Day 42: Istanbul

The first thing I wanted to take care of in Istanbul was getting a dress for Ozge's wedding. Ozge is Muslim, and the wedding will have a lot of traditional Turkish elements, but the reception is being held at a hotel and will be very much like a Western-style wedding reception. Based on talking to Ozge and some internet research, I had learned that most guests will wear the same sort of things as American wedding guests, but in Turkey guests get VERY dressed up. Thus, some shopping was in order.

My Lonely Plant guide informed me that Western-style clothing shopping was best at the more modern malls across the Golden Horn, so I thought I would take the tram over to the area. After arriving at the tram station and watching the stampede to get into already jammed cars, I threw away my metro token and decided I'd rather walk. The walked ended up working out well; although the weather was quite warm and the walk was lengthy, the views when crossing over the river and the small shops along the way made for a pleasant morning. 

Istanbul


Finding a dress turned out to be a little more difficult than expected, given that I needed something formal, but also wanted something that would either get packed in my dufflebag or donated elsewhere upon leaving. I finally found a dress that I hope will be appropriate, but it took a few hours. By now it was early afternoon, and I started the walk back to my hostel.


I made a detour to the Spice and Grand bazaars, which are massive markets with beautiful goods, but the merchants are some of the most aggressive I've seen (except maybe for China where they physically try to grab your arm as you walk past). After the long morning I wasn't really feeling energetic enough to handle the intensity, but I did discover a fun game. As the merchant started in with a English spiel to come see his goods, I'd simply say "no English" in some fuzzy accent and see which nationality he guessed or tried next. I got multiple Russians, a couple of Spanish, and one Italian guess. Fascinating, and rather entertaining.

Lantern shop at the Bazaar


I went back to my hostel to take a break, where I found Ilysa, a very nice Australian about my age, also in the room. We chatted for a while, and then decided to go grab dinner together. Ilsya is traveling for a full year, and has been in Turkey for two months. She recommended going back to a place she'd been before, near where I'd been shopping earlier, so I made my second trek of the day across the bridge.

Istanbul at night



The restaurant, a small cafe on the 6th floor of a side-street building, did turn out to be quite good and we had a lot of fun. After dinner, we came back to meet up with one of her Australian friends, Kate, and we spent the evening hanging out with the hostel staff at the hostel cafe.

Istanbul is filled with street dogs and cats. Most of the dogs have ear tags, which means they've been fixed and given shots. They're very friendly and docile, and appear to be generally homeless but well feed by the local restaurants. The cats are a little less clear - some seem to belong to shops but cats are generally independent creatures. One of the evening's entertainments involved feeding a small kitten that had made its way near our table. While I kept my distance, the kitten was rather adorable and was more than happy to be passed around the table for belly rubs and behind-the-ear scratches. The kitten became the main source of entertainment for the evening.

Now that the dress is taken care of, I've got plans for more sightseeing and touristy stuff today. It's nice to go a bit slow given the heat, but I hope to have more insights on Istanbul soon.