I'm in TURKEY. WHAT.

What an eventful few days!

Friday morning I brilliantly managed to sleep through my alarm and missed my bus, therefore missing my flight. Smart, right? Anyway, I panicked for a few hours and finally managed to change the tickets for a flight early Saturday morning out of Frankfurt. So I hopped on the Lufthansa bus to Frankfurt in the afternoon and spent the night at a Holiday Inn by Frankfurt International Airport. A French girl on the bus thought I was Russian, which made me happy. Whenever someone thinks that my French accent is something besides American, I consider it a big accomplishment. When I arrived at the hotel, my room hadn’t been cleaned yet and they ended up upgrading me to a nicer room with a king bed and a bathtub. Woohoo! I was pretty happy about it. Also, as I was waiting in line, an entire professional German football (soccer) team walked past me. That pretty much made my entire day. They were all amazingly attractive, athletic, men in their early to late twenties. Uh, hi. Ich heisse Melanie?

I woke up yesterday at 4 a.m., having set at least five alarms just in case. My flight left at 7:25 a.m. and everything went fairly smoothly, except for a very rough patch of turbulence on our ascent that had me literally shaking. I arrived at Istanbul’s airport, bought a tourist visa, and managed to get a taxi to our hostel. Once I got the hostel, I found Maddie, Clariece, and Chris just chilling in our room. It’s really good to see them. They’ve already been here for a few days, but were amazingly nice and waited to do all the super touristy stuff with me. Aww. We went out to lunch, which for me consisted of lamb shish and Turkish coffee. Turns out Turkish coffee is pretty much espresso with lots of sugar. I’m a fan. After lunch we went to the Grand Bazaar, which is just completely overwhelming. The Turkish vendors are both funny and unrelenting. They also come up with completely bizarre cultural references, such as exclaiming “Angelina Jolie!” or “Charlie’s Angels!” I didn’t buy anything, but I’m sure we’ll go back for another opportunity for me to spend all my money. After we got back, Clariece and I went for coffee in our neighborhood. The place was about as Portland/Seattle-esque as I think Istanbul could get… turns out the owner was from Canada, which explains a lot. One of the Turkish baristas/waiters gave us his whole life history and told us about school here. It was pretty cute. Men here seem a lot more forward, but I think they’re just trying to get business and actually much more formal than American guys.

Last night we met up with Carolyn and grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby place. After that we took the tram over to Asia (how cool is that?) and found a really cool hookah bar. Hookah is a really big part of the culture and nightlife here. Anyway, this hookah bar was actually just sort of a tent thing with rows and rows of beanbag chairs. You sit down and someone brings you apple tea, hookah, and then vendors walk around with various types of food to purchase. It was a lot of fun and really relaxing. We eventually left and went back to our hostel’s bar, where I had some of the popular beer here – Efes. I think France and Germany have turned me into a beer snob… anyway, had some good conversations and eventually went to sleep.

As a side note, I should say that we’ve been saying that we’re Canadian and we get a very happy response every time. It definitely seems like the thing to do… especially with the recent political turmoil here. I mean, it’s not that far away from the truth. I’m only three hours from the border at home…

This morning we slept in, got brunch at the hostel, and leisurely got ready for a touristy day. Our first stop was the Hagia Sophia. It was formerly a basilica, then a mosque, and now a museum. It was stunning… easily one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. It had so much natural light through the windows and so many different colors, which was definitely a contrast from the dark cathedrals of France. I loved that there were both Christian mosaics of Jesus and the usual cast of characters and Islamic scripts everywhere. So cool. After being completely awestruck by the Hagia Sophia, we made our way to the Blue Mosque… literally right across the street. It’s still used as a mosque today so we had to take off our shoes and make sure we were conservatively dressed before we went in. Finally, I’ve found a use for all of my French scarves! It was beautiful, but not as breathtaking as the Hagia Sophia (a tough act to follow). The exterior of the Blue Mosque is gorgeous, though. From there we went to the Basilica Cistern, an underground reservoir from the Roman Empire. It felt like descending into Moria (from Lord of the Rings… yes, I’m a nerd). There were a lot of epic columns and creepy reflections in the water. They set up a small café in a corner of the cistern, where we grabbed some tea and coffee. I’ve had coffee in a Roman cistern. What a crazy world. We were going to go to a palace after, but I think we’ll go tomorrow instead. For now I’m just taking a few hours to rest before another crazy night.

So, in short, I think I’m in love with this city. Granted, I’ve only really seen the touristy areas, but I will definitely come back. One of the things I love the most is the call to prayer from the minarets. It’s amazing to walk through the city and just hear the music echo around.

Okay, that was my past three days. I’m sure there’s much more to come. Until later…