Last weekend, I went to Istanbul, Turkey with my friend,
Grace.
Istanbul is a place that I had
really been looking forward to visiting because I wanted to see more of Eastern
Europe... and that's about as far east as you can get. In fact, Grace and I
crossed over into Asia! I would rate this trip in my top five favorite European
trips. The weekend was full of unexpected and serendipitous
moments for Grace and me, and that's what
turns a trip into an adventure!
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| All checked in and ready to go! |
The trip started off on a good note with the best airline
I've ever flown on in my LIFE. Shout out to Turkish Airlines! Even though the
flight itself was only 3.5 hours, we were treated so well. Before we even took
off, the attendants came down the aisle asking if we'd like any Turkish
delights. Grace and I looked at each other and thought, this is going be a
great flight. Since our flight didn't leave until midnight from Madrid, I
thought I would just sleep the entire time, but then I saw each seat had
its own TV screen. (I get very excited about those.) So I started watching a
movie, then the attendants came around with the meal menu. Grace and I looked
at the menus and thought, there is no way these meals are free. Well, they
were. Between the free food and unlimited movies, I knew I was not sleeping on
this plane.
We arrived in Istanbul around 4:45am and neither Grace nor I
thought about looking up our hostel's address ahead of time... whoops. So after
a half an hour of trying to find free wifi, we succeeded and then waited for
the metro to open at 6am. We checked into our hostel and took a little nap in
the common area until our rooms were ready. All in all, we stayed in a pretty
nice hostel. There were some sketchy moments... like when the power went out...
twice. Once was when we came back from being gone all day and it was dark out.
The door to the hostel was open and the stairwell was pitch black. Then one of
the workers thought it would be funny to scare us in the stairwell. Let me tell
you, it was NOT funny. The other time the power went out was the next morning
when we woke up. I had not showered in two days so I HAD to shower. Even if it
meant taking an ice cold shower in a pitch black bathroom. There's a first time
for everything, right?
The first thing we did on our first morning in Istanbul was
find a traditional Turkish breakfast. They brought out plates upon plates of food
and we didn't know what half of it was, but it was so fun trying it all! Then
we made our way downtown to the Grand Bazaar, one of the largest (3,000 shops) and
oldest markets in the world. We had fun taking pictures and people-watching...
even though we felt like most of the time, people were watching us. We received
a lot of comments as we made our way through the Grand Bazaar. Our favorites
being...
"Hello, Spice Girls."
"Hello, Lady GaGa." (I think I was one of five
women with blonde hair in all of Istanbul...)
"Ladies... are you looking for me?"
"Ladies... say yes."
"Ladies... you want socks?" (This one almost
sounded dirty with their accents. And yes, we came all the way to Turkey for
socks...)
Our Turkish breakfast...
Detail shots at the Grand Bazaar...
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| prayer at Suleymaniye |
After the Great Bazaar, we went to our first mosque,
Suleymaniye. We entered right as they were beginning prayer time, which was so
cool for two reasons: 1. We were able to witness the prayer and 2. We didn't
have to pay the entrance fee. Being in the mosque during the prayer was one of
my favorite moments of the trip! While we were at the mosque, we spotted a rooftop cafe so we decided to try to find the entrance. We're so happy we found it because it had the most amazing views of the city! We sat in the sun, drank Turkish tea, ate a little Turkish dessert, and took in the incredible views. That evening, we went on a 90 minute ferry ride around the
Marmara Sea and ate lamb kebabs on the boardwalk afterwards.
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| in the Suleymaniye |
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| view from the rooftop cafe |
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| view from the rooftop cafe |
That night, Grace and I wanted to go out for just one drink,
since we were so exhausted from our overnight plane trip. We found this little
hole-in-the-wall bar, where a man was performing live acoustic Turkish music.
After about 45 minutes of listening to him (he was really good!), his friend
gets up on stage and does this whole one-man-show thing, which included lots of
shimmying. He spotted Grace and me in the crowd (like I said, we stood out like
sore thumbs in this city) and asked where we're from, what we're doing in
Turkey, etc. Then he asked us, "How do you feel for Turkish music?"
The only words we could come up with were "interesting" and
"unique". Then he asked, "Do you like Enrique Iglesias?" He
agreed to sing "Hero" for us as long as we promised to come back the
next night. (Which we didn't...)
That night, we went out for more live music (not from the
Enrique Iglesias guy though). We ended up running into a couple girls from our
hostel so the four of us had a great time dancing the night away to live Turkish
music!
Our last day in Turkey was probably the most stressful, but
also probably my favorite. It was just one of those days that reminds me that
everything happens for a reason and things work out the way they're supposed to,
even though it might not always be the way I planned. This happened to us
twice on this day and each time was rather stressful, but then when things worked
out, they worked out even better than our original plan.
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| one of the Princes' Islands |
Grace and I both really wanted to visit the Princes' Islands
but we didn't really have time for it. We had to make a choice of visiting the
islands or visiting Asia. We both decided that we wanted to see Asia more than
the islands, so we got on the next ferry that was going to Asia. The ferry was
completely packed full of people, but we found some spots next to a group of
American girls who were studying abroad in the Middle East (how cool?!), so we
got to talking with them about their travel experiences and our travel experiences.
After about 45 minutes, we were talking about things we've seen/done in
Istanbul so far. Grace was explaining to them how we did everything we wanted to
do except go to the Princes' Islands. Then one of the girls says, "isn't
that where we're going right now?" We knew the ferry was going to the
islands, but Asia was the first stop. Grace and I must have been so engrossed
in our conversation with these girls that we didn't even notice that the ferry
had docked. We look at each other big eyes and said, "See ya!" as we
ran to find our way off the ferry. There were people everywhere and no one was
moving so we just started pushing people aside as we were freaking out because
we didn't have time to go all the way to the islands and come back and still
make our flight that evening. Right as we found the way off the ferry, it was
blowing its horn and we were moving. I seriously considered jumping and I think
Grace saw me because later she said, "You were going to leave me
stranded!!!" I swear it was just instinct! Anyway, some woman saw us
freaking out and said asked, "Why did you want to get off here
anyway?" We exclaimed, "WE WANTED TO SEE ASIA!!!" She said, "Oh,
please, the islands are SO much better than this part of the city. There's
nothing to do here. Plus, the islands are part of Asia." So we thought,
alright, maybe this was supposed to happen. We got off at the first island and
found out that daylight savings DIDN'T happen in Istanbul the night before so we
had an extra hour to spare. We walked around the peaceful, car-less little
island, ate lunch, hung out on the beach, then got on the next ferry back to
Istanbul.
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| view of the city from the island |
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| loving this place! |
We had some extra time so we got off in Asia and
wanted to find a bus that would take us back to Europe so we could cross the
bridge that connect the two continents. Since NOBODY speaks English, this task
was a little more difficult than we had hoped. The ticket office man told us,
"NO BUS. NO TRAM. BOAT." And just pointed back at the ferry. We KNEW
it was possible so we kept searching. Finally, we just asked a stranger if he
spoke English and he said "A little." We told him we wanted to find a
bus that would take us back to the European side of Istanbul. He took us down
the row of buses and pointed to one. So we got on and they said,
"Card." We tried to explain we didn't have bus cards so after thinking
about it, they said, "Cash." We gave them some cash and sat down.
Grace and I had NO idea what had just happened and we had NO idea where we were
going.
Turns out, the man was right. We did get to go over the
connecting bridge and we were even quick enough to snap some pictures of the
"Welcome to Europe" and "Welcome to Asia" signs. We're just
that good.
We got back to our hostel, grabbed our things, and headed to
the airport. It took nearly an hour to get to the airport. Our flight left at
6:20 and we arrived at around 5:15, so we thought we had plenty of time. Then we
got to the ticket counter and saw about 100 people waiting in line in front of
us. We waited in line for about 15 minutes and the line had only moved about
2-3 people. Grace and I knew we weren't going to make it in
time unless we found another way. I kept our place in line while Grace went over to ask someone who worked at the airport to see what we could
do. The lady told Grace to check in at business class down by Gate E. So Grace
went to go check out that line while I save our spots in the original line.
Grace came back 15 minutes later (it's now 5:50 and our plane it boarding...)
and yelled, "Shea, hurry! I just got my tickets!" I ran as fast as I
could all the way down to Gate E and stood in the much shorter line. I'm
standing there thinking, there's no way this man is going to print my ticket if
my plane is already boarding. I ran up to the counter and yelled, "Madrid,
Madrid, Madrid!" and he said, "Ummm you're late?" I said,
"Yes, I know but you just printed a ticket for my friend over there... I
promise we'll hurry!" He looks at the computer and puts my passport back
up on the counter and says, "I'm sorry, you'll have to go to the ticket
office and purchase a new ticket." Then I did what any young blond girl in
Turkey would do... I brought out the waterworks. I asked him again and promised
we'd make it to the gate in time. He called another worker over, they called
down to the gate and next thing I knew, I had a business class ticket to Madrid in my
hand. Grace and I completely budged in front of about 50 people in the customs line and we were all ready to play the "Dumb American" card if
needed. Somehow we got away with it without an explanation and then ran through
security and to our gate. We made it on our plane!!! And not only that, we sat
in the very first row of business class. I don't know if it was our adrenaline
going from rushing through the airport or the fact that we went from almost missing
our plane to sitting in business class, but we were so excited about our
recliner chairs, our leg room, our personal TVs, the warm towels, our delicious dinners, the unlimited wine (which was much needed), our
pillows and blankets, etc. Pretty sure we annoyed everyone else sitting in
business class. As you can tell from these photos...
we were
those
girls.
One of the best trips ever? I'd say so. :)
Detail shots at the Grand Bazaar...
