Can I help you spend your money?

Istanbul Streets ... watch your back!

Istanbul markets...watch your wallet!

Half of the view from the 6th floor of the Paris Hostel

The train from Thessaloniki to Istanbul was full of other travelers, mostly young folks on the route through Greece and Spain. We met one Australian girl who was on her way to join a tour through Syria, Jordan and Egypt and learned that she was able to get a Syrian visa from the consulate in London. There may be hope for us yet! Another fellow passenger was a radio announcer from California, he was in Istanbul on a music tour and had taken a few days out to go to Greece. He gave us a running commentary on the sights and highlights of Istanbul as we trundled along the shore of the sea of Marmora at dawn. It was quite lovely!

Our taxi driver did not know where the “Paris Hostel” was, so he dropped us off at a crossroads in the middle of a hill and said “go up 500 meters”. HMMM? Well, it was down 500 meters and around the corner, but fortunately for us the folks are friendly and the Paris Hostel has good signage, because we did find our way there without too much fuss.

Then it was up, up and up some more….five flights of 15 steps and one flight of 12...and then…at the top of the building, our room. It opened onto a balcony and we had a 180 degree view of the Sea of Marmora and the fishing fleet. What a welcome change from our room in Thessaloniki, which had two windows that both had a lovely view of a cement wall and an air vent. Within half an hour we were settled, Nelson and I on the balcony with our books and John in the room with his Playmobile. Over our left shoulders were the minarets of the Blue Mosque and just out of sight above the hill was the Aga Sophia. There was sun on the water and life was good!

Suddenly the whole sky was alive with the Muezzin’s call to prayer. It is a beautiful, or harrowing, minute and a half, depending on the time of day and the mood of the listener. We had it in stereo, not only from the Blue Mosque behind us but from the smaller mosques to our right and below us. We all were quite thrilled to hear something we’ve read about in travel books and fiction. I never got tired of it, but Nelson did complain a bit about the wake-up call at dawn. Wear earplugs is all I have to say to that!

I’ll try to attach a video to give you an idea what this was like, it also includes a quick shot of the fellows from Prague who shared our balcony. We also had girls from Spain and another couple of fellows from Finland for company. Everyone had good stories to tell, and the Finnish boys where delighted to find out that even though it’s a Muslim country we could get beer and wine at the grocery store.

We did all the things a tourist should do in Istanbul, toured the Aga Sophia, visited the Blue Mosque, wandered through the Grand Bazaar ("Hey, lady, let me help you spend your money...hey, lady, let me rip you off, nicely, just a little...") and across the bridge to the Galata Tower, took a boat trip up the Bosporus and bought a carpet. What was that last one? Oh, bought a carpet. Whoops. Not in the plan!

Carpet man #2 trims the fringe on our impuse purchase.

Nelson and I were walking up the road from our hostel early on Sunday morning and we noticed fellow standing on the street playing the recorder. We asked him the time of day, because I had heard someone mention that it was “fall back” to daylight savings time weekend and we wanted to be sure we had it right. Naturally (for Istanbul) he turned out to be a carpet salesman, and he invited us into his shop for a show. Oh dear. Canadians that we are, we felt the only polite thing to do was to purchase something after he had spent half an hour showing us his stock. We are sure, now that we have had a bit more experience in the world of Turkish carpets and bargaining, that we could have got it for half of what we paid. Regardless, Carpet Man was so shocked at making such an easy sale that he invited us back for lunch the next day while we did the paperwork to have it shipped home and he tried very, very hard to sell us a few more carpets. “Do you like it?…Do you have a place for it?….It’s a work of art, your grandchildren will play on it….What does your heart tell you?….It’s only money, you’re not buying a whole house here…..You can sell it back to me any time…..I need the money to finance a trip to Dubai…..” Since we truly did not have any more money to spare, it was easy for us to keep saying no. The carpet is now at my parent’s house in Kelowna, and I hope they are enjoying it, but not too much, because it’s going to look fantastic in our living room in Creston!

I also made a trip to a Turkish Bath for a bubble massage, a steam and a soak in the hot pool. I could not convince Nelson and John to join me on this one, and since the men and women’s sections are separate, we would not have been able to share the experience anyway. It’s called the Cemberlitas Hamam, and it was opened in 1584! There have been a few renovations since then (flush toilets) but I think the overall experience is pretty similar: warm, soapy, and relaxing!