Turkey Trip Recap - Day 2 (Sunday, Oct 22)
On the flight from Chicago to Istanbul, I was seated next to a nice Turkish lady named Nurhan. She spoke English and Turkish. Whew. We chatted a lot about life, business, our plans... was a good flight companion. [We exchanged email addresses and even say hi occasionally now, two months later.]
The flight itself was uneventful. It gave me plenty of time to reflect on the purpose of my jaunt: attending my cousin's wedding! None of us from America know the bride but we're pretty good friends with the cousin and our Turkish family. We also slated about five days to vacation in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean.
Poor lil' ol' me only secured four hours of sleep in my cramped seat, placing me firmly into the "you're screwed" status of jet lag. The landing was uneventful. An old family friend that we honestly didn't know much about picked us up from the Istanbul Airport. Muhammed is the son of my dad's best friend. Little did I know, Muhammed would become one of the best personal connections we made on the entire trip. What a great guy! More on him to come.
We immediately headed to our hotel in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, Hotel Halı (halı means "rug" in Turkish). This historical district of Istanbul houses the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia mosque, the Topkapı Palace, etc... all were on our agenda to visit... later. We needed sleep. Before we settled in, we did visit the Basilica Cistern.
Read up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Cistern
The Basilica Cistern is fucking crazy. It's just this big ol' cavern that was carved out of the ground a few hundred years ago. This was when my anger at not bringing my own digital camera began to haunt me. In the cistern, there's a carved column way in the back with the head of Medusa on it. To get there, you must take a left at a fork in the road. A signpost at this fork says "<--- Medusa" at the top and "---> Exit" at the bottom. It was hilarious! I wanted a digital picture so I could paste it here and say, "I'm picking Medusa every time, bitches!!". Le sigh.
The Cistern was really nice and chilled out. Beautiful place to see, if not a little boring after 20 minutes. We immediately went back to our hotel and slept from 6pm Turkish time to about 4am.
These recaps will actually get better and more meaty soon. Promise.
The flight itself was uneventful. It gave me plenty of time to reflect on the purpose of my jaunt: attending my cousin's wedding! None of us from America know the bride but we're pretty good friends with the cousin and our Turkish family. We also slated about five days to vacation in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean.
Poor lil' ol' me only secured four hours of sleep in my cramped seat, placing me firmly into the "you're screwed" status of jet lag. The landing was uneventful. An old family friend that we honestly didn't know much about picked us up from the Istanbul Airport. Muhammed is the son of my dad's best friend. Little did I know, Muhammed would become one of the best personal connections we made on the entire trip. What a great guy! More on him to come.
We immediately headed to our hotel in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, Hotel Halı (halı means "rug" in Turkish). This historical district of Istanbul houses the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia mosque, the Topkapı Palace, etc... all were on our agenda to visit... later. We needed sleep. Before we settled in, we did visit the Basilica Cistern.
Read up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Cistern
The Basilica Cistern is fucking crazy. It's just this big ol' cavern that was carved out of the ground a few hundred years ago. This was when my anger at not bringing my own digital camera began to haunt me. In the cistern, there's a carved column way in the back with the head of Medusa on it. To get there, you must take a left at a fork in the road. A signpost at this fork says "<--- Medusa" at the top and "---> Exit" at the bottom. It was hilarious! I wanted a digital picture so I could paste it here and say, "I'm picking Medusa every time, bitches!!". Le sigh.
The Cistern was really nice and chilled out. Beautiful place to see, if not a little boring after 20 minutes. We immediately went back to our hotel and slept from 6pm Turkish time to about 4am.
These recaps will actually get better and more meaty soon. Promise.