Hey everyone… so this was my trip to Istanbul all in a nutshell. I didn’t want to touch fb, emails, or my blog while I was there… so here it all is... 2.23.2011 - 2.28.2011
First off, I want to say… I have never been to a country where so many people looked like me, so that was pretty cool in itself.
Wednesday, February 23rd
I left Sevilla on a bus to Madrid. I used a company called SociBUs… and their rates are about 30 Euros round trip. The drive is a 6 hour bus drive. And I was leaving with a few friends… so that made it way more phone. We arrived in Madrid at 11:00 PM. We took a one hour bus drive from there to get to Madrid’s Airport. So we arrived in Madrid at 12:00am. From there, we had to wait until 5:50 am for our bus to depart. That meant we had to wait until 4:00 am to check in… Let the Waiting begin.
Thursday, February 24th.
After waiting for 4 hours, we went to check in our luggage (group of 8 people)… the tickets DID NOT WORK!!! Apparently, we all had bought our tickets from Best2fly.com with the method of transferring from account. Note** if you ever want to buy a ticket and aren’t fluent in the foreign language… don’t buy it. I feel like an idiot just by saying it because it seems like common sense, but yaaaa…. Just don’t buy a ticket out of impulse in a foreign language. So this is where shit got interesting.
We at this point had to buy a new ticket on the spot. Our choice was to either buy the next cheapest ticket anywhere that was cool and ditch our friends who were going to meet us in Istanbul, or hope to God something will clear out. We decided to wait, hope, and pray.
4:30am, we were told that there was possibly a cheap flight with Turkish Airlines for $212 Euros that departed later that afternoon, but we had to wait till 10 for them to open. So we waited and slept on the ground until 10:00 am finally came around…. But the tickets were crazy expensive, and the prices were changing constantly. Long story short, but by 1:00 pm, tickets for 4:00pm appeared for 212 euros. Before this we thought about going home, but at that very point, we knew we were going… and that’s all that mattered.
We arrived into Istanbul at 10:00 pm…. So 28 hours of traveling. Definitely an experience worth not happening again. The hostel we went to was Metropolis. Seemed good and has good reviews, but DO NOT GO TO THIS ONE if you can go to Orient Hostel.
Friday-Sunday February 25th-28th
I saw a lot of SHIT
Istanbul is unique because of all the history it has, all the religious backgrounds, cultural differences, and how it has been around for nearly 3000 years. Unbelievable
Friday:
I visited the Blue Mosque, the underground tunnel, and the Grand Bazaar.
Blue Mosque- Free. Definitely worth going. It’s beautiful on the outside, and the carpet, the lights, and the environment in the inside is really worth going. For this, you have to be sure to plan out your times because the Mosque is used for prayer still, so plan accordingly.
Grand Bazaar- Free… but beware. YOU WILL SPEND A LOT OF MONEY HERE…. Inevitable. So the grand bazaar is where they just sell a whole bunch of crap. I’d say 97% of the stuff they sell is fake.. . and bargaining here is key. If they give you a price… ask for 30% of that and start bargaining from there. If they say no, just walk off. If they want you, they’ll call you back. Bargaining here is more fun than buying the damn thing. We ended up going to the Grand Bizarre twice, and by the end of it, you literally want to bargain everything. I think by the end of the trip everyone was so used to bargaining, that we just didn’t end up doing stuff not because the price, but because we didn’t get to bargain a 50% of what they said. Just to give you an idea of what you can get… fake lacoste sweater could be bought for 30 liras,… which is the equivalent to $20. so good shit. If you buy in quantity, you can reduce the price per cost.
At night… food took like 2-2.5 hours… so if you want something fast… don’t go to a restaurant.
Saturday
Hagia Sophia Church/ Mosque- 20 Liras- Jaw dropping. This church/ mosque was built in 537 BC and was the biggest building in all of Europe for over a thousand years. The Hagia Sophia had influences from Jews, Christians, and Muslims all in the same church. This place is so big that even 2 hours wasn’t enough to check this place out. This is a must-go.
Grand Bizarre again…. Just awesome.
Went out to this one street at night. Forgot the name, but it was really fun.
Sunday:
Started the last day with the Bosphorous cruise. 15-50 Lira depending on length of cruise. It’s a must go. If you can, get there at 10:30 am & not a minute later so you can get a 5 hour cruise to the black sea. We went with this private tour guide, and I am sure what he did was illegal. He took us to some shady port and he dropped us off. I’m 95% sure we were not supposed to be there bc of all the glares we got from the people as we passed by. And we started to board the boat, he had us run into the cabin of the boat… definitely some shady crap. And when my friend Robby asked him why, if it was illegal… he no longer could speak English. Haha. But hell, that’s an experience in itself. We got an hour to kill in Asia, and as weird as it is, the Asian side is 100% different than the European side… It was like we were in a completely different country.
After that, we walked across Istanbul to find the Theodesian Wall. This is where everything got exciting, shady, and just unbelievable. You know those pics of the Middle East where houses are burned but still remain, torn apart, the gravel on the streets is crappy, kids playing soccer in the streets, people selling pigeons for food by the houses, etc… it as all there. We definitely walked through the slums of Istanbul. G.H.E.T.T.O. But this was my favorite part. There was 9 of us walking through this part of town in complete silence an in awe. This is where the culture shock kicked in. It was one of those things that we didn’t know how safe we were, because there was no tourists there. ictures could not explain what we saw. After 1 hour, we found the Theodesian wall. We walked along it, then we got to a very high and steep staircase that lead to the top of a wall. First off… it is VERY scary walking up a staircase without a handrail, because the thought of one slip, you go down, and possibly taking everyone down in front of you. Kind of freaky. Now, it get’s interesting.
We get to the top, and there were 4-5 teenagers smoking and what not, The leader of their group didn’t hesitate to try to ‘befriend’ us, but with the combination how he was talking, where we were, his body movement… VERY F***CKIG ERIE. As soon as they said hey, they sprinted down the staircase. Mind you, we were on top of a wall, with no railings, and had no idea where we were. We were as vulnerable as could be. The outcome was unknown.
We noticed how fast they went down, and so we decided to jet ASAP. We only had time for one picture, and once we got down it just got weirder. The other kids were already on the top of the other wall, and the leader of their group was trying to get us to follow them. There was no way in hell we were about to follow them. So we walked away as fast as possible. Those bastard kids started throwing rocks at us and had a clear aerial view of where we were going too. Luckily, we never got hit, and more lucky enough, there was a big street with taxis nearby. I didn’t even trust the taxi driver I was so freaked out, and he was just a happy, good person. Luckily, we walked away ok, without being harmed. I think when you travel it’s always good to get in these types of situations at least once with other people, so you don’t make a stupider mistake down the road.
That night, we finished off the trip with a Turkish bath. Go to the Orient Hostel, and those guys will hook you up with a local Turkish bath. I have never been as relaxed as I was for that 2 hours in years. Literally, a bunch of us half naked guys had no sense of time, and we started talking about religion. I don’t know if it was fate to be in Constantinople like so, but of us 4 guys, there was a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, and myself, a Baha’i. With all of us being so open-minded, I guess that topic was inevitable.
Monday- Dia de Andalucia. I left the hostel at 5:00 am. Plane left at 8:00, no problems. Everything went according to planned… thank God. Arrived in Sevilla, in my home, at 8:00 pm. 14.5 hours of traveling, but passed by in a blink of an eye. I never even thought about going to Turkey, but after going here, it just made we want to learn more about the world. I want to now see crazy places like Russia, Thailand, Albania, China, etc… It made me want to open my eyes to what is really out there, as opposed to what the tourists like to see. All in all, I don’t think I’ll forget the miniscule details of this trip.
seeing I have listed above.
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