Day three, still amazed by the city

Woke up this morning. Always a good thing. Definitely feeling the remnants of the night before.

So Will and I plunged into the fray last night and decided to go out. The off streets of Istiklal are an unending number of Bars/ Cafés/ Clubs that form a massive maze of people. We bumped around keeping our ears perked for that sweet sound of English. We met a girl from DC, she was not so cool. We then met some Turkish guys who wanted to practice English with us; they went to Istanbul University and were good guys. We bounced around a little more, and then went and got the ever so sweet solus burgers (see previous blog) which were still amazing and walked back (well we made a pit stop at the Hilton Pool, and then went home).

Drinks are not cheap in Istanbul, about 8tl ($5.33) for a pint, not terrible, but not nickel beer either. You pretty much drink Efes all the time, the Turkish national beer.

We woke up early and Murat the landlord came over to fix our internet. We then registered for language classes and Sadi (driver, best friend, only friend) took us driving up the Bosphorus almost to the Black Sea. It was like a whole different Istanbul. Amazingly we’d spent two days in Istanbul and still hadn’t seen the strait. It’s unbelievably blue and clear. The whole scene along the ocean is picturesque. Palaces, hotels, restaurants, and little main streets crowd the shorelines. Each area is a new town, but we drove about hour and we were still in Istanbul and everything was built up, the size of the city is massive.

NB: Rule of thumb for Istanbul, anything that can see the Bosphorus is much nicer and more expensive then areas that can’t. You can see the difference as you approach the top of a hill. The side which faces the water is always nice, the other side is always a little more dicey.

We ate at a sea side Bakil (fish) Restaurant; Sadi told us Turks “eat seafood, looking at the sea.” To make sure it’s fresh. We ate a bunch of different appetizers: eggplant hummus, seaweed noodles, huge kidney beans in tomato sauce, midye dolmasi, grilled calamari, and a bruchetta like salad. The best for me was “Midye Dolmasi” which is a fresh stuffed mussel. Will really enjoyed the seaweed dish. We would have been full after that amount of food, but then we got fish. It was sea bass. And there was no fillet or presentation or seasoning. When you order fish you get a grilled fish with the head, tail and everything. And it’s amazing, you have to pick through the bones but with nothing more than a little lemon, it was incredibly delicious. We have yet to have a bad meal in Turkey or even an average meal. So far the food is one of my favorite things. Will seconds this. It’s really varied and really good. We watched the ships roll in from the Black Sea (NB: The Black Sea is not actually black… little disappointing). It gets its name from the frequent storms and bad weather that have a knack for destroying ships.

We then went back to Taksim for coffee with Sadi and his girlfriend and home for naps.

After a deep nap, we decided to explore starting at 11pm. Things are still crazy till 3am and later. The streets are always packed with people, so it’s a late night city.

We ordered our first sit down meal in Turkey without Sadi, slightly difficult given the language barrier, we got “Pide” which is like Turkish Pizza, its pita like bread with all sorts of stuff on it, like a really good garlic bread shaped like a boat. Again, really good. When then decided to try to walk to the Golden Horn, which is a small river that separates the ancient part of the city from the less ancient part of the city. The roads are at a 60degree angle down and the area Beyoglu is really nice.

We then made it to the Galata Bridge which is a walking bridge with a train in the middle and underneath is restaurants, bars, and clubs. We walked across to the old city to just say we made it and began to walk back. We ended up stopping in a Shisha (hookah) bar for two hours and sipped tea while taking in a view that included the massive suspension bridge across the Bosporus all lit up, the Galata Tower, Topkopi (Ottoman’s Buckingham Palace), and a ton of massive mosques. A lot of people fish off the walking bridge above and although we never saw anyone catch anything, from the restaurants below you can see hundreds of fishing lines.
We then walked back amongst throngs of people.

NB: Who ever thought Muslims don’t party was dead wrong about the Turks. The bars were packed as we walked home. (Ramadan starts in ten days (Aug. 11) for 29 days and some Turks give up drinking instead of daily fasting during that time)

Jet lag is catching up to us.

-Lee (once again edited by Will, the grammar isn’t getting any better)