I knew I wasn't in europe anymore as I arrived in the Istanbul airport. I was exhausted after taking a 10 hour ferry ride from Santorini and then a 2 hour flight from Athens to Turkey. I had to spring for the air ticket as it was a 22 hour bus ride from athens to istanbul. Under normal circumstances I would have just taken the bus, but on the previous 7 days in greece I had taken 4 night ferries and had calculated that I had 50 hours of travel on ferry or bus. Ouch. I was beat.
Anyway, arrive at the airport half asleep and realize that Turkey is a country that requires a visa. I do remember that I can buy at the airport so I find the window to do so. There was a bunch of Albanians there trying to get visas as well, and I found out that Albanian don't like lines. They are pushing and shoving to try to get to the window, literally shoving their passports and money in the face of the one poor woman trying to man the window solo. I figure it will be an hour if I don't follow suit, so I push myself to a good spot in line. I feel a BIG shove in my back that I'm sure is a 300 lb sweaty Albanian man, but I find it is a sweaty 300 lb woman who is much nastier than any man. She shoves her way completely to the front of the line, and almost gets in a fistfight (no kidding) with a big scary looking Albanian man. I'm certainly not in Kansas anymore.
Anyway, I finally got the visa after that ordeal which turned out to be 100 dollars and was recently raised from 45 last year since we make it extremely hard for Turks to come to the US supposedly. Turnabout is fair play I guess.
I am staying in the Sultanhamet area of Istanbul, which is tourist central but has all the major sights you want to check out: Tokapi Palace, Blue Mosque, Aya Sophia. All these things are really really impressive. Especially the Tokapi Palace where the Sultans used to live. It was sick. Amazingly rich. In the treasury they show ornaments they used to display or wear with diamonds as big as your fist. They also have a very cool weapons museum that Sultans collected from wars or trade with europe and asia. They curiously have the biggest Chinese porcelain collection in the world. The Harem is kind of interesting but overrated. You can't really tell the difference between the harem (for which they charge and extra 10 mil lira -7 us- to see) and the other buildings in the palace. There is just the extra titillation of being in "the Harem" I guess. There is also an incredible view of Istanbul from the private balconies of the Sultan. The entire time as I'm going through this great palace and it's grounds I was thinking that I really should have been born as a Sultan. I think I have it coming to me. I'm sure everyone who comes there thinks that.
"Hello, Mr.", "Yes, Please", "Hello, my friend.."
Istanbul, at least in the Sultanhamet area, can be pretty annoying at first. You have literally people coming up to you constantly trying to sell you a carpet. They all use the same tactics to sell the rugs, first asking you where you are from and sucking you into a conversation when at some point they offer to teach you about how to buy a rug and not get ripped off (then ironically, trying to do just that!), or just offer to sell you a rug straight out.
The other thing they will do is lie lie and lie. They will say they have a cousin or friend or something from where ever you are from. I have told these guys that I am from Newfoundland or Fiji or Alaska and they all have friends there. I suggest the only way to handle these guys so they aren't an annoyance is to just totally ignore them or wave them off. Kind of a prick move, but the only way to not be hassled.
The hostel I stayed in, The Istanbul Hostel, was very cheap at around $7 us a day. I did have a notable experience there where the owner of the hotel asked me multiple times to work for him in his carpet shop. He was persistent even after I told him I wasn't interested in working at all, and told me he at least wanted to give me a tour of his shop. I agreed to do that just to get him off my back.
He gave me his pitch at his shop for the "job" which turned out to be helping him scam american and english tourists by telling them that he was a family friend and my parents had bought many carpets from him. He even had a detailed story about how we know each other: We both own vacation homes in Hilton Head-He even knew the name of the neighborhood we live in, and the restaurant where we met!! He told me that I could make $500-$1000 us a day, but I told him I wasn't interested in being the story line for 'Midnight Express 2'.
One night I met up with some Turkish people and they took me out to the modern area of Istanbul in Taxim, which was extremely cool. It is definitely a distinct difference from Sultanhamet and much more modern and european. There is expensive shopping and you don't see many signs that you are in a muslim country. The bars and nightclubs were great, and we ended up at a place called 'Bronx' which had a surprisingly good cover band which played a lot of punk stuff (Ramones, Sex Pistols, etc.).
The food in Istanbul consists of a lot of grilled meats (kebap) and pancakes (gozleme) and not a whole lot of veggies. The staple of my diet has been the doner kebap, which is a wrap of usually grilled lamb, tomatoes, pickles, and sometimes peppers or yogurt sauce. You can get these everywhere for cheap (1-2 usd), but the really good quality ones are a little more expensive at 3-4 usd and are worth it. One of the famous ones is called Suti's and there is one in Taxim and one near the residential area of Eminou.
One of the beautiful things to do in Istanbul is to go down to the Bosphorus river and do a cruise up and down it. There is the Gulata Bridge which crosses over the river to the asia side of istanbul and you can take a walk across it. Is is always covered with fisherman. One of my best days was when I was walking across the bridge back to Sultanhamet and the sun was setting. I stopped and bought a fresh fish sandwich that fishermen were selling in their boats (for about $1!) of the day's catch. I ate the sandwich with the rest of the locals and watched the sun set over the Blue Mosque. It was a fantastic day.