.

Our new friend from the local travel agency who we saw literally everyday
during our time in Turkey. Becoming a local and meeting people in
our neighborhood was one of our favorite parts of the visit.

My delicious dinner that came OVER A FIRE. Awesome

The next morning we went to Hagia Sofia. Built in 360 ADIt was once a church, then a mosque and now a museum. It was completely breathtaking inside. One of the major facets was the alter- the only place in the world with both the Virgin Mary from Christianity and a Muslim "Mihrab".