Castles, Cobblestones and Crepes: Istanbul, Turkey

love this one

Lavinia

One of my Favorite pictures

Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

Sea of Marmara

Well I wanted to do something exciting for new years, what better to do than take a trip to ISTANBUL!!! I had a few friends of mine from Heidelberg going so I joined along. There was 7 of us. Lavinia, Victoria, Deanne, Kristin, Mary, Brian and I. Lavinia and I had separate flights and the others flew together. Lavinia arrived at about 4 p.m. and I arrived around midnight, but my flight had been delayed so the expected time she expected to see me and she didn't, she started freaking out. Once I arrived I started walking and got pretty much jumped my Lavinia, because she was so happy to see me, she scared the shit out of me. We then waited about 30 minutes and the rest showed up. We got two taxis and headed to our Hostel. Our Hostel was in the perfect location, very central. Just a few short minute walk to the main attractions, and it was cheap, had breakfast and computers and internet. We were suppose to be in a big room with like 20 other people but they gave us our own personal 6 bedroom room. But Lavinia booked after us so she shared another 6 man room with some random people, but that was fine because she was us in ours most of the time anyways. We had a whole week to explore Istanbul. We kind of had an itinerary planned out, with some famous tourist attractions to go see.
So our first thing we had to see was the famous Blue Mosque. It was amazing, so beautiful and the architecture was just incredible. When you go into a mosque you're suppose to cover your hair, it's just part of their religion and beliefs, so we covered ours before we went in, even though a lot of tourist don't. We went in and took pictures, but then we had to leave soon, because it was prayer time, and they wanted them to pray in peace and not with everyone taking pictures and watching. One thing I noticed right off the back in Istanbul, was there was a lot of stray cats, EVERYWHERE!!! And they were all fat, they are fed well by all the tourist, but seriously, I think they're taking over. There were dogs too, but not quite as many, and the dog were so nice. One night we were out walking around and we ran into about 5 of the dogs, and they just came up to us all nice and wanted to be petted and loved. Then they found a little kitten and was playing with it, but not hurting it. We also went to a little bazaar and bought some scarves, obviously very popular in Turkey. And you could get them cheap, but there were also really nice wool or silk ones that could get pretty expensive. But the exchange rate from Euro to Turkish Lira was awesome, about 1 euro=2 TL.
We walked down to the Sea of Marmara and put our hands in and hung out for a while taking pictures, way to cold to get in tought. The weather was sunny but still chilly. We then later went to an Islamic Art Museum, that was cool, they were original pages from the Quran. Of course every night was finished off with smoking hookah. But I only did it once, surprisingly. I don't know, I just couldn't do it. It made my throat just super dry and all weird. Well our group didn't last long together, we ended up splitting into two, before we all killed each other. And it was just a lot easier that way.
We also visited the famous Hagia Sophia, which used to be an Orthodox patriachal basilca, later a mosque and now a museum. That was quite amazing as well. The rest of our trip included more sight seeing and more hookah smoking. Since coming to Germany I have discovered the döner kebab, which I heard originated from the turkish, so I was very excited for the Kebabs there, well turns out, the kebabs sucked as did all the food. I mostly ate McDonalds. McDonalds is faithful and always has your back no matter what country you're in. One night when Lavinia, Victoria, Kristin and I were walking down by the bay, they had short little boat tours for 10 lira, we're like hell ya lets do it. So we got to see Istanbul at night by the boat, even though it was extremely cold up there, so then we went downstairs inside were it was warmer.
One day when the others went into a Palace Lavinia and I didn't want to so we went on a little excursion and just took off walking. The streets are like literally up and down, I about had a heart attack walking up them. But it was cool, we got pretty high and could see out over the water and found a nice little local coffee shop and had Turkish tea and coffee. Turkish apple tea is so good, and their coffee is different too, to strong for me. I enjoy random little excursions like that, it makes the trip more personal.
We also went to the big bazaar, that was insane, a lot different than what I expected, I thought it would be like personal stuff people sell, but it was a LOT of jewelry and scarves and rugs and all that good stuff. It was inside and huge! And of course at every single little shop in Istanbul, the men stand outside there doors trying to get you to come in, by the end I wanted to kill all of them, I couldn't handle them haggling me to come into theirs, I was about to go crazy. We also went to the spice bazaar, with many fresh spices and prepackaged spices. One night when we got home we were still hungry so Lavinia and I walked around to see if there was any food still open, of course they were haggling us to come in and have a drink, but we told him we wanted food. So he said okay, and got us bread and dip, and it was good. Then we ended up talking to him and a few of his friends, then he got us drinks, and they showed up a little traditional turkish dance and we just had a good ol time, and in the end we didn't even end up paying!!!! ah yeah!
For new years we went to a house party on the Asia side of Istanbul in this really fancy house. Victoria had some friends from Turkey who knew some people, so we went to their party. The view was so incredible and the house was nice, and great music and alcohol. We had a great time, a few people got way to drunk, but that's bound to happen. Then later that night we caught a taxi home. But it was great new years, a lot of fun.
For the last couple days I started getting sick which really sucked, because I turned into a cranky little bitch. And I hadn't got good sleep either, but I tried to stay civil, even though there was some things really annoying me. But overall a great trip, I discovered there are some amazing places to see in Turkey, I will be definitely coming back in the future to visit them,
My flight home I was suppose to connect in Paris then fly to Frankfurt, but my friend was gonna be in London, so I connected in Paris to London. And soon I was on my way to London :D