ISTANBUL

Istanbul was so amazing! It was so different than last time, I saw so much more of the city and felt so much safer than the last time I went!

The 1st day in Istanbul, we got cleared through immigration a little later than we normally do, at like 10 am, normally is like 8:30. When we got off the ship we started out day at Topkapi Palace, it was cool, same as the last time we went, but this time we also went to the left side of the palace and there were a bunch of rooms with GORGEOUS mosaic on all the walls and ceilings and crazy rugs and pretty views of the harbor. Then we went to the harem, which is where all the women and children lived and they were guarded by huge black men called eunuchs (pronounced "u-nic") who were castrated during their training, kinda sad. The harem was decorated with tile mosaics too!

After that, we were pretty hungry for lunch and we got a recommendation for restaurants from my friend Camille’s 2 Turkish friends that live in Istanbul and go to UVA Ipek and Ece. They told us to go to Yesil Ev (English translation: Green House). It was right by the Blue Mosque, and was actually a hotel so we ate in the garden. It was so peaceful and quiet. Adelaide, Hannah and I ordered chicken curry and it was the BEST THING EVER! It came out with rice and cooked veggies, soooooo tasty! Lauren, Caroline and Maggie got chicken kebabs and they loved theirs too! Then we went to the Hagia Sophia and the middle of it was under construction and there was all this scaffolding and stuff which kind of took away from the experience, but we also went upstairs and on the left side there was this picture gallery of all these photos of the Hagia Sophia and on the right side were the famous Christian mosaics, they looked SO LIFE LIKE and the backgrounds were glittery gold, I don't know if we saw them the last time we were there.

Then we headed over to the blue mosque and Hannah and I got temporarily separated from the rest of the group because we were taking pictures in front of the Hagia Sophia, so we got a little confused trying to enter the Blue Mosque, and didn't know there was an entrance for JUST Muslims, hahahah I wish people could have seen our struggle and confusion trying to get inside. It was right before prayer time, when they close the mosque to non-Muslims, so were scrambling to get in before they closed the doors. Hannah and I were line with a ton of Turkish/Muslim looking people and def stood out, the whole time we were like, what is going on this is so strange, and then we got to the front and the guards started yelling and telling us the tourist entrance was "to the right, to the right" so we got out of line and got in the next line to the right, ohhhh that was still the Muslim line. So we were kicked out of line again and then had to run around the whole mosque before we found the tourist entrance, it was hilarious. I didn't remember but flash photography IS allowed, so I got a bunch of coolio pictures.

After the mosque we got these syrupy lollipops things, the man had this bucket of all these different flavors and he would take a stick and dip it in all the syrups that were hot and then it like instantly cooled and made a lolly! BUTTTT while I was eating it MY BOTTOM RETAINER CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH. Yikes, I guess I will wait until I get home to address the situation because I don’t really like the idea of going to a dentist in Bulgaria, Morocco, or Egypt.

After we saw the Blue Mosque we decided to call it a day because everyone was pretty exhausted so we walked back to the ship. It was about a 20-minute walk and we had to cross the harbor on the Galata Bridge, it was the coolest bridge! On the bottom level were a ton of restaurants, all of them had cool décor, and the people would yell at and hassle you to come inside and eat. Oh everyone loved my blonde hair, me more so than Caroline, I don’t know why, but I got so many catcalls and whistles, it was annoying but I got used to it after a while. We got back to the ship the 1st day and took naps before we got ready to go have drinks/dinner/go out.

We referred to our list from Ipek and Ece to find a good place to have a drink, eat dinner and go out. We decided to head to this district called Taskim, and walked down a pedestrian street called Istiklal, it looked like we were in China or something, the street was PACKED and there were tons of restaurants, and cool stores. We walked down the street for like 30 min trying to find this restaurant called 360 and finally found it after asking like 230983 people for directions. It was on the 8th story on top of some office building and we could even see our ship. It had the COOLEST 360 degree view of Istanbul, and the most badass drink menu that I have ever seen, the drinks were REALLY expensive, so we only had 2, but the ambience was super cool!

After that we started searching for this restaurant called Picante because they had Mexican food, and we again tried asking people but no one really knew where is was, and by this time everyone was STARVING and a little tipsy and getting frustrated and annoyed but we all really wanted Mexican food so we were wandering around this area, that had the neatest outside café type restaurants and it was so interesting, seriously every place was PACKED like no tables available anywhere and we had a big group of like 10 people so we needed multiple tables.

At last we found Picante and I had a really good crispy beef taco and we got guacamole, that was pretty tasty, and chips salsa, and people got fajitas, burritos, and tacos. Everything was surprisingly really really good, except the margaritas were like NEON green, but they tasted fine. At dinner Clark (my next door neighbor, and basically 3rd room mate) taught us this game called, physiatrist, where one person is “it” and everyone else picks a “disease” like you are the person on your right, or you are all the captain of the ship, or Michael Jackson, and the person that’s “it” goes around the table and asks questions trying to figure out everyone’s “disease” and you answer the question like the person you are pretending to be, it gets hilarious after a while. We were at dinner for like 3+ hours and then we went to some really cool bars. The popular drink over here is a “hazelnut vodka shot, and they are seriously the best things in the entire world. Carol, Hannah and I forgot that the shots contained alcohol because they were sooooo good and you didn’t need a chaser, that we got a LITTLE carried away.


We went to another bar and sat down and had some beers and then most of our group decided to go home except for Clark, Caroline, Jarrett and me. So we ventured out on our own and went to 2 more places and Caroline had a dance off with this European chica and Caroline SMOKED her, it was hilarious. Jarrett and I thought she wasn’t going to do it and all of the sudden she threw her bag at me and was like hold my stuff, and did her thing it was great. On the way home Jarrett bought multiple bags of popcorn that he tried to take on the ship much to the dismay of the security guards on duty, we sat there for 10 minutes trying to convince them to try the popcorn because we thought if they tried it and saw how good it was, they would let us bring it on the ship with us, no dice, FAIL.

The next morning we woke up and all felt a little sluggish so we decided to go see Harry Potter at noon at the COOLEST mall ever, called Kanyon Mall that also had the coolest movie theater. Inside the theater was like 3 times as big as the ones at home, and the movie had an intermission, which confused everyone! After the movie we had lunch at WAGAMAMA, it’s an Asia bistro type restaurant that is so delicious! They also have it in London; we have been a few times before. I got some sort of chicken and noodles and vegetables and it was great.

After lunch we walked around the mall for a little while and then because all of us were so tired from the night before we decided to go back to the ship and nap, so it was 6 of us and we got in 2 cabs and our cab drivers WERE DRIVING US OUT OF INSTANBUL God knows where. Neigher of them spoke a lick of English and didn’t even understand our hand motions. The lead cab driver got us horribly lost, and we were seriously headed into interior Turkey, I started feeling really faint and hot and was like freaking out. After 45 min in the cab we finally found the port, it was AWFUL. That night we wanted to do something a little more low key so we got some wine and the boys and Hannah smoked hookah at some restaurant on Galata Bridge, after that some people went out to the clubs but I just went to bed.

The next day we went to this shopping district called Nisantasi with lots of really really neat stores and I got a bunch of cute and clothes at Topshop! We just browsed around the other stores, Vakko is like their Saks here and we went in and looked around there, it was neat looking at all the Turkish designers. Then Caroline came back to the ship because she wasn’t feeling well and Hannah, Brooke and I went to the Cistern, its right across the street from the Hagia Sophia and was basically an aquifer where the Turks stored water, it was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. Inside there are 360 columns that support the ceiling, because its underground. At the end there are 2 medusa heads that are carved out of stone and holding up 2 columns, those were interesting to look at. Inside the cistern it was dark and cool, a nice break from the extreme heat outside. On our way to the cistern I stopped and got some corn on the cob that is seriously sold on every single corner, it was yummy. Then we stopped at this Baklava store and the man probably in his mid-30s and another boy much younger LOVED us, and let Hannah go behind the counter and take pictures of all the sweets, and they gave us tons of free Baklava, and we sampled most of the flavors they had. We asked their names and they told us they were Mr. Delicious and Delicious Jr. We told them we could come back and buy more Baklava after we went to the cistern and when we returned Delicious Jr pulled out a white rose and gave it to Hannah and Mr. Delicious started referring to me as “his sweetheart.” They could not have been nicer, but it did start to get a little creepy so after about 20 minutes we bid them adieu and were on our way.

After that we went home and got ready for dinner, Camille’s 2 Turkish friends from UVA took us to this place called Joke Perestroika, which had a communist, Russian post WWII theme. It sounds weird I know, but it was one of the coolest restaurants I have ever been to! The inside was all light colored wood with lots of WWII Soviet propaganda, and then we went outside and there was a tank coming out of one walls and this barrack lighting with red wires was everywhere, an airplane was suspended in the air behind our table, and there were chandeliers and mirrors on all the tables. It had the coolest most sophisticated feel! There was a DJ booth right behind our table too, and he wasn’t playing the music too loud, we could still have comfortable conversations but he played the BEST selection of songs, lots of Madonna and MJ, and old rock! I got a Red’s (as in Communist, Red) mojito and ricotta spinach ravioli for dinner, it was delish! After dinner Hannah and I went up to the DJ booth to request some Lady GaGa, which unfortunately he didn’t have, BUT he did let us stay up on the DJ booth and dance to Black Eyed Peas--which was fun! After dinner we went back to Club Otto where we had been the 1st night, because Ece (Camille’s friend) had a friend that was DJing, it was a Monday night so not that many people were out but we had a good time and met some Turkish boys that were VERY cute and nice!

The 2nd to last day we woke up and Caroline was feeling a ton better, so we set out to go to the Dolmabahçe Palace which was built by the Turkish Sultans in 1845ish, when we got there we didn’t really know how to buy tickets so we got in the line that everyone else was in, and it was moving slower than a snail. Then all of the sudden this traditional Turkish band started coming down the road of the entrance of the palace, and they were playing drums and flutes and clarinet looking instruments. All of them were wearing traditional Turkish attire and FAKE BLACK MUSTACHES, I found it comical! They then made a formation in front of the palace and played a 30 min set, during which the ticket sales ceased. We waited for another hour and a half in line before we got close to the ticket office, then they posted a sign that said, “due to the crowdness of the palace we will stop selling tickets for 30 min.” COOL. So Carol and Camille went and bought us ice creams because at this point its like 12:30 and none of us had eaten all day. Finally we bought our tickets and went inside the palace gates, and then walked through the garden. The palace was right on the Bosporus and had gorgeous views of the water; the land across the strait was actually ASIA! After we walked around the garden for a little bit we went up to the palace and found out that you can’t actually walk through it on your own, you have to go with a guide. Also we had to put these red plastic bootie things on our foot, and duh my feet were a tad sweaty by the end of the tour. Our guide didn’t speak English that well, but thankfully there were pamphlets that gave a paragraph on all the rooms so we just read that instead of listening to her. The palace had 285 rooms and had all the original furnishings! It was so lavish and nice. 1st we went through a ton of reception type rooms, which were for parties, and gatherings. All of them were so ornate and gorgeous, with rich rugs and elaborate ceilings, crystal chandeliers that weighed multiple tons, you get the picture. After those rooms we passed through 2 ballrooms that were even bigger before we reached the Harem, where the sultans actually lived. We walked into the room that Ataturk, the founder of Turkey, actually died in—in 1938, and walked through his private baths. All of the living quarters had fabulous balconies that also opened up to the Bosporus. The last stop was this HUGE reception hall where the Turkish parliament actually met and where Ataturk had huge parties and made a lot of important government decisions. It was enormous and breathtaking.

After the palace Camille, Carol, and I went to the Istanbul Modern Art Museum and met Ipek and Ece (Camille’s friends) for lunch. We ate on this balcony overlooking the Bosporus and watched the ships and ferries go across the channel. I had this really good steak salad with basil and balsamic vinaigrettes, and then we spent a few hours in the museum. It was so cool, all of the artwork was AWESOME, I had a great time. After the museum we went back to the ship and took a nap before dinner. This was our last night to go out and Ipek and Ece made us reservations at this really nice club on the Bosporus called Angelique and we had bottle service all night, it was so so so fun! We were the only Americans and our table was right by the DJ booth, and the owner of the club would come over and ask us what music we wanted to hear and then he would tell the DJ and we would play it immediately, it was cool! I took lots of pics!

The next day we woke up and were a little tired, but slept for a little bit before we got to the Grand Bazaar at 2. We were all hung-over, but I couldn’t have imagined having a more fun time at the Bazaar, due to our hangovers we were all in really funny moods and got great deals on all our purchases, I bought jewelry, pashminas, a purse. I was surprised at the quality of the jewelry; I found a lot of really unique stuff that looks well made! I am excited about my finds. We got back on the ship at around 5 pm and went out and sat on the deck for a while just taking in the last of the city before the ship pulled away at 11:30 pm. We actually got to Bulgaria today, and put our anchor down outside of the town until tomorrow when we will get a spot in the port and go into town!