Notes From a Pub-Crawl Island: Turkey

Here goes part 1 of my 3-part, way overdue conclusion to the travel blog. Part 2 will focus on my trip to Ireland, and part 3 will be a summary of some things I have observed and concluded. Here goes.

The truth is, neither of us really knew what to expect in Istanbul. The old saying about being where "East meets West" is certainly true, although the West involved here is Eastern Europe, which is very different from the West that an American is used to. I guess my point is, the place actually felt more Eastern than either Tiz or I was expecting. What do I mean?

Before we ever stepped foot into our hotel, we were accidentally treated to a taxi ride into a residential area far from the touristy city center, a region called Eyüp. It was a fascinating half hour or so, since there was not a Westerner in sight and the streets were busy and narrow and and clogged with schoolboys playing soccer and you had to honk at them to create just enough space to barely squeeze through. By the time we and our driver realized that he had taken us to the wrong Piyerloti Caddesi (Road), Tiz and I both knew that we had already experienced the most culture shock of anywhere we would see. And we were right, as most of our remaining time was spent doing touristy things in the largely Westernized Sultanahment district.

But even there, you didn't feel like you were in the West really. The call to prayer which echoed from every nearby mosque (and there were many) often served as a reminder of this. Several times we had settled into a nice dinner at a European-style restaurant only to have this fascinating, melodic chanting shake us from that feeling of familiarity with our surroundings. Part of the charm of Istanbul is that you always feel like you have to be on your toes.

I'll be brief when discussing the touristy sites we visited: they were all as incredible as I expected. In particular the Hagia Sophia (20 TL, about $11 or £7) was great; how could a 1500-year old Byzantine church turned Ottoman mosque turned modern museum not be? We also loved the Grand Bazaar, a massive indoor market which was the trading center of the Ottoman Empire starting in the 1400s. It's crazy to imagine yourself in a bustling marketplace where once people from all over the empire, Budapest to Baghdad, came to buy and sell their goods. Americans might think of Turkey as peripheral in this modern age, but this place was once the center of the universe, and that feeling is unmistakable. Also, it's the custom to haggle over prices at the Grand Bazaar, and that was a good bit of fun too.

If you have any questions about traveling to Istanbul (what to see, safety tips, etc.) feel free to comment below or ask me in person if you get the chance. Photos below.