Two Continents, One City
What a difference a plane ride makes. Obviously, but we were now in Europe. Istanbul does a good job of looking and feeling like Europe. We were greeted with efficient public transportation, cute streets full of cafes, real coffee, and public green spaces. Despite the fact that we didn’t get to our hostel until 8pm, we were still able to enjoy the hustle and bustle of evening activity. This may have been enhanced with the evening Ramadan activities, but it was great to see people having a good time.
Istanbul also meant we were about to get our third visitors on our trip. Bill and Elaine were due two days after we got there. We spent the first two days getting to know the city and exploring some things a little farther off the main downtown area. We took a long walk by the water, ferried over to the Asian side for lunch, and then headed to a mall to look for some replacement clothes and see a movie, Inception. Now we know what all the talk is about.
Once Bill and Elaine arrived, we hit the town big time. The first day out we strolled down Iskital Street, famous for shopping and its nightlife which we got a taste of later. Bill and Elaine were excited to dress our wardrobe with a little shopping. The men and the women ended up with matching shirts. After walking down the two kilometer street and up Galata Tower for a 360 degree view of Istanbul, we ate lunch under a bridge. Okay, that sounds bad, but actually that’s where all the nice fish restaurants have set up shop. We picked out our fish before he was made into a delicious stew-like dish. After lunch we tagged along with Bill on his first trip to Asia. We walked along the water and got some nice pictures, but didn’t find any T-shirts that said, “I went to Asia”. We had happy hour on the rooftop terrace of our hotel before having a great traditional Turkish dinner complete with terracotta dishes, pistachio baklava and raki for dessert.
On Heather’s birthday we started a two part city tour that took us to Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar. The only sushi restaurant in town was tracked down for dinner and we enjoyed the nightlife on Iskital after our meal. Day two of the tour included the Spice Market, a cruise on the Bosphorus, the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Somehow we still had energy to meet one of Elaine’s colleagues for dinner. Selda and her friend took us to one of their favorite spots for another Turkish feast. After coffee on top of a hotel, we got a night tour of Istanbul in Ishmail’s official Turkey Basketball minivan. Ishmail was very busy with the FIBA tournament taking place, but he was able to get us tickets to the US v. Iran game scheduled for the following night.
Our last day in Istanbul we went to see an underground cistern, an exhibit about Muslim-world inventions and took a return trip to the spice market. The basketball game was the evening event and it was so much fun. We ended up with amazing floor seats two rows behind the press under a hoop. It makes it all that much better when you know the team and they end up winning.