Istanbul is wonderful. There are the friendliest people I have ever met, some of the best and tastiest food, (dad get ready for some of the spices I am going to bring samples of home J ) and overall a very pleasant town to roam around in. Today after the diplomatic briefing on the ship in the morning I headed out to see what Istanbul is all about. The Grand Bazaar was the first place that I stopped into. By “stop into” I mean wander through the over 4,000 shops. It is literally the biggest mall in the world and is very overwhelming for the shopper. There were scarves of every color, more carpets and rugs then I have ever seen, antiques, silver, purses, bags, apparel, and so many random things that I would wasn’t expecting to see.
One of the best parts about the shopping atmosphere in Istanbul is the shop keepers. Many of them are all about getting to know the customers before they start to sell things. For instance- we entered this one guy’s carpet shop and he invited us in, gave us all traditional Turkish apple tea, and we chatted for about 30 minutes. Then, we moseyed around his shop, I figured out just how expensive carpets really are, and then we left. It was a fun experience and I have begun collecting business cards because that is the big thing for shop keepers to give out to talkative customers.
The Turkish men are (if it is possible) even more blatantly flirtatious in public then Italian men. Often times, many of the Turkish shop owners will say lines like “hi beautiful, come look at my shop,” or “hey darling want to have a look,” or the one I seemed to get a lot today (about 7 times) “hi baby face come look in my shop.” I still have yet to fully figure out what they all meant by “baby face.”
Anyway, the highlights of today were numerous. I think Turkey is my favorite country I have been to thus far and so I have to gush for awhile. Firstly, the Grand Bazaar (as I have mentioned above) is overwhelming. One of the shops that I stopped into was full of scarves and the guy there taught me 3 different ways to tie the scarves. There were the most colorful, shiny, and intricate scarves I have ever seen there. I am pretty sure I could have just looked at them for days and been content.
It was amazingly fun and I think to fully look through the entire Bazaar I would need about a month. But, after a couple hours, it was time to find lunch. We ventured out of the Grand Bazaar and met this very nice old Turkish man who made it his business to find us a restaurant to eat at. He walked us down this sketchy alleyway to this local restaurant where we sat down and decided to give it a try. Turkish food has incredible flavor. All of my taste buds were very stimulated during the meal. Interestingly, when one orders meals at a traditional Turkish restaurant it comes with free bread, salad, cabbage and onion mix, and tea at the end. (yummy yummy Turkish tea!!) Overall, my favorite part of the meal was the use of yogurt. There was literally yogurt with everything- on kabobs, vegetables, and bread.
The kabob that I got was this eggplant kabob with grilled tomatoes on the side. I don’t know what spices were used or how it was grilled, but I have never had eggplant that I enjoyed eating this much. Oh! And the tomatoes were to die for! I was so unbelievably full after that meal!
Then, once lunch was over, the nice old man who brought us to the restaurant came back and insisted that we look at his leather shop. He had a beautiful shop but none of us were really interested in spending 1000 Lira on a jacket (about $500.) So, we had some Turkish tea, chatted about his sons, his business, and the shape of Turkey’s government. After that he took us to his cousin’s carpet shop where we got an exciting display of all the gorgeous carpets (and yes, they run about 5000Lira for the smallish ones. – AHH) But, the owner was really nice, gave me his business card, and asked me to go out with him that night (Dad you will be happy to know I declined going out with the random Turkish fellow) and then we left the shop.
Next stop: Spice Bazaar. Overall, the Grand Bazaar was visually stimulating and the Spice Bazaar was stimulating to my nose. There were so many smells of spices, Turkish delight, tea, figs, apricots, and so many more things I can’t even remember to list. It was a wonderful time wandering around, tasting all of the samples of the various goodies and buying some spices to take back home (Kevin- cumin.)
After a quick stop back at the ship it was time to hit the town for dinner. There were 6 of us in the group and therefore there were too many of us to fit in a single cab. My friend Caitlyn and I volunteered to walk to the hotel we were meeting my friend’s mom at (I know right, I have serious mommy jealousy!) and we proceeded up the busy street full of shops and people. It was supposed to be about a 25 minute walk and 40 minutes later we end up at the hotel that we think is where Dawn’s mom is staying at. Well, it turns out there are three hotels with the same name in different locations and we happened to be at the wrong one. The next 40 minutes was a series of disasters. Pretty much everyone we asked for directions pointed us in a different direction and some of them didn’t even think that the hotel existed. I was getting to the point of being slightly nervous about being lost when we ended up in this series of alleyways with no cars, lots of sketchy people, a ton of cats, and no English being spoken anywhere. On the verge of desperation I stopped to ask these 4 elderly gentlemen all sitting a circle and chatting. Only it turns out that they speak no English at all and I tried to communicate in my flustered English and 2 words of Turkish that I don’t speak their language and just need directions. One of the men stands up and motions for Caitlyn and I to follow him and so we gingerly follow him. For 20 minutes he leads us up and down alleyways and finally we get to the hotel. This man literally made my day. It was so nice of him to go 20 minutes out of his way (each way) to help two tourists find their way.
So, finally at the hotel (about an hour and a half after we were supposed to be there) we ventured out for dinner. Dinner was exquisite. I had potato ravioli with hummus and yogurt (again with the delicious yogurt.) after that I had some Turkish tea and a little baklava to top off the evening. Then, (since I understand the city so well now) I walked back, looking in all of the little shops (the shops stay open until about 11:30 pm) and finally got back to the ship. Shower. Blog. Bed. Tomorrow= more Turkish fun! Thanks for reading J
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