My five regrets

During the planning process of my trip, I enthusiastically picked a ton of stuff to do...of course, life happens and you can't do everything. Here is a list of things that I regret to have missed in Istanbul.

1. I missed the Bosphorous cruise...this was sadly due to bad weather and there wasn't much I could do about that. I mean we could've braved it and took a tour in the drizzle, but that is no fun.

2. I didn't get to see the Harem at Topkapı Palace...this was just annoying and poor Adam had to put up with my bad mood after the ordeal. Here's the thing, it's a total rip-off...you have to pay 10 TYL to get in to the palace and then buy an additional ticket for 10 TYL to get into the harem. When we got to the first ticket booth, we realized we only had enough cash to get into the palace and not to visit the palace. We asked the man at the ticket counter if we could use a credit card, he said yes, so we decided that we would give him cash and use the credit card at the Harem. Well, after looking around the grounds, we head over to the Harem just in time for the last tour. We try to pay with the credit card but the rude man tells us that the machine is already closed out...we don't have any lira and the sign clearly says lira only. A nice man standing behind us notices our problem and offers to do a quick exchange of dollars to lira for us. I refused because I didn't want to get ripped off again, although I am sure he was just being nice...then again, trusting the Turks was hard for me at this point. Anyway, what kind of place closes the credit card machines before it closes? That was the second time that happened to me in Turkey! Seriously, keep the credit card machines going until you've served your last customer!

3. I didn't go to the Asian side of Istanbul...Sadly, I can still only claim that I've only been to two continents. Had I been to Asian Istanbul, I could claim three. Perhaps if we would've done the cruise, I would've made it to the other shore. Or I could've taken one of my sightseeing days to go over there...but again, the weather was bad and there was so much to do on the European side. Adam made it to Asia because that is where his plane landed when he arrived. Lucky him...he's going to China in a month too, so he gets to really visit Asia. He wins. :(

4. I didn't try Turkish coffee...I don't really know how this feel off my radar because I am a huge coffee lover. It just seemed that at mealtime I just wanted water or a delicious coca-cola. I also had apple tea a few times. In the morning, I always drank the hotel coffee and when I thought to try Turkish coffee it was too late at night or I wasn't in the mood. The NC Turkish festival will be here next weekend and perhaps I'll go to it just to try some coffee.

5. I didn't buy enough stuff...OK, this seems ridiculous considering I spent about $700 in a week. I know, I know. But I am still thinking about things that I should've bought but didn't. I am so glad I bought that costume, because I would really regret it if I hadn't. I surprisingly don't regret not going to the costume-makers. Anyway, I am still thinking about the beads I should've bought, the silk that was only 10 TYL a meter (cheap!), the coins and appliques for making costumes, and more pashmina.

I also got really stressed out about buying gifts for everyone. I felt so much pressure and looking at my pile now, it seems too light. I should've bought more! Adam thought it was crazy that I was spending so much money on presents for others, but it is hard for him to understand that everyone in my family expects something and I have a huge family! Not to mention all of the friends that also expect gifts. He only has me and his two parents. I love shopping and buying things for myself and others, but with the pushy salespeople and prices, I just didn't go all out like I wanted to...oh well. It's just stuff.

Our last day in Istanbul

Our last day in Istanbul consisted of sleeping in deliciously late and more rain, of course. We hurried through breakfast and made our way into town...this time on foot...no shuttle needed! Yay!

In a previous post I told you that we changed hotels, so I wanted to tell you a little bit more about it. It is called Sarniç, the Turkish word for cistern, because it was built on one. Anyway our room was tiny with a little window that looks inside a shaft of some sort. The A/C was broken and it was so hot and stuffy in there. We also smelled cigarette smoke wafting in from other rooms. Gross. Oh and they were doing construction next door and the sound of demo was giving me a headache.

Other than that it was nice though, the staff was great, the room was clean and breakfast was delicious. Breakfast was on the terrace floor, but the terrace was closed due to bad weather. Oh well. We could still see the Bosphorus and the Blue Mosque up there. There is another mosque nearby and we could hear the blasting call to prayer a few times a day.

Back to our day...we were going to take the Bosphorus cruise but the weather was so bad that it would've been terrible. Plus, we missed the ferry due to oversleeping so we'd have to find a private tour. We walked around the neighborhood in Sutlanhamet, farther away from the hustle and bustle of tourists. We did some more shopping of course, and found some really quaint streets. I will post images when I get them from Adam.

It started raining hard so we stopped to eat in another tourist-type restaurant. The room had a green tinge to it and there were smokers galore. I hate smelling smoke when I am eating. Anyway, the food was good. I had a plate of appetizers and Adam had fried meatballs. We also tried Raiki which is the alcoholic beverage of Turkey. It is like Ouzo. Because it is so strong they mix it with water and it turns a milky color. It was gross. :) We got free apple tea to wash it all down with after dinner.

The we walked a few blocks in the rain to Eminounou. We stopped at a candy store and bought a bunch of Turkish Delights. They are so yummy. Then we went to the Spice Market. I just wanted to be out of the rain, so I picked a place indoors. We ran into more students from Adam's program. It was so funny how many we saw. We ate at the recommended Gulluoglu baklava store. Adam didn't like it but I thought it was delicious. We wandered around, bought more gifts and took lots of pictures.

We meandered back to the hotel and rested before dinner. We had the hotel staff take us to the cistern. They had a ceramic exhibition in it and Turkish radio was playing. Also, all of the lights are on sensors so as you walked down the floor lights would turn on. That was kind of neat and freaky at the same time.

For dinner we went to Doy Doy down the street from the hotel. It was not good and it made my stomach hurt. I had the eggplant kebab. Ugh...just thinking about it now makes me want to hurl. We had flavored tea for dessert and there was a huge group of Americans from a tour group there. That was so funny! You can really spot us a mile away.

After a bit more shopping, we retired to the room, packed and went to be mighty early. Waking up at 2:30 was a challenge, especially since we didn't sleep very well. Hmm...not as fun as I wanted my last day to be, but we had to make due with what we were given.

Today

First, let me say that I just had the best stuffed grape leaf that I have ever had! OMG! And it was at the hotel restaurant. Their food is really good. Breakfast is scrumptious.

So this morning, I went to Taksim Square and walked down the urban, pedestrian street called Istiklal Cadessi. It has a very European feel to it. Actually, other than the Ottoman architecture and music, the whole place has a European feel to it.

Istiklal is a part of the new district and the street is lined with clothing shops and such. There are no pushy sales people here! More my kind of place. I went to one of the outlet-type markets, which was ok. I had lunch at Barcelona cafe, which was good. They put dill pickles on my vegetarian pizza. It was really weird, but really good.

This is also where a lot of the famous belly dance costume designers are...It crossed my mind to just go and look, but I decided that would be too hard.

I got lost too, trying to find the funicular. It's this tram that goes up and down a big hill. It was so frustrating to be lost. And when I finally found the stop, I realized I had passed by it a couple of times without even realizing it!

Then I went to the Turkish Bath, called the Cemberlitas Hamam. I got lost looking for that one too. But, Audra was right, it is a place not to be missed. I didn't get the full massage because I thought I wouldn't have enough time..next time, right? So at the bath, you go into this marble room where there are fountains and basins of water. There is a large octagonal marble slab in the middle where you get washed and scrubbed.

First you rinse yourself off and chill for a while, and then a practically naked Turkish lady signals you to lay down on your pestimal. Then, she scrubs you with a thingy and rinses you off. It felt so good and it was gross to see my dead skin cells pill up. Next she takes this pillowcase and fills it with soapy water and she soaps you up and gives you a short massage. It was awesome and the soap smelled so good. Finally, after your rinsing, she takes you over to a basin and washes your hair. I hung out for awhile afterward under the dome. It is not for the shy...don't worry it is completely segregated. Anyway, I'd like to try another one while I am here, if there is time. I will say that it was a big tourist place. I didn't see any locals bathing, at least not in the women's section.

After that, I walked down to Sultanhamet and did some more shopping and browsing. I found a baklava shop and ate some delicious pistachio baklava.

I've been back at the hotel for awhile. I am still trying to decide what to do tomorrow. Adam is at the closing dinner, which I was not allowed to go to. :( I ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. As I mentioned before it was good. OK, I'm done, Adam is back. We need to spend some time together since we don't get to see each other much.

I decided that I am not going to post anymore pictures for now. It is pain to do it on Blogger. I'll get a Picasa album up soon.

Yesterday

Ready for the next installment? Whew! This is going to be a long one as I have just had two packed days...

Yesterday I took the shuttle to Sultanhamet, the part of Istanbul that is tightly packed with mosques and tourists. As soon as I stepped off the shuttle I was hounded by vultures. These are men who prey on unsuspecting tourists by trying to lure them into their business. They wait by the area where all the tourists get dropped off by bus, van or taxi and then they jump with their impeccable English. I can't even begin to tell you how annoying it is.

When I tried to brush the first vulture off he followed me to the Blue Mosque. Then he was, "Why are you being all aggressive? Why you so angry with me?" I told him just wanted to be left alone and that I didn't want to see his carpets. Ugh!

So the Blue Mosque was nice, but nothing to write home about...I am not into big, old churches or what not. I mean the outside is gorgeous, especially the park around it. But the inside smells musty and well, don't shoot me, I'm just not that into it.

Next, I went to the Grand Bazaar. An old man on "his day off" offered to walk me there. He asked if he could accompany me inside and I told him no. I never did figure out what his deal was. Inside was crazy! Those vendors are so aggressive and they jack up the prices! I found some belly dancing shops and almost bought a costume. It was quite nice, but at $260 that was still too high. I still might go back. He was very nice and he had my size which he called the, "special, hard to find" size. Boy was he right about that! The first shop I went to, the seller sent me up these steep, scary stairs to a room filled with bra and belt sets from head to toe! Every one he pulled out was too small for me until I was like, "I'm leaving now, you don't have my size." He told me he did and I told him to keep looking until I came back (which I never did).

Then I went to Ali Baba, which was supposed to have nice costumes...Well, I got a little person for a salesperson, who was smoking like a fiend and I hate to hear myself say this, but he freaked me out. I also went upstairs to the costume room, which was filled to the brim, but I just couldn't did through all those boxes and my shadow certainly wasn't helping...So no costume for me. All I bought was a shawl for Erika. I had to haggle to get the price down, but it is beautiful. A seller at another shop in the Spice market said I got a really good price. Kudos to me! I hope it is real!

Yeah, so then I had lunch and took the tram to the Spice Market, aka the Egyptian Bazaar. I checked out the New Mosque and watched the pigeons. I also visited the Pet/Plant market...which was crazy. They were selling bunnies, leaches, chickens, ducks, turtles, and fish, not to mention the random stray cats hanging out every where. It made me really sad to see the animals in such poor condition.

Anyway, the Spice Market was much nicer. The salespeople are still pushy, but not as bad. There are more locals there, so it is slightly more authentic. Outside of the market there are street vendors and there were a lot of good shops. I bought some food for dinner, because Adam and I decided to stay in. I took the tram back to Sultanhamet and I got there at the wrong time because the tram was soooooo packed it was way uncomfortable. It was commuter time or something, because the tram was full of locals.

I got to Sultanhamet early and I just hung out for an hour or so...I found another market, Aratasu, which Audra told me about. It was ok, still the prices are way too high! Finally, the shuttle came at 5:00pm and I didn't get to the hotel until 7:00! Yep, two hours on the shuttle, smelling diesel fumes and feeling so tired. I was the only one on the shuttle, but the driver was very nice, despite not knowing any English.

So, the reason why the shuttle took forever is that the Olympic torch came through yesterday, so they closed a lot of roads and it was packed. I saw the parade starting earlier that day down by Hagia Sophia, but when I was on the shuttle, they were having festivities at Taksim square and that's where we got stuck.

Adam got really worried about me. I finally got back and let me tell you, I was not in a good mood! Thank God I brought Clif Bars! So I brought dinner for us to eat in the room. It consisted of strawberries, radishes, sesame bagel-type things, cheese, and lots of cookies. :) Adam wouldn't eat my strawberries and I got offended. He said they were dirty because I bought them from a street vendor...his dad apparently told him that Egyptian produce is bad and it will give you hepatitis. First of all, Egypt is far away from Turkey, and second of all, that information is outdated by a couple of decades. We searched the web and couldn't find anything about it...I ate them and I feel fine. But you're not supposed to drink the tap water.

Ok, that was yesterday...most of it anyway. I'll explain today after dinner...

Time out, Istanbul

I got my last travel book yesterday, entitled "Time out Instabul." It had the highest ratings on Amazon, so I thought that would be good. I do like Rick Steves' better so far though. This one has advertisements in it...I paid for a book with ads. Seriously.

Anyway, it has a lot of great information about cultural activities. It is concise and each section is seperated by neighborhood. I think this will be useful to carry around with me while walking. It's slick and full color.

The Arts & Entertainment section looks great. While it doesn't rate attractions like Rick Steves' it offers many more choices. They have a nice night life section, including the places to go to see belly dancers. And get this, I am flipping through the book and who do I see? The dude from that German film Crossing the Bridge! Ha ha. He's on a boat, playing the bass, with hair whipping through is long goatee. Gross!

Oh and I just found out that there are factory 'outlets' where you can buy European and American clothing for cheap. Drool. Basically they are large markets that sell rejects from H&M and Miss Sixty and such. The labels have been ripped off, but you can buy a pair of jeans for about 40 YTL ($32). I have to go to this!

Adam and I are still working out details on our trip. We have plans to do this more on Wednesday. He's going to check with the hotel on a few things and we're going to figure out our transportation options. According to the hotel's Web site, they have shuttles that run to the two major tourists parts of town. It would be great if I could just take one of those every day. Hopefully I could get picked up again too. That would be awesome!

Anyway, so my books are proving useful thus far. I read the Rick Steves' one about twice a day and I plan to flip throught this new one more at lunch. The only one that hasn't been useful is the first one I bought with the flip out maps. We'll see if that comes in handy once I get there.

Making a list and checking it twice...

One of the things that can be the most fun, yet the most challenging part of travel are the gifts for others. It's like Christmas shopping only compacted into one week. I am feeling a litte overwhelmed by the prospect of picking up a little something here and there for friends and family.

Here's the list:
Parents (mind you I have four)
Siblings (another four)
Friends (just a little something-for about 6-8 people)
Belly dance friends (you get your own category as my shopping for you is different another 6 or so)
Adam (even though he'll be there he gets something too)
Friends at work (about another four)

And the grand total is ~27 little gifts for those I love.

Any requests??? Valerie has already asked for jewelry. :) Which I love to buy and I will be going to the gold market. Erika has asked for a shawl. I'll have to get the proper name for it soon. Just let me know, and if you're sweet to me you might get a little something!

Love,
Andalee

Less than a month left!

Wow! I can't believe how fast this trip is coming up! I don't feel ready. I should relax and take it easy on myself. I mean, it's not like I have to have every second planned.

I am a little disappointed that I won't be able to buy any nice costumes. That is a bummer. My last post was all about the costume designers and now I just have to go look. I have offered to buy nice costumes for my friends if they give me the money up front, plus a little extra (let's call it commission) for lugging it around and such. I hope that works out, because I would love to do shopping even though it wouldn't be for me.

At the very least, I will buy a cheap bra and belt set from the Grand Bazaar. I will probably also buy some hip scarves for myself and students/friends. Let's see what else? Shopping, shopping, shopping...That's about all I can think about...except for the Bath. I had the wildest dream about the hamam the other night. I can't even explain it, but let me tell you it got me excited.

Adam and I took a cold, hard look at my money situation last night. So far I have a little less than $500 saved for the trip. That was supposed to go to my plane ticket, but it looks like it will have to be my spending money. I can pay for the plane ticket after I return. I need money to eat! I plan on getting a little more money here and there, but we'll see.

I just received Rick Steves' Istanbul today. It says that you should plan on $100 per day for room and board, which includes $ for lunch and dinner, and assumes breakfast is included. Since I won't be paying for a room, I can assume $50 a day. Then I have to figure in entertainment to be about $7 per sight and a total of $20 per day for all that. So, I am up to $70 a day now, plus shopping and transportation. I think that sounds reasonable--although it looks like I will need to save a little more money... Any benefactors out there? ;) JK

I pray I can manage. I also pray that I have fun adventures out on my own. Adam will be working for a lot of it, which only gives us a couple of days together. I get sad when I think about it. I want him to experience it with me! I mean I know he doesn't want to do the belly dance shopping or the Bath, so I can do that with no guilt for sure. But for all of the other stuff, I want him to be with me. Although, Adam will get to go an excursion that I will miss because it is before I arrive. So at least he'll get to see some of the other sites.

We really need to get together and plan out those days we can be together. He'll have to tell me exactly where he wants to go and I will do all of the other stuff alone. Say he picks the cruise (hoping) and the Topkapi Palace, or other places like that. I would wait for him and we could go together. We still need to decide if we are going to change hotel rooms. I am leaning toward yes, but I am not sure if it is worth it.

For those days that Adam is working, I'll have to figure out how to get to the city-center by myself. After about 4 days of that I will have it down and so if we changed rooms, I would be back to square one. But it would be cool to have a place that is walking distance to points of interest. It would also be cool to travel outside the city to see other places and the countryside, but I don't know if that is possible. Probably not.

Anyway, as you can see there is much to be done. Now it's time to layout all of the details and groundwork. Hopefully we'll get to figure it out this weekend.

Oh, I can't wait to go shopping!

The shopping bug has hit me! I am so excited about shopping in Istanbul, especially when it comes to costumes and belly dance attire. I found this awesome Web site today. The woman made a google map of places that you need to check out for costumes in Istanbul. It's in German, but really cool.

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