4 June

4 June

The sun in Athens rises sometime between 5:20 and 6:00.  We entered the Metro when it was dark and the next time the train came outside the sun was just creeping over the mountains.  We made it to the airport without any problems and were glad we got there with time to spare, because you have to go through passport control on the way out of the country.  We also got our VAT reimbursement for the dresses, which I forgot to do in Italy.  Fortunately we were still in the EU, so the paperwork was still valid.  The flight to Istanbul was also uneventful, although we had to catch a bus and walk up stairs to get on the Olympic Airlines plane.  The plane left late, but since we were under no time rush, NBD to us.  In Turkey we had to pay $20 USD/person for Visa's into the country.  That's the first line we had to stand in.  Once you get your stamp Visa, we went to Passport control.  From the looks of the number of people going through Passport control there were several planes that came in the same time.  This was confirmed when we saw the monitor for our luggage carousel and there was one flight from New York.  Customs was easy, we just pulled our suitcase pass the agents, as we had nothing to declare and nobody stopped us.  We then started looking for our name on a piece of paper held by a guy from the pre-ordered transfer service.  We turned left and went down the row with no luck, then on the right side Roger found Sassman and we were met by our driver.  It was way to hard to take the Metro and our hotel is several blocks from the Metro station, so we went for a transfer.

Our driver said that the old part of Istanbul is safe and hasn't been bothered by the protests which are occurring in new Istanbul.  He said that the biggest part of the problem is immigrants who are coming to the city in search of jobs.  He said "I hate foreigners who take jobs."  Pretty much sums up a lot of people's opinion globally as far as immigration and jobs go.  Our hotel, The Royal Sultan, is nicer than the one we had in Athens.  The room is clean, compact with a nice guy at the front (we also had a very nice lady at the desk in Athens).  The floors are wooden and we have a small throw rug.  We're in a corner room, so there are 3 windows.  There's ac and Internet, so Roger has no complaints.

Since we arrived before noon, our room wasn't ready.  The guy at the desk let us leave our luggage and we left for a walk up to the Blue Mosque and it's square.  Note:  you can't swing a cat in old Istanbul without hitting a mosque.  We walked around the outside of the mosque and square, which was crowded for a Tuesday afternoon.  The cart vendors were selling roasted corn, roasted chestnuts, and various soft pretzel looking things that were covered in sesame seeds.  The corn smelled good, but I have a hard time buying something from a guy over a roaster with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  (In our unscientific opinion, there are a lot more smokers in the Europe we've seen than in the USA.  Eating al fresco is annoying, because smokers light up at the table and inevitably you get wafts of their smoke.  There's no smoking inside, which is why most of the restaurant tables are outside.)  We walked back to our room and settled in for a a brief regrouping.

I had read in our Istanbul book and seen on the Amazing Race (tv show) about the Grand Bazaar.  So I made Roger go to the Grand Bazaar.  It is huge and the guys selling stuff aren't afraid of trying to lure you into their stall.

- Hey Mister, how can I hound you today to get you to buy something?

- You really don't need this, but you're going to buy it anyway.

- How much are you willing to spend on this beautiful item, make me an offer?

- Yes you say you are coming back.  My grandmother said the same thing and we're still waiting for her to rise from the dead.

-  You really do need to buy something for your wife, else she won't behave tonight.

And on and on.

Roger wanted to leave 1 minute after we got there.  I think we ended up staying for a whopping 30 minutes.  There are no smoking signs posted all over the place, but apparently those are only for decoration.  The place had a light haze of smoke from various things.

On our way back we passed an Ice Cream stand that had a guy doling out ice cream in a unique way.  I had seen this same serving technique on Amazing Race and it was cool to also see it up close and personal.  Roger thought it was fun to watch too.

Right now we're relaxing before we go out to find a restaurant for supper.  We saw several restaurants on our walk, so I suspect we'll have kabobs of some sort.  We're taking an all day Istanbul tour tomorrow and a Bosphorus Straits boat ride on Thursday.