Saturday, November 20th, 2004

Wow, what a start to the day. I couldn’t sleep last night with all the excitement and anticipation of traveling to Istanbul. I had set my alarm for 5:35 a.m. so that I could be ready to get a taxi to the airport’s bus station at 6:15. But sleep would not come. Tossed and turned. Miserable. Finally I drifted off, maybe at 3:30 a.m. or so. Ahh…

I wake up in the morning, and realize that it’s light out. Shit. That’s not right. I look at the alarm and realize that I’ve overslept. It’s now 6:45 a.m. If I miss the 7:00 bus to the airport I will not get to my 8:00 a.m. flight in time. Panic!

Fortunately I had packed the night before. I grab my stuff, bail from the dorms and sprint to a taxi. I tell the guy where I’m going. He drives slowly. Faster!!! “Don’t you want me to take you to the airport?” No, just hurry up. “Only 200,000,000 TL” Jesus, that’s like $140. I’m not an idiot. Just take me there. Finally we roll up to the bus. I pay, jump on the bus, and it leaves. Ten seconds later and I would have been running after the bus.

So the first step is complete. As long as I’m on the right bus anyway. And after 40 minutes we get to the airport. I have twenty minutes to board. Hmmm. First I set off the metal detectors like six times. Then I have to go to the ticket purchasing booth to have them print the ticket I bought off the internet. Finally I wait in line to do whatever else. And then I run out and jump on the next bus, right before it leaves to take us to our plane. Phew.

So I’m in Istanbul now. Tony Digenakis is supposed to be at the airport but his flight is majorly delayed. So I grabbed a taxi and headed to The President Hotel. Istanbul is beautiful. This place is like no other city I’ve seen. We started on the Asian side, crossed the Bosporus and squiggled our way through the crowded streets to my hotel in European Old Istanbul. There is history everywhere here. Ruined city walls from the Byzantines. Tombs of countless sultans. Great hulking mosques with minarets that practically poke into the clouds. It’s incredible.

I got into the hotel and basically crashed do to my lack of sleep. At 3 or so Tony rolled in and gave me a call. We made plans to head out into the city. Tony is a Greek guy who has been in the states for over thirty years. He’s in charge of the international programs at Delaware Tech. and has been working in Turkey for a long time. And he knows Istanbul better than people from Istanbul do!

We took of and crossed the road to enter the Grand Bazaar. This is one of the most famous places in Istanbul. Think of an area the size of four football fields. Cover it with a huge one story building. Now fill it with thousands of market shops. That’s basically the bazaar. There are about 26,000 employees working here, selling everything from clothing, jewelry, antiques, pipes (nargile especially), chess boards, tavla sets, pottery… the list is endless. It’s an amazing place. People are bargaining, browsing, buying and selling everywhere. If had a lot of money and not much sense, I could have a fun day shopping here! We also visited a bookshop area which holds the longest running bookstore in Europe! This thing has been in the same place for over 500 years!

We worked our way out of the bazaar and found ourselves down by the Golden Horn, a relatively narrow inlet from the Bosporus. And here’s the kicker. We went into a really beautiful mosque. A can’t remember the Turkish but it translates to “New Mosque”. Yeni Cami or something. Although the mosque is 500 or so years old. Anyway, we head inside. I take off my shoes (brown Puma indoor soccer apparel), plonk them on a shoe rack and start wandering around. We were only there a few minutes. It was a beautiful mosque; the insides were all lined with blue and red tiles with very intricately painted designs. Simply stunning.

We turned around to leave. I went to get my shoes. Hmmm… no shoes. Did I put them there? Searched around a bit more… nothing. Incredible. I was robbed of my shoes in the middle of Istanbul. Left trudging out through the rain in my socks, so that I could take a taxi home. What a start to the vacation. I mean, who looses their shoes? Honestly…

Tony had never heard of such a thing happening during all of his years spent in Turkey. There were a lot of poor folk around the mosque. My very spiffy shoes might have been too much of a temptation. Well… if this is the worst thing that happens to me in Turkey I will consider myself quite lucky.

Well, after locating my other pair of shoes at the hotel we headed back out. Hustled back down to the water and went to check out the Spice Bazaar. Mmmm… similar to the other one, but about half the vendors are selling spices of any description. The smell was incredible. You could also find pets, plants, and other such things here.

We then exited and went and stood on the Galata Bridge that spans the Golden Horn. We watched the multitude of boats and ships doing their thing. It’s a very active port. We even found some small boats pulled up the shore, and cooking fish to sell! They were basically aquatic restaurants, bobbing up and down while grilling up fish sandwiches!

After this we were quite exhausted and stumbled back to the hotel for an early night. More tomorrow!