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| the "best" place in Istanbul |
Firstly, the big thing that is different about Istanbul is that there are mosques everywhere! minarets as far as the eye can see. It's impressive. my favorite things about all these mosques though is the call to prayer. It's so different than anything at home, I loved it.
So behind the one mosque closest to the ship were like, twenty hookah bars. most of them have cool cool beanbag chairs, too! my favorite ones were shiny and silver. pretty ridiculous, haha :P
Sam and Emily and I went browsing around and found this pastry place that had this raspberry cheesecake that rivals Cheesecake Factory! It was so delicious! They had chocolate fountains, too. Around that area was also this cute cute pastry shop that was like cafe and pasta, and that was confusing at first because we associate pasta with noodles, but then we look in there and it's cakes and cookies! and I was like pasta.. PASTRIES! lol.
later Sam and I kept walking and ended up meeting up with friends at one of the hookah bars and we gave it a shot! and we had our first taste of Turkish apple tea, which is SO GOOD. (I got some from the Grand Bazaar. along with my very own tea set :D)
When we left there we walked to Taksim square, where the nightlife lives. It was so weird, we had to walk through a bunch of dead streets to get there but once we got up there it was crazy! There are lights all down the street, like a city festival.. but all the time! It was really pretty. we went into this club called Quba and danced a little bit. it was so funny, there was this guy there who was doing craaaazy stuff, he reminded me of Haspop (this french guy who tried out for America's Got Talent. Youtube it, dudes). people in Europe do more rave style dancing than booty dancing. it's interesting. and so fun!
The next day (or maybe the third day) I had an FDP for my Energy and Society class. we had a talk about what Turkey's doing with transportation to save energy and get people together and whatnot. the lady who talked to us was from the nearby university and she took us there for lunch :) we were going to go to the Princes' Isles but it started raining and so that fell through, but we ended up sitting in the little cafe, having Turkish coffee and chatting. It was pretty neat :)
The rain cleared up within a few hours and I went walking with Jessica and Tomara. we walked by a cute park by the water and the Dolmabace palace and down some random streets where we went in a little market. nearby we saw these three little kitty houses lined up along a wall. three strays could fit in a house. they had food and water out there too, they're pretty well taken care of for strays!
so .. one of these days was the day that we went to the bazaars! we woke up, went to lunch, and promptly walked all the way across the bridge to the spice bazaar. we walked through there pretty quickly, seeing as we didn't really need a whole lot of spices. not to mention.. I didn't know what half of them were! It smelled good though :)
walking around in Istanbul is practically hiking. there are a bunch of hills and the cobblestone roads are not conducive to sandals or fancy shoes! we had to hike a good 10-15 minutes to get to the grand bazaar, but it was worth it! the shop owners are always asking your name and making conversation and offering you some apple tea.. it's a totally different shopping experience. They had told us at the debriefing about haggling and stuff, so I expected it to be just like chinatown. but it's not! The first little shop that we went in we were looking at scarves and not really sure what to think about everything when the guys there came up to us and asking us which colours and patterns we liked.. one of them had me try out 3 or 4 different ones and he put them around my neck for me and everything, haha. we chatted with them for a while, one's name was Muhammed, he spoke better english and asked us about American politics.. that was fun.
I bought a belly dancing outfit! from a lady that had an intense smoker's voice.
I bought some jewelry from a guy named Ziya who hit on me and gave me his email address. he was real nice.
I bought a really prett orange scarf since our Sea colour is orange!
I bought a pair of purple Chuck Taylors! The kid that helped me with them was super cute, too. He was probably like 15 lol. when we left he blew me a kiss. teehee :3
I bought a tea set, which I already mentioned. :)
....I bought a lot of stuff, haha.
In one shop we went in Sam bought some genie pants from this guy who was super nice and super hilarious! he was trying to convince me to get some too, but I think those pants look silly :P He had me try a pair though, he just looked at me and said "give me one chance! just try! you don't like, you don't buy. but I think you will like!" so I laughed and said okay and he went to the rack of pants and started doing eenie meenie miney moe in Turkish! I was like WAAAIT wait wait! what are you doing?! so I had him teach me :D that might be my favorite souvenir, haha. oh, and I tried the pants. I secretly liked them, but I didn't get them :P
we saw a lot of the same hand painted ceramic stuff that we saw in Santorini. we didn't even want to ask the prices! D:
Turkish men are hilarious. They are always making eyes when you pass them, winking or making kissy faces.. always asking where you're from, how old you are.. comments like "will you change my life?!" yeah that happened in the bazaar for real!
That night, after we'd dropped our stuff off on the ship and eaten dinner, we had a Turkish bath! basically you go in and they give you your own panties to change into (yes, they're new and clean) and give you a little towel. then you go in this sauna room where there are places for you to wash yourself, or you lay up on the large marble slab and start sweating out the yuckies. The best way to get a Turkish bath is to have one of the ladies wash you and then get an oil massage! that's what we did. :) so one of the ladies tells you to come over and they pour water on you and start scrubbing! and they scrub all the dead skin off. you can see it! it's gross! and awesome, haha :P so they scrub you and then they plop some suds on you and give you a wash/massage. it is SO NICE. then they rinse you off and wash your hair and dump water on you again. then you get to go sit in a cool water jacuzzi. and whenever you're done there you go out and grab a warm towel, relax, and wait for your massage! which is pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself. It's pretty cool that the first massage I ever got was in Turkey. woo!
One of those days that we were in Turkey..I think it was the 2nd day actualy, we went on the Ballikaya hike. We got up early and had a 2 hour bus ride to this village where our hike began. there were little kids running around, the little girls had their headscarves on, it was so cute. There were also cows, dogs and manure everywhere, alllll down the street. mmm. This hike though was way way better than the Vesuvius hike, which didn't really count as a hike at all. On this one we actually got to wander through some woods and go up some cliffs and over some streams. it was really nice :) where we stopped to eat lunch was so cool, we climbed up these rocks to overlook the little pool where the waterfall would have entered had the water level at the top been high enough..
our tour guide's name that day was Erkal. *giggle*
at lunch we saw pretty blue dragonflies! and water spiders whose shadows look like Pintsize from QC!
on the ride back Sam and I talked about boys :P
we stopped at this random little gas station in the middle of no where and I tried some pear soda that ended up being really gross! I was sad.
in the bathrooms there are mothballs everywhere. like, piles of them in every corner.
being in these countries is making me want to learn languages even more!
I realized that I didn't have any hummus while in Greece, so we had some after our turkish bath and it was soooooo tasty C:
One night I went on an SaS trip to see the Sufi Dervish ceremony. It was .. interesting. they wear big long skirts and black cloaks and tall brown hats. they spin around in circles as meditation to get closer to God.
this is what the colours mean:
white: symbol of death, the burial cloth
black: symbol of tombstone
brown: symbol of Muhammad's tomb
One day Sam and I went to the Dolmabace palace and the flower market that wasn't really a flower market at all! on the plus side, I found my deck of cards for Turkey! :D we did get some cherries from a fruit stand though, which we later shared with our taxi driver. he was pretty nice, too. he offered us cigarettes and some water, which we politely declined :P
On the last night we got fancied up and went out! I borrowed some high heels from a friend of a friend and my feet hated me :P but I had fun :) we went to a place to eat and meet up with some guys who grew up in Turkey, Chris and Josh. later their friend Mo showed up. and then we went to this really popular club/lounge called anjelique that wasn't really that fun. we did meet some cool people though, a couple from Vancouver and apparently the owner of the place. after that we went to a funner place called joyfull and raved til 4am! I learned the turkish version of the Jersey shore fist pump. lol.
The last day Sam and I went to the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Topkapi Palace! The Palace was totally awesome! they have the jewels of the Sultans there! it was so extravagant. When we left there we went into this shop and tried on a couple things. when we were leaving we asked the guy where we could go to eat and he decided he would just take us to the "best" place to eat.. which ended up being this little dingy street vendor (see the picture at the top) three blocks away. I definitely thought he was kidding at first. it ended up being pretty tasty, if a little sketchy. Sam and I decided if we got sick it wouldn't matter as much since it was the last day and we could just be sick on the ship, haha. luckily we were fine. :)
and that's about it for Turkey! I love Istanbul :)
the next two days were class days and sleep days!
random thing:
so you know how there are musicals based on a certain band's songs? (i.e. Across the Universe and Mamma Mia) Well last night I had a dream that there was one based on Blink 182's songs.
on another note, I'm team captain for musical chairs for the sea olympics! :D
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