Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople (and wasn’t it once Byzantium?)

I was sad to leave the conference in Ohrid early, but I was excited to get on with the rest of my trip. I headed north to meet up with Meredith, Melissa and Amanda, Macedonian PCVs to begin our adventure. The bus wasn’t very crowded, so we were able to spread out a little bit and we might have been able to sleep, if only we didn’t stop so much. I have never been on a bus that made so many pit stops. We had two borders to cross (and we had to get out of the bus twice at the Bulgarian-Turkish border) and we stopped at least 4 additional times. Every time we stopped, we all got off the bus and ran to the bathroom (whether we had to go or not) because we were not sure if we would stop again (but oh, we did!). Just before the Turkish border checkpoint, we stopped at a huge duty free mall that also had a food court. For some reason, Popeye’s Chicken sounded really good at 3:00 in the morning. We ordered our chicken but the order was taking forever- we almost had to leave without it as the bus driver was walking around trying to collect everyone and get out onto the bus. Finally at the last minute our food was ready and we ran out onto the bus just in time.

We arrived in Istanbul around 8:00 and after finding our hostel and dropping off our bags we walked around and got a feel for the city. In the afternoon we decided to clean off the travel dust and road weariness with a Turkish bath, possibly the best idea ever. Seriously, the baths are amazing. The whole thing was bit confusing (how does this work exactly?) the next time I go (and oh, yeah, there WILL be a next time) I think I will feel a little bit more comfortable because I’ll have a better idea of what is going on. Basically, you go into a big hot room with a stone floor, lay down and get all sweaty, and then someone comes and scrubs you down with a scubby cloth mit (layers and layers of skin and grime and grossness) and then soaps you up and give you a massage and then rinses you off with cool water. Heaven.

After we were all clean and shiny we went and took a nap (much needed) and then sat in a park and listened to a pops orchestra. Basically a perfect Turkish evening; tomorrow-another busy day with all the big sites: Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, Bosporus boat . . .