Ho ho Istanbul: 3 days and lots of pictures!

Here is the first leg of our journey. By sleep train and about 22 hours.
Here is their currancy the Lira: 1 Euro = 2 Lira = 4 Ron

Humble Hostel where we stayed 2 nights. It was about 10 euros a night and found by our trip organizer: Nils.

So our first hostel was in the basement down wobbly stairs. We each got a bed with clean sheets that provided sufficient warmth. Here is how showers looked liked but it had hot water = great! I love hot water! Oddly though, we found out that first night why our room was slightly cheaper than those upstairs: the manager slept in a cot next to our beds. He didn't snore = we saved some money.


All the stairs were trippy like this: really steep and many levels!
One is the down shot and then the up shot. Lots of places had these kind of stairwells. Pete hit his head a couple times where he walked into low ceilings. lol.
At the top, we had this great view. B-food = same as in romania: hard boiled eggs, olives, cucumber slices, tomato slices, bread with toppings: honey, butter, butter cheese, and nutella. Oh with cai (hot black tea) [chai].

Then we went off for our walk. We did lots of walking.

So, on a whim I borrowed this Lonely planet tour book and we ended up looking to it for help and advice. There were some objects (like this random erection) that I thought was pretty boring until I read up on it. I forgot what it means now, but if I had that book again...

First real cool thing: Blue Mosque (which we had thought for the longest time was Aya Sofia). I had to (or was really encourage to with a large sign) to cover my head before entering and we ALL had to take off our shoes. I was pro-aware and I'd brought a scarf just in case.

Perdy?

Then we got hungry, and went around to find our first good Turkish food.


For lunch, we saw Donor Kabas and that's where we went to eat.
That man was temping us with this crazy ice cream.

What did I order? Some chicken off that giant split and yogurt and some cabbage with this wrap. So: I ate a Turkish burrito is what I'm saying, a chicken one with yogurt.

And of course with the hot chai/cai/ceai/ and in Chinese: chah

Ok, so them we continued the day of "looking" by going to the Topkapi Palace. The entrance looks like ...a castle, but it's much more open and HUGE.

Yup, we're in a pretty Palance and that's probably real gold foiling behind us.

(Ah! I have 1 month of traveling pictures to post and write about...so I am going to fly though this a bit faster)


So the palace was cool. There were places we went into like the royal treasurey where we saw riches I didn't know really did exist (I thought it was hollywood's lie). BUT, we weren't allowed to take pictures. Security reasons, privacy reasons, they're something pictures can't capture, so you'll have to see for yourself.
This place I thought would be interesting to see. *snicker* BUT my travel buddies still wanted to see Aya Sofia, and that afternoon would be their only chance, so we split up.


Lots of interesting stuff, but not as fun to see alone.


People had audio guides, but you had to pay for them, so I didn't do it. I had my tour book too.






Yum Yum, and that man was roasting chestnuts!! Roasting on an open fire. Lots of men were roasting chestnuts actually, and I loved it! I did splurge and i buy a packet = yum! But mine were kinda undercooked and not super sweet, but they were good enough!

We found a nice park after the Palace and AS tours.

So, speaking of Turkey, there was the Tour of Turkey going on too. It reminded me of trical and race events. I used to volunteer at race events. I miss it. Maybe I'll organize a race in my village, but that's just wistful thinking.


Gar to the policemen for not managing the public better. We actually got in the way of a biker and had him stop for 1 minute! while we got out of his way. How unprofessional! That would be un-acceptable at a trical event!

So we wandered/strolled more. We heard mass. Look, more food in carts. We have these unsalted soft pretzels in Romania too. In Romania, it's a very popular snack and breakfast food.

We then wandered to the Mediterranean Sea, and saw a very small fish market. I wasn't convinced the fish was actually from that sea, or at least off that shore. Everything was placed too perfectly. But, it was interesting to see foods I wasn't familiar with; like the colored clams.




The boardwalk was pretty, but it was cold too. There were lots of small clumps of lawn chairs where people offered us hot ceai/cai. We didn't end of doing it though.

Look, a dude selling nuts. I was tempted, but I was looking foward to dinner.
We found an "adult" park on the boardwalk. We each did some reps on the different structures, and called it an evening.

And that's how my first "Day" ends. I did eat, but that's another story to come.

PLEASE give me some feedback on what you want to here. there's just too many pictures and I don't want to bore you all, but I don't want to leave out interesting info either. I mean, I could talk more about food, what I thought, small incidences and stories, etc...