Istanbul is one of my favorite cities, and I’d go back in an instant. I occasionally find myself searching for flights even though I have no immediate plans to return. ;) I loved having a week to relax and check out Istanbul at a snail’s pace, and I still feel like there’s so much more to see there. My favorite experiences were bathing at the hamam, exploring my first mosque, stuffing my face with Turkish delights at the Spice Bazaar, shopping at the book stalls behind the Grand Bazaar, the sound of Turkish pop music and…

My 7 Days in Istanbul:

• Overnight on the Orient Express to Istanbul
• The Cleanest Girl in Istanbul – A Trip to the Hamam
• The Blue Mosque & Belly Dancing
• Overdosing on Turkish Delight
• Forget Harem Pants, Visit the Harem at Topkapi Palace

(I’ve left the posts in my 2008 archives)  Dear Türkiye, I love you.

This morning we left for Efesus fairly early to beat the tourists (cruise ships and tour buses all stop here, so it can get packed quickly!), but we were the only ones there. S said that had never happened before! End of season luxury, I guess. A local guide took us through the site. I love having the full explanation at huge sites like this. What an amazing city. My favorite site so far. The library was massive and the latrines quite funny. She said that the saying “ladies first” was because of the Romans had their wives come warm up the cold marble before they had to use the toilet, lol. A good joke, anyway! After a few hours we headed to the exits and did some shopping. I wasn’t planning on buying anything because I knew they would be outrageous prices for tourists, but I found a really cool silver cuff bracelet with lupis stone on it. And it’s end of season and it was his first sale of the day (which is good luck!) so I was able to talk him waaaay down. He kept chuckling, because apparently I have an eye for old jewelry.

After a quick peek at the Sleeping Tombs, we had Gozleme — a fried pastry with filling (similar to a crepe). I had banana and chocolate. So good! We walked back to town through an orchard and past the remains of the Temple of Artemis (7th wonder of the world). I had a nice swim this afternoon in the pool.

This evening we drove to Sirince to try the local fruit wines. Pomegranate and mulberry were my favorite, but not really my kind of thing… too sweet! So then we drove (don’t worry, we weren’t actually driving, it was a taxi!) back to Selcuk and had dinner in town. I had a mezze platter with grape leaves, baba ganoush, yogurt, stuffed veggies, and a beer. The waiter was like “ooh, la, la… beer! ;)  Best mezze I’ve had so far in Turkey.

After a nice afternoon nap, we went to check out the old town. We ended up walking past a victory celebration Friday performance by the castle wall. We went up to see views of the city, and then walked around near the fruit and nut stalls to go to this tea house. We watched one of N’s friends play the sitar, nay (flute-like), drums etc with his tea house “band”. The tea house is the Turkish equivalent of a pub. It’s a place for the boys to get away from their wives. And there we were, just sitting around drinking tea with a bunch of Turkish men! I hope they didn’t tell their wives. It was an interesting experience, but way too smoky, so we took turns ducking out to the vendors. I bought an apple and some pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin seed man asked if I was German. “No!” Romanian? “No, American” and he simply refused to believe it! He said, “but you no look American, it can’t be!” I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not? Good times. So after the tea house, we had kebabs at an outdoor restaurant. We ended up passing the baklavaria on the way out, so I ran in and he gave me free baklavah and refused to let me pay! I love this guy!

So we finally ended up at the Sema lodge to watch the Sufi performance. We sat outside, while he explained the significance of different aspects and then we went up into the balcony to sit in the ladies area with our head scarves on. What a different experience. The nay and other instrument band played and they sang and the lead Sufi did callings from the Koran and the dervishes whirled… for ages! It’s amazing that they can spin for so long. Afterward, N’s friend showed us the training room and practice boards with the marble in the middle to spin around. What an experience. After seeing the whirling dervish in Istanbul, it was magical to see it as it was meant to be – as a form of worship, instead of just entertainment in a huka bar.

Today we visited the mini Blue Mosque (it’s an exact replica), walked around the Hippodrome, returned to the [big] Blue Mosque and finished at the Aya Sofia. I loved having a local guide for the entire walk. He was great, and really knew his info. We had some interesting conversations about secular Turkey, Muslims, etc. The Aya Sofia is massive… so cool to learn the history of it being a church and a mosque and now a museum. We had tea at a corner tea shop and sat outside on the cushioned lounges — really breazy and relaxing. Now I know what I want in my future backyard.

I had an eggplant, veggie and fries kabab sandwhich for lunch. Amazingly delicious. After lunch, us girls went to tour the Topkapi Palace. Gorgeous and way too much to see! The price was a little steep though (apparently they randomly doubled the entrance a week before!). The Harem was the coolest part and after several hours we left and had dinner up by the tram tracks. I had my usual — lentil soup, bread and beer. I could gain weight in this country!

This morning I moved my bag over to the hotel that I’m meeting my group for the next two weeks. Then we caught the train out to this neighbor about 5 train stops away. There was an outlet mall there and we just wandered around for a while. Maybe not the smartest thing we’ve done all week, but it was interesting to see more of Istanbul. After a few hours we headed back home. The train was packed on the return trip. Most of our fellow travelers were “deodorant optional”, and they kept the sliding doors open, which was kind of annoying since I couldn’t reach the bar to hang onto. I ended up squirming my way to the end of the car by the wall. After saying goodbye to C & M I headed to my hotel to meet my group. There are only 5 of us: 3 Aussies and a Canadian (yay!). They all seem pretty normal, except for my roomie, but only time will tell (whoever said there is no stupid question, perhaps hasn’t met her. *zing)

This afternoon we headed to the Grand Bazaar (I feel like a regular now. After spending a week here I barely need a map!) Then we went to a really small mosque (very intimate, a totally different feel than the Blue Mosque). It was beautiful. The Spice Bazaar was next. AMAZING! Spices, nuts, herbs, and Turkish delight everywhere! I bought some dates and overate on Turkish delight samples. Oh and I bought two scarves. I love bargaining in this country! So much fun — it’s like a big game. After meeting back up outside, we headed to the wharf and everyone got mussels. We ended up having dinner near my hostel at a rooftop terrace. The food was alright, not spectacular (which was disappointing, as I think I’ve been pretty successful at finding great places on my own). When we got back, we (sans my roomie) had drinks on the top of the hotel overlooking the Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque. I think I’m really going to like this group.

Dear Türkiye, I love you!

C & M are staying at a hostel a street behind mine, so we met at Starbucks (ah, you caught me again!) around noon and went to the Cistern. Amazing! There were huge columns and water and even fish. The medusa heads at the corner were crazy! After taking millions of pictures we walked over to the Blue Mosque and waited until after 2pm so we could go in. It’s so massive and gorgeous. Turkey is such an interesting place. I’m so glad that they actually let you in the mosques (many Muslim countries don’t allow non-Muslims to enter mosques). Such amazing craftsmanship — it’s true art.

After leaving the mosque we had mezze platters at a cafe nearby. I went back to my hostel and checked email and read for a few hours, before meeting up for dinner down the street from my hostel. I had lentil soup and bread (cheap and good!) We headed over to C & M’s hostel to watch belly dancing (which was really lame) and ended up getting trapped into talking to two annoying American guys (they thought we were all Aussies, so we had some fun with them and tried to get them to guess where I was from… not the brightest boys, I’ll tell you that much).  So we ditched and went back to my hostel for beers on the roof.

After lunch, C & M and I went in search of our Turkish bath. We ended up going to the oldest one in Istanbul. It’s very touristy friendly, which is good when you’re a bathing novice (that doesn’t sound right!) and don’t speak Turkish.  So we go in and they give us a little tablecloth like towel and then point to a room. So we’re stand there with our backpacks and then some lady finally says, “go up. change.” So we go upstairs and change into our bikini bottoms and then put our “towels” on and go back downstairs and they point to a door. We go through the door and there’s a massive circular marble slab and people bathing in little side rooms and it’s like 200 degrees in there! There weren’t any attendants, and we’re like WTF are we supposed to be doing?!? :)  So we go back out and ask some tourist girls who were already done, and they said to just wait. So we poured cold water on ourselves because it was like a crazy sauna and for some reason we all thought there would be a pool there too. Anyway, so after like 40 minutes of sitting around topless and having quite a few laughs that one of the other girls didn’t come (she would have freaked out), some crazy old lady with swinging boobs comes in and asks who’s first, so M and I both point to C, ahahahaa! Good times. Let’s just say this is one of those instances that I’m glad I’m petite. I think I would have been semi-mortified otherwise. They use this loofah like scrubbing mitt and amazing olive soap and it’s kind of embarrassing how filthy it gets. There was dead skin everywhere (TMI?)!  I was like “ahhh! I hope I’m not the dirtiest person here”. Although some of the filth was simply scabs (yes, Turkish lady that hurt like hell when you ripped all the scabs off my shins and ankle!) from my lame fall while rock-hopping in Bulgaria. Anyway, we’re now officially the cleanest girls in Istanbul. Portland so needs a hamam!

After a bumpy night, our train pulled into Istanbul around 10 am. I was sweaty, hungry and just about grumpy, so after we ditched out bags at the hotel, I ran for the ATM to get Turkish lira and then settled in for my first real Turkish coffee! We were right in the heart of the tourist area in Sultanahmet, so everything was pretty expensive, but I ordered the fruit platter anyway. After being in Eastern Europe for three weeks it was amazing to have a massive plate of fresh fruit! Ahhh! Türkiye