Saturday, March 31, 2018
Thursday in Istanbul
thursday started off with a good breakfast for me in the hotel. They offer olives, lots of dried fruits, cheeses, cold cut, cereal, hard boiled eggs, different breads (and a TOASTER), jam, and Turkish tea and coffee. It’s a good way for me to start the day. We slowly got ready, gathered our stuff and headed out.
It was cloudy, nasty and cold, but our plan was to take a short trip up one side of the Bosporus and down the other. It’s one of those typical tourist cruises for 1.5 hours. But first we stopped at the tourist office to get more questions answered. Now we know how to go our respective airports using public transit. Sonia and I are headed back to Kazan but Fouad is headed out to Lebanon to visit family so we have to use two different airports.
We left the tourist office and got on the tram to go to the harbor. We bought our boat tickets but we still had 45 minutes, so we headed up into the spice bazaar. You can find everything here. Candy, cheese, pillows, kitchen utensils. It is an amazing sensory experience. The smells are wonderful, the sounds are exciting and confusing, and the crowds are overwhelming. I didn’t want to buy too much then because I didn’t want to drag a lot of stuff on the boat. But we did find a birthday present for Mathew, the head of the international department at school. He loved coffee, so we bought him the typical little canister that they cook Turkish coffee in.
It was spinning and cold when we got on the boat so I decided to sit in the enclosed part and Sonia and Fouad braved the elements. They lasted out there for about half the trip before they came in too. It wa foggy, so the trip was not extremely I,pressinve from the sightseeing point of few, but we did pass a fortress with a cemetery on a slope in front of it. This slope was steeper than anything you’ll ever see at Mt. Hope Cemetery!
After the boat ride, we took the tram and then the funicular up the hill to meet Sonia’s friend Serhat at the Taksim metro station. He loaded us in his car and drove us to the Asian portion of Istanbul. This was particularly exciting for Sonia, because it was her first time in Asia. It’s intersting that, although Kazan is hundreds of miles east of Istanbul, it is still considered part of European Russia because the city lies west of the Ural Mountains. But here, if you cross the Bosporus, you are in Asia.
Our first stop was a restaurant that served Kurdish food. Serhat ordered for us. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was so spicy and delicious and there was no porridge involved at all! There were all sorts of different meat dishes and salads, and the ever present bread. And everything was washed down with buttermilk. It is a very common beverage here and really does taste good after something spicy.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, unlike Russia where there is a playground for kids every 20 feet, you rarely see a playground in Turkey. Serhat confirmed this and also said that there are not green spaces in Istanbul. We walked around another area looking in store windows and eating pastries until we went into a cafe and had tea. We went back to the car and drove to Baghdad Street. This is THE exclusive shopping district in Istanbul. After walking, we stopped again for tea then sat there for two hours trying to download the IDs we needed to get into the soccer game on Saturday. It’s a complicated system because of politics. You must belong to the fan club before you can get tickets. You must submit a photo for the ID. You may only sit in the seat you have a ticket for. Lots of very strict rules. After we joined the fan club, Serhat could transfer his tickets to us since he is going to be out of town for that day. It finally worked and we finished just in time to walk to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. It wasn’t Tex-Mex and it wasn’t very spicy. It was the Turkish version of Mexican. Thecturkish food we had earlier in the day was much spicier.
We finish up our meal and our conversation and Sherhat starts to drive us home. We have to stop for a car which is stopped in front of us and, wouldn’t you know it, someone rear ended us. It wasn’t too bad. Not much damage to the car and my muscles were just a little stiff. Bu5 it took so long to do the paperwork so we got home really late again. Bed felt so good!
It was cloudy, nasty and cold, but our plan was to take a short trip up one side of the Bosporus and down the other. It’s one of those typical tourist cruises for 1.5 hours. But first we stopped at the tourist office to get more questions answered. Now we know how to go our respective airports using public transit. Sonia and I are headed back to Kazan but Fouad is headed out to Lebanon to visit family so we have to use two different airports.
We left the tourist office and got on the tram to go to the harbor. We bought our boat tickets but we still had 45 minutes, so we headed up into the spice bazaar. You can find everything here. Candy, cheese, pillows, kitchen utensils. It is an amazing sensory experience. The smells are wonderful, the sounds are exciting and confusing, and the crowds are overwhelming. I didn’t want to buy too much then because I didn’t want to drag a lot of stuff on the boat. But we did find a birthday present for Mathew, the head of the international department at school. He loved coffee, so we bought him the typical little canister that they cook Turkish coffee in.
It was spinning and cold when we got on the boat so I decided to sit in the enclosed part and Sonia and Fouad braved the elements. They lasted out there for about half the trip before they came in too. It wa foggy, so the trip was not extremely I,pressinve from the sightseeing point of few, but we did pass a fortress with a cemetery on a slope in front of it. This slope was steeper than anything you’ll ever see at Mt. Hope Cemetery!
After the boat ride, we took the tram and then the funicular up the hill to meet Sonia’s friend Serhat at the Taksim metro station. He loaded us in his car and drove us to the Asian portion of Istanbul. This was particularly exciting for Sonia, because it was her first time in Asia. It’s intersting that, although Kazan is hundreds of miles east of Istanbul, it is still considered part of European Russia because the city lies west of the Ural Mountains. But here, if you cross the Bosporus, you are in Asia.
Our first stop was a restaurant that served Kurdish food. Serhat ordered for us. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was so spicy and delicious and there was no porridge involved at all! There were all sorts of different meat dishes and salads, and the ever present bread. And everything was washed down with buttermilk. It is a very common beverage here and really does taste good after something spicy.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, unlike Russia where there is a playground for kids every 20 feet, you rarely see a playground in Turkey. Serhat confirmed this and also said that there are not green spaces in Istanbul. We walked around another area looking in store windows and eating pastries until we went into a cafe and had tea. We went back to the car and drove to Baghdad Street. This is THE exclusive shopping district in Istanbul. After walking, we stopped again for tea then sat there for two hours trying to download the IDs we needed to get into the soccer game on Saturday. It’s a complicated system because of politics. You must belong to the fan club before you can get tickets. You must submit a photo for the ID. You may only sit in the seat you have a ticket for. Lots of very strict rules. After we joined the fan club, Serhat could transfer his tickets to us since he is going to be out of town for that day. It finally worked and we finished just in time to walk to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. It wasn’t Tex-Mex and it wasn’t very spicy. It was the Turkish version of Mexican. Thecturkish food we had earlier in the day was much spicier.
We finish up our meal and our conversation and Sherhat starts to drive us home. We have to stop for a car which is stopped in front of us and, wouldn’t you know it, someone rear ended us. It wasn’t too bad. Not much damage to the car and my muscles were just a little stiff. Bu5 it took so long to do the paperwork so we got home really late again. Bed felt so good!
Friday, March 30, 2018
More pictures from Istanbul
Hanging with the guys at the fire department. The view on the island of Heyliada. The spice market.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
istanbul, day 1
We finally got into Istanbul about 7. We had pre-ordered transportation to the hotel. So we got our luggage and headed out the doors where the taxi service was waiting. Ataturk airport is also a long way out from the old city, so it was a long ride, at the end through windy old streets. But we finally stopped in Front of the Faros Hotel. It is a neat, old-fashioned place and the manager is a very kind man who let us leave our luggage there until our room was ready after noon.
So out we went to get money from the bank and start to explore. We are literally in the middle of the old city, five minutes away from Haifa Sofia, the Blue Mosque and other major attractions. We stopped at the tourist info office first. (Yes, We found it this time.)
The lady was very helpful and explained all about attractions and the multi-entry card we could get to see lots of museums cheaper. So we headed right over to Hagia Sofia and stood in line for about 20 minutes only to find out that they don’t have anymore of the discount cards. When are they going to be available again? Nobody knows. So we bought individual tickets because we weren’t going to come and NOT see the sights. After that we walked over to Topkapi Palace and waited in line 45 minutes to buy tickets. In line we got into a conversation with a Dane and some Brazilians. The Dane and I put a body check on on a Turkish guy and his wife she were trying to cut ahead of us. You really thing I’m going to stand there for 45 minutes and let you go first?! The same thing happened in line for the ladies’room. A Turkish lady tried to cut ahead of me and about 10 Japanese. Man, they would have stuffed her head down the toilet. They were really mad.
We spent about two hours in topkapi Palace then we headed back to the hotel and stopped at a restaurant on the way that the tourist lady had recommended. This place was not touristy. It wa good, spicy, typical Turkish. I had a salad and a lamb kebab which was excellent. And I also thank Turkish tea(chai) in those neat hour-glass shaped glasses. We went home full and rested up because the best was yet to come. Sonia’s old friend Sherhat lives in the Asian part of Istanbul and he was going to meet us after work. What a nice guy and great conversationalist. He knows so much about the city and explained it all as we walked through the old part of Time to a nice little restaurant. He ordered typical Turkish cuisine for us and it was nice and spicy. And they serve spicy banana peppers with everything. Oh,joy! These beats russian food any day. After that Fouad wanted to smoke a hookah, so Sherhat walked us to another Restaurant where we sat for a long time with a great view of the Bosporus from the 6th floor.
After talking for a long time, We finally just had to quit because we hadn’t slept at all last night. We tried to get a taxi but the driver was trying to cheat us so Sherhat told us we should get out. We were right by the subway station so we went in, bought a multi-use card and hopped in the funicular that took us down to our tram line . It stops just down the street from the hotel, so it was the perfect way to get home without a jerky taxi driver. Now I’m really ready for bed but just wanted to get caught up with the blog so I can start fresh tomorrow. And tomorrow I’ll have pictures of Istanbul.
Sochi, day 2
I sleep another 12 hours, until 8. We had to vacate the apartment at 10 so I got up and warmed up the rest of my pizza and had the rest of a Sprite. That sounds like a typical American breakfast. The other two were out until about 1, so they slept a little longer. We got everything cleaned up and packed for the landlady to check us out a 10. We headed back to the train station to deposit our luggage again. This time we went on foot. Since we walked right by the Turkish Airlines office. We went in to check that our online check-in was successful and that we had seats. Everything was OK so on to the train station.
We deposited our luggage and headed down towards the cable cars and, of course, it started to sprinkle. But we weren’t going to let that stop us. We got the bus to the cable car station, go to get in line...and it’s closed because of high winds! Oh, crap. But other people were waiting also so we decided not to move from the line. After about 10 minutes, we got to ride to the top of the Dendrarium. It’s a beautiful arboretum. When we got to the top we got out and took pictures from the tower and, Leo and behold, the sun even started to shine. I needed sunglasses.
After our picture-taking, we paid the entrance fee for the park and walked back down the hill. It is a very lovely park with all sorts of flowers and trees, little bridges, water falls, and statues. The walk was great and it was so warm I even had to take off my coat. I haven’t been able to go out without a coat since the end of October. While we were sitting in the park, we called the Dolpinarium to see when the shows started because we really wanted to catch one of them. It turned out there was one at 4 p.m. which was perfect for us, so we walked down to the road to catch a bus back into town. (In the little buses, people pay when the get OFF the bus!)
We got off at Riviera Park, the amusement park where the Dolphinarium is, and de die to get some lunch first. I saw a restaurant called Sinbad’s which was serving a “business lunch” for about $5. We decided to try it. This place was gorgeous. The cook was a Syrian who had lived in Beirut, the tables had couches next to the, to sit on instead of chairs and the decor was marvelous. We all went for the business lunch. It consisted of soup, a salad and the main course of a beef-green bean goulash served
with rice. They served all 3 courses to us at one time! But it all tasted to good. And the waitress treated us all to a piece of baklava for dessert. I washed it all down with green tea. We were stuffed.
We left the restaurant and walked across the road to Riviera Park. We bought the tickets to the show right away and then walked around the park. Fouad tried out a Dr. Fish spa. He inserted his feet into a fish tank for 5 minutes and let the fish chew the dead skin off his legs. After the first few seconds of being weirded out, he loved it.
We ambled over to the dolphin show and took our seats. It was actually pretty spectacular. The animals were extremely well-trained animals and the performance was really entertaining. But now that it 5 and the show was over, we still had time to kill before we had to pick up our luggage by midnight and then head to the airport for our 4 a.m. flight. So we de died to take the bus out to the big mall and hang around at the food court. Which we did, BUT the mall closed at 10 and we had to get the last bUs before then. So at 9:15 we hopped on the bus back to the train station and walked over to the little restaurant that Sonia and Fouad had gone out to last night while I slept. It was a nice place and we sat out on the covered patio with lots of stray cats running around. We had the same waitress they had had the night before and she was so excited because I was the American she had ever talked to. She spoke very nice English and was very, very pleasant. We hung out there until 11:30 and then walked back to the train station, picked up the luggage before that office closed, and called a taxi.
The ride to the airport was long, all the way out by where the Olympic Games were held. It’s a beautiful, big, and very new-looking airport. Of course the counter wasn’t open yet, so we sat down and charged our electronic equipment. At 1 a.m. we signed in and went through security. Fouad and I had trouble getting through passport control because the guys’ computers weren’t working right. Fouad’s guy even came out of his booth and came after him, asking him again where he was going in why.
We were supposed to board at 3:40. We tried sleeping and texting, but it certainly wasn’t very restful. 3:40 came and went. 4 a.m. came and went. We should have taken off then and that certainly wasn’t going to happen. We finally boarded at about 4:30. I was able to sleep on the plane again, but it definitely wasn’t enough.
We deposited our luggage and headed down towards the cable cars and, of course, it started to sprinkle. But we weren’t going to let that stop us. We got the bus to the cable car station, go to get in line...and it’s closed because of high winds! Oh, crap. But other people were waiting also so we decided not to move from the line. After about 10 minutes, we got to ride to the top of the Dendrarium. It’s a beautiful arboretum. When we got to the top we got out and took pictures from the tower and, Leo and behold, the sun even started to shine. I needed sunglasses.
After our picture-taking, we paid the entrance fee for the park and walked back down the hill. It is a very lovely park with all sorts of flowers and trees, little bridges, water falls, and statues. The walk was great and it was so warm I even had to take off my coat. I haven’t been able to go out without a coat since the end of October. While we were sitting in the park, we called the Dolpinarium to see when the shows started because we really wanted to catch one of them. It turned out there was one at 4 p.m. which was perfect for us, so we walked down to the road to catch a bus back into town. (In the little buses, people pay when the get OFF the bus!)
We got off at Riviera Park, the amusement park where the Dolphinarium is, and de die to get some lunch first. I saw a restaurant called Sinbad’s which was serving a “business lunch” for about $5. We decided to try it. This place was gorgeous. The cook was a Syrian who had lived in Beirut, the tables had couches next to the, to sit on instead of chairs and the decor was marvelous. We all went for the business lunch. It consisted of soup, a salad and the main course of a beef-green bean goulash served
with rice. They served all 3 courses to us at one time! But it all tasted to good. And the waitress treated us all to a piece of baklava for dessert. I washed it all down with green tea. We were stuffed.
We left the restaurant and walked across the road to Riviera Park. We bought the tickets to the show right away and then walked around the park. Fouad tried out a Dr. Fish spa. He inserted his feet into a fish tank for 5 minutes and let the fish chew the dead skin off his legs. After the first few seconds of being weirded out, he loved it.
We ambled over to the dolphin show and took our seats. It was actually pretty spectacular. The animals were extremely well-trained animals and the performance was really entertaining. But now that it 5 and the show was over, we still had time to kill before we had to pick up our luggage by midnight and then head to the airport for our 4 a.m. flight. So we de died to take the bus out to the big mall and hang around at the food court. Which we did, BUT the mall closed at 10 and we had to get the last bUs before then. So at 9:15 we hopped on the bus back to the train station and walked over to the little restaurant that Sonia and Fouad had gone out to last night while I slept. It was a nice place and we sat out on the covered patio with lots of stray cats running around. We had the same waitress they had had the night before and she was so excited because I was the American she had ever talked to. She spoke very nice English and was very, very pleasant. We hung out there until 11:30 and then walked back to the train station, picked up the luggage before that office closed, and called a taxi.
The ride to the airport was long, all the way out by where the Olympic Games were held. It’s a beautiful, big, and very new-looking airport. Of course the counter wasn’t open yet, so we sat down and charged our electronic equipment. At 1 a.m. we signed in and went through security. Fouad and I had trouble getting through passport control because the guys’ computers weren’t working right. Fouad’s guy even came out of his booth and came after him, asking him again where he was going in why.
We were supposed to board at 3:40. We tried sleeping and texting, but it certainly wasn’t very restful. 3:40 came and went. 4 a.m. came and went. We should have taken off then and that certainly wasn’t going to happen. We finally boarded at about 4:30. I was able to sleep on the plane again, but it definitely wasn’t enough.
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