Istanbul, Turkey

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!

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...

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.

in the Suleymaniye

view from the rooftop cafe

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...)

The next day was full of doing touristy things - we visited the palace gardens and two more mosques... The Hagia Sofia and The Blue Mosque. For lunch, we ate outside in the sun by the gardens. We had Turkish salad (which is like a chunky salsa), Manti (Turkish dumplings), and hummus. Everything was so delicious! Then we made our way back to the Grand Bazaar to do some haggling. Grace bought a beautiful pillow case and we both bought traditional Turkish tea sets. Not only were we able to drop the price, but the man gave us free key chains for good luck and free tea! We were so proud of our haggling!

in the palace gardens

In the Hagia Sofia

Blue Mosque

Inside the Blue Mosque

As we left the Grand Bazaar, we tried finding the metro, but we ended up getting completely lost in the side streets flooded with people. We quickly realized we were the only tourists and we felt a little out of our element, but at the same time, it was a really cool experience.   

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. 

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.

view of the city from the island

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. :)