Istanbul

Istanbul was exhausting. And a little bit terrifying. It's the fourth largest city proper in the world, and considering that I'm not ever planning to make it to Mumbai, Shanghai, or Karachi, it's pretty safe to say that it's the largest city I'll ever go to.

For background, there was a group of six of us who discovered a cheap flight to Istanbul and so we were going to go there for the weekend. What actually ended up happening was that the price got raised at the last minute, and my friend Andrew accidentally booked anyway, and he was going to be stuck going to Istanbul alone, so I decided to join him. We thoughtfully decided to make a list of everything we did in Istanbul, so this might be the longest entry ever. And you should realize that that's saying something. Prepare yourselves.

This trip took place from Thursday February 19 until Sunday February 22, for the record.

Our flight to Istanbul was set to leave at 7:45 am on Friday from the Basel airport, a short train ride away. Our problem was that the earliest train didn't leave until around 5 am, which wouldn't have given us enough time to get to the airport from the train station and check in. So we decided to take the last train to Basel on Thursday night and just spend the night in the airport. Our train left at 11:11, we got into Basel about an hour later, we took a really expensive cab to the airport, and we waited. We stayed up until about 3 in this deserted airport (really, it was tiny and there were maybe 20 people in it) but we decided to nap until we could check in at 5:45.

Our flight was filled with small children. They were all adorable. It was really interesting to see the little boys dressed in Western clothing and then their mothers in full-on burqas. (Well, really, niqabs. I just googled them. You can google too if you're really interested in the difference.) The flight wasn't bad; it was the first time I've flown EasyJet, one of the discount airlines, and it wasn't that bad. No free food on the flight, though. I slept through most of it.

The descent was so cool! It was the first time I got to see the Mediterranean. (and Asia!) It was a really, really long descent. Seriously, it felt like we were descending for half an hour. It was really cool though.

We get to Istanbul's airport on the Asian side and we have to buy our visas! Something we realize after standing in line to get our passports stamped. The visas were $20 (yes, dollars) and they're actual stamps in our passports. They stamp on top (with a rubber stamp) when you enter and exit. I can now go into Turkey whenever I want for the next three months. The visa was really exciting, and it certainly gives my passport some "street cred."

In order to get to the center of Istanbul, we need to take a bus to the edge of the Bosphorus (the strait separating the two sides of Istanbul) and then a ferry across to the European side. The bus ride was really long, and the bus driver had a habit of driving while the rear door was still open. It was certainly an adventure.

When we finally make it to the Bosphorus (after about an hour of standing on the bus) we try to buy ferry tokens, but it takes us a little bit of time as no one really speaks English. It takes us a while, and the Turks are constantly in a hurry. It turns out they were rushing to try to make the ferry across. We wait for a while and finally take a ferry ride across the Bosphorus! As we cross, we see the Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace. This trip looks like it's going to be awesome.

As we arrive on the European side of Istanbul, we are immediately overwhelmed by the noise, the angry (and TERRIBLE) drivers, and the sheer quantity of people. We see a doner place, and decide it would be really cool to eat doner in Turkey. It's a Turkish food that's quite popular in Germany as well. As we cross the street to the doner place, the little man in the cross/do no cross sign walks! It's pretty exciting. This is a feature that's pretty different in each country. It's pretty cool that it looks like he's walking. And he speeds up when you're running out of time to cross the street! It's the little things that are so exciting.

After the doner, we walk to the Topkapi Palace. It's gorgeous and a really cool example of architecture we've never seen before. There's also a museum in the palace. In this museum, we see the purported staff of Moses, sword of David, sword of Mohammad, skull and arm of John (the Baptist. Check out the legend on wikipedia), and the footprint and beard of Mohammad. We also see enough emeralds to save the global economy. It's awesome.

After the palace, we're pretty tired, so we decide to head over to our hotel after we check out the Grand Bazaar. We actually get lost on our way to the bazaar. Andrew has made it his mission to buy a flag in every country we visit, so he figures he can get one here. IT'S INSANE. SO MANY PEOPLE. It's completely overwhelming. You can't walk five feet without being accosted by another salesman. Andrew asks one man for a flag, and after much searching, the man finds one. The initial price is 70 lira, which is definitely too much. (At this point we're not sure of the exchange rate but think it's about 1:1 with the dollar. It turns out it's around 2:1 with the euro. So 2 lira=1 euro.) After about 10 minutes of haggling, Andrew is about to walk away, when the guy finally shoves the flag in a bag and shoves the bag into Andrew's arms, telling him to give 30 lira and just take it. It's a really high-quality flag, so Andrew agrees and ends up with the flag for a pretty good deal after all.

Trying to leave the bazaar is an adventure. It's huge. Every store we pass has another salesman trying to sell us something. We're also pretty obviously Americans: we're both wearing backpacks. I learn that keeping my head down, avoiding eye contact at all costs, and never responding to what they say helps to get through the bazaar relatively smoothly.

We try to walk to the hotel, but end up getting lost. We hail a cab and he makes it to the hotel. Google Maps had failed us. At the hotel, we discover our salmon/pink room, and the tv inside. We find Frasier IN ENGLISH, which is incredibly exciting, and when that ends, we watch Home Alone II on mute, since it's been dubbed. You can still follow it, though. We both end up falling asleep before 9. It's wonderful. We don't wake up until the alarm at 8.

The next morning, it's raining and a little colder, but this means there are no street vendors. This is a major improvement over the previous day. We walk over to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. They're both gorgeous from the outside. When it hits 9, we go into the Hagia Sophia. It's pretty amazing. Did you know that they completed the third rebuilding in six years? That's insanely quick. There's so much history there. Also, my camera is dying, so I have to buy a disposable camera for the rest of the trip.

The Blue Mosque is still a functioning mosque, so we have to take off our shoes as we enter. It's also gorgeous; there's a lot more light inside. After the Blue Mosque, we go to the Hippodrome (it used to be a sports venue, like in the beginning of the first millenium AD.) It's pretty awesome.

Then comes the best part of the trip. Prepare yourself. We have DOMINO'S for lunch. I've been craving Domino's since we got to Germany. It's the copious quantities we had last semester with Theresa's extra FlexPoints. It's not quite the same, but it's still wonderful.

After this we head back to our hotel, but not until we stop at a gift shop with fixed prices. It's a real blessing. I get gifts there for a lot of people, which I'm probably going to send back to the US with Meg when she visits.

[SIDEBAR: My best friend is visiting for WM's spring break!! She'll be here from Friday until the next Sunday. I'm sooooo excited.]

After a short rest at the hotel, we go on an expedition to find the old city walls. We can't find them, but we do see ancient aqueducts, which is pretty awesome. We also get weird Turkish pretzel-type things from a street vendor. They're pretty terrible but it was worth a try.

After this expedition we take another break and watch Chuck (which neither of us has ever watched before, but at least it's not dubbed!) and then Tom and Jerry. Terrible, new, Tom and Jerry, but at least there aren't any words, really.

That night, we go to a McDonald's for dinner and then to a Whirling Dervish ceremony at the same train station at the end of the Orient Express. It's really cool. The Dervishes seem crazy though. Their entire religion is based on love. We think the hippies who live in Vauban (our neighborhood) would enjoy the Dervishes.

The next morning, we walk to the ferry, ferry to the bus, bus to the airport, fly to the Basel airport, take a cab to the train station, train to the tram stop, and tram to our dorm. Thus taking every form of transportation possible in a span of 8 hours.

And then I pack for Luxembourg, Brussels and Paris. We leave in 15 hours.

dodging bullets

Oh man. I had a hard time waking up today. I guess that's what happens when you go to bed at 2 am (after watching NCIS via skype!!) and expect to get up a little before 8. So I left my room a little after 8 and had to wait for the 8:17 tram to the center of town so I could go to Mass at the Münster, but I didn't know exactly where to go. I thought we passed it on the tram, so I got off when we passed what looked like a cathedral. It wasn't a cathedral, so I walked to the stop that the German woman had told me to get off at. I get there at like 8:45, and I follow an old woman into the Church. It turns out I don't know Mass as well as I thought I did. I'm looking for an English missal.


So in the process of rushing to church I forget to grab my passport to bring with me to Basel (just across the Swiss border). No big deal, Switzerland has open borders. I get to the train station after Mass and my friends aren't there yet--they missed the first train (none of us are ever on time to meet) and so it was looking like they were gonna be cutting it close and might not make the train. I went to buy a ticket from Auggen to Basel from the machine on Track 4, where the train leaves from, but it was broken, so I went to Track 3, thinking to maybe get the ticket from the machine there. I was over there for a while, and around 10:13, I decide to head back to Track 4 to wait for my friends. I get to the track and my friend Matt is shouting at me to get on the train. Apparently they had been calling my cell phone and shouting for me and knocking on the glass of the train and all sorts of things to get my attention on the next track. So I barely make the train and we head for Basel.

We can't actually get past Auggen without tickets to Basel (our tram pass covers the rest) and they clearly didn't buy tickets because the machine was broken on that track. So we get to Auggen and I look out the window and don't see hardly anything at all. I sorta freak out and think there won't be anything there. Meanwhile, we continue past Auggen, now riding illegally without tickets. Some of the guys with us get nervous and go to find a conductor so we can purchase tickets. The conductor tells us we'll have to get off at the next stop and buy tickets there.

We stop in Schliengen, a TINY town in the middle of nowhere. There's really like houses and nothing else there, and of COURSE nothing is open there, because it's Sunday. We start to wander the town (we have an hour until the next train) and then it starts to rain a bit. So we head back to the corrugated hut that is next to the train tracks and wait out the rain. There is graffiti on the tunnel to the other side of the tracks, including Garfield in Egypt. Picture links follow.


We finally get back on the train and head to Basel. We're all hungry and looking for a place to eat. Everything is really expensive, so they see a McDonald's and go to see how cheap it is. I've made it my personal vow not to eat McDonald's or drink Coke or Starbucks, but I go along because I've brought a croissant with me. Burgers are like 11 francs (comparable to a dollar) so we go back to this restaurant attached to a window vendor. The window isn't that expensive, so we go inside. It turns out to be an "American" restaurant, and sells pizza and hamburgers. We all get one or the other, and everything is at least 14 francs. It's absurdly priced. We complain to each other, we eat, we head out to explore the city.


We explore, we see the Münster, we see another church. It starts to rain and we keep walking. Daria and I consider stopping and just visiting this Egyptian museum, but decide against it, saying we can always come back. We end up walking in circles around this city and it starts pouring. We're on the other side of the city and we start our trek back to the train station. By the time we get there, we're all soaked through. Luckily I wore my rain jacket, but it was close to soaked through.


We get on the train, just glad to be heading home to watch the football game at the Irish pub (Eagles game for sure and maybe the Ravens game). I fall asleep listening to Secret Garden, and Daria wakes me up, the train stopped, and there are the politzei randomly checking for passports. I start silently freaking out a bit as everyone pulls out their passports and I figure to get my Uni. Freiburg ID and my MD driver's license (it's the best I can do). They guys were sitting in a group of four in front of me and Daria and they all pull theirs out to be inspected. The politzei spends a while looking at them, and he asks where they're from. Andrew says "America". the politzei replies "No, where you're coming from now." One of them then says "Freiburg," which I correct to "Basel" and the guy corrects himself. The politzei gives them back their passports and moves towards our row and Daria pulls out her passport and I pull out my only two IDs, and he just waves his hand and moves on. WHEW. Now I'm about to leave for football.