Honeymoon day 2: Istanbul

Wednesday, May 6th 2009

Landed at 9 am. Had to pass by a thermal imaging “swine flu” checkpoint. Anyone who had a fever would have been taken off the line and shot. Then there was the drunk 80 year old man who decided to start a fight with the customs officer at passport control. That was awesome. Then we waited in the entire passport line, only to discover that there was a separate line for visas. We had to get a visa, then get back on the passport line. Needless to say, it took forever.

The hotel sent someone to pick us up at the airport, who was very nice. Our hotel was in between Sultanhamet and Sirkeci, which is the old, windy part of the city. It took us 10 minutes to drive the first 14 kilometers from Ataturk to Sultanhamet, and 30 minutes to drive the final 2 through the streets to the hotel.

11 am: Checked in. Everyone was incredibly nice. We arrived just in time for breakfast, which included a tremendous bowl of yogurt and a real honeycomb.

Noon: It’s surprisingly cold here. The temperature is just like LA, except that we primarily brought shorts. Decided to walk to the Egyptian Bazaar. Walked down to the Galata Bridge. Gabby thought we were lost. Then we found the spice bazaar, but before we found it we walked through the live animal bazaar. We don’t know if that was an official bazaar.

1 pm: Spice bazaar. Bought tasty candied chickpeas. Almost bought a hookah. There were many types of spices. We never knew there were different types of paprika.

2 pm: Attempted to leave spice bazaar. Found windy, hilly streets behind spice bazaar. Buildings too tall to navigate using the sun. Had to walk and hope for the best. The streets were crowded quasi-bazaars. It was like a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

3 pm: While trying to find our way out, found Grand Bazaar. Beautiful, colossal building. We were really able to appreciate it because it wasn’t very crowded. Looked at a variety of things, but eventually Gabby found the handbag section.  Looked but didn’t buy.

4 pm: Finally found our way out. We were starving. We found this café in front of the Istanbul University train station. It turned out to be awesome. Gabby’s favorite chicken dish thus far, and this is a girl who knows her chicken.

5 pm: Back at the hotel. Nap time.

7 pm: We wake up to MTV. We get dressed to go out. We wander around Sultanhamet until we find a restaurant called Adonin. Very good. Did we mention how good the food in Turkey is?

10 pm: Delirious. Go to bed early. Even though we went to bed early, because we had Wi-fi in the room, and a broad selection of English TV stations, we didn’t go to sleep until after midnight.