Istanbul revisited

Spent another long 14 hour night on a bus back to Istanbul and managed to figure out the metro/tram back to Sultanahmet, despite the rain which seems to follow us wherever we go. (the metro people don't speak very good english and there were no maps up) Finally we experienced the joys of a well heated room,. The Sultan hostel had a bit of a makeover while we were gone and was painted all sorts of bright colors. Crashed for a few hours and went for another run along the shore and then hit up a local restaurant called Doy Doy which was very tasty. I had some sort of beef/tomato/potato/green pepper stew. I got some sweets afterwards (some kanaffa type stuff) and the guy also gave me a few pastry balls soaked in sweet syrup to try....unfortunately in the process I managed to lose 15 YTL which wasn't a big deal other than the fact that we only had one day left and I really didn't want to take more money out of the atm.

Back at the hostel we chatted for a bit with the guys working there and some other backpackers. Met a girl from Haiti who is studying at Haifa and wants to move to Turkey. She was pretty cool and it was interesting to hear her background.

Spent the next day wandering all around the city....took the ferry across the bosphorous to the asian side of istanbul, which was awesome and we absolutely fell in love with. Everyone plays it down and says the only reason to go is to see the european part better, but Louise and I both loved it better than the other parts. It felt like the real Istanbul...Sultanahmet (the old part of the city) is extremely touristy now, Taksim and Beyoglu area are very europeanized and feel like 5th ave or the Champs Elysee. But kadikoy and the asian side felt like Turkey. The locals were going about their business and we wandered the hilly streets and stopped in a few cute shops. Lots of charming streets with street vendors all around and lots of really good, cheap looking restaurants. Stopped in a pastry shop and tried to buy a few balls of the syrup dough, and the guy who didn't speak much english was trying to give me a huge box full;) after about 3 minutes of telling him no less, no less, no that's still way too much, he finally asked me how many I wanted and I ended up with 5 instead of 50;) Picked up a traditional Turkish cd which I'm pumped for...it was playing in the shop when we were there and sounded pretty sweet. It's crazy but Istanbul is a huge city...about 15 million people and even on a Tuesday afternoon, there were people EVERYWHERE. We were starting to wonder if they work at all;) Took the ferry over to Beyoglu (european side) and wandered along the streets eventually making our way up the hill towards Istiklal Caddesi and Taksim Sq. Had a nice detour through the hardware store part of town...one shop had all sorts of nuts and bolts prominently displayed in neatly organized glass bowls in the window.

Wandered along Istiklal for awhile, laughing at the exhorbitant price of coffee (around $5-6!). Not surprisingly, there was also a Starbucks every couple hundred meters. Managed to find a cute little coffee shop on a side street not 20 feet away from the main road, which had coffee and sahlep for only about $3. It was a cute place with comfy couches, and lots of locals playing cards and backgammon. Stayed there for awhile and then went next door to grab a bite to eat at local cafeteria style place which again had great cheap food...rice and stew for under $3. We then went to a nearby bar where they had live traditional Turkish music. It was a bit early still so we were pretty much the only ones there (there were the owner/workers and a few other men hanging around but we think they were somehow affiliated with the place). Had some wine/beer and some amazing pistachios. A young guy was playing the Soos (oud) and singing and it was rather beautiful. After about an hour and a half, he took a break and they all came and chatted (or rather, tried to chat) for awhile. The young musician was trying really hard to talk to us but was having difficulties as he didn't have the vocab and had to keep asking the 70 year old owner for words like married and such, which probably embarassed him a bit but mightily amused us. He kept getting frustrated and it was hilarious because he would throw his hands up in the air and say "Problem.....large" and then shrug, slap his leg and say "Sheeeet!" He did this over and over and it was probably one of the funniest things I've seen. After straightening out the bill (they overcharged us for the drinks and then tapped on 4 YTL for the pistachios) we headed back towards the hostel and rashly splurged on 3 YTL chocolate from a street stand. I say rashly, because after paying the hotel and airport transfer fee the next day (it was raining/snowing and we didn't want to get drenched on the way to the airport) we made it out barely, and by that I mean we didn't have a penny to spare.

Had an interesting bus trip to the airport...met a lot of fellow tourists including a Nebraskan cop spending some time in Kosovo who kept telling me if he ever caught me going through Nebraska without getting off the interstate, he would throw me in jail;) There were also some girls from England who were studying Arabic and English and there were some interesting political conversations going on. The van was packed and extremely stuffy but we managed to make it to the airport alright. Had a nice meal on Jordanian airlines and landed in Amman a-okay, and discovered, much to our dismay, that the rain had followed us yet again;)