Originally posted: February 21st, 2014
Day two in this foreign land: I’m still alive. Istanbul is wonderful! I met this lovely Turkish bayan Refika and her two friends Meltem and ?? in the Vienna Airport who prepped me for my stay in Istanbul and wrote me directions from the airport to my hostel to save a lot of money. I followed the instructions, but it took quite some time to get to my hostel. On my way I ended up walking through a beautiful little square, marking the first time I’ve seen green grass since this hellish American winter began (see below)
Eventually I found myself at the hostel, which doesn’t even have a front door. You just walk into a circular stairwell off the street that leads up into the hostel’s office/kitchen/living room/dining room. It’s cozy, painted orange, red, and blue, like it was some craft made by a 5 year old, and a couch that looks like a rug. Here I found a Londoner (who looks scarily like Daniel Radcliffe, accent and all), Australian, and a Filipino. Through a door is the rooftop terrace with a view of the Aya Sofia, the tops of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) and the long street Divanyolu. Warm yellows and cool blues played together beautifully to create an aesthetically pleasing view of southern Istanbul. The people on the terrace came in, thus expanding my friend group to include a Colombian, Argentinian, and a girl also from London. Tamza the London girl had a drawing pad and pastels and did a couple portraits of me (to add to her collection of portriats of everyone else present. I did one of Patrick too. Hers were undoubtedly better than mine, namely because they captured the subject’s “essence” to a level that I just couldn’t achieve.
Later, we went out to explore and found a restaurant, where we dined on the top floor, with the gorgeous Ayasofya out the window.
At the small table of friends I had met a couple hours earlier, we collectively represented every continent except Africa. Everyone was nice (Until Patrick, who was apparently still bitter about the American Revolution, got piss drunk and started America bashing, while periodically assuring everyone that “he loved them” and that “he didn’t mean anything he was saying.”) I came back and before I could get ready to go out had passed out on the bed (I had been awake for over 40 hrs at that point). I woke up with a group of 8 guys from Spain chatting it up, thus meeting my roommates. It was refreshing to finally hear a group of foreigners speaking a language that I could understand! Sidenote: when people try to talk to me in another language, no matter what language, my brain starts working in spanish simply because it is the only non-english verbal communication I know. It’s really weird. The german woman next to me on the plane over here was trying to talk to me and I had to stop myself from replying in Spanish for some reason. Anyway, soon after going and visiting with people on the rooftop terrace for a while, I passed out again for the night.
This morning I had breakfast of bread and spreads (Strawberry, nutella-like stuff, and cream cheese… I had a lot of bread), I also had about 3 or 4 cups of delicious tea. Then I strolled off for the Grand Bazaar, which is an absolutely massive market (one of the largest covered markets in the world). I shopped around for the Dövis Büroso with the best currency exchange rate and bought 100 USD worth of Turkish Lyra. I walk out and am immediately talking to a guy who whisked me away to a private room full of rugs. He went and brought me a nice little glass of tea, and started his sales pitch. Walked out with a rug. Don’t worry, I got an amazing deal on it with some solid negotiation work. Bought a few more things, explored a LOT, and came back to the hostel to drop my stuff of and write all this jazz down in case I develop early onset amnesia. Had tea again (apple tea this time) with my Filipino friend Hubert or Herbert I think. Now I’m off to see a couple of the biggest names in Istanbul tourism. Ayasofya and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, more about that later.
This street is outside of the Bazaar, but is similar to what the inside is like. If you want to learn how to say no, just walk up this street. You’ll learn or go broke, but either way, it will be instant.
I have a ton of photos, but I’m going to put them in a facebook album because it’s way easier than uploading all of them here.
