20120702
It is my last day in Istanbul. I am leaving for Dalyan, Turkey, tomorrow for a week on the Aegean Sea with family. I have greatly enjoyed Istanbul I am not sure that will miss it. After 4.5 days of doing the tourist thing, I am ready for a break. I remember asking my Uncle Cliff, who will be in Dalyan with us, whether he was interested in seeing Istanbul with me. His response was that he was not much of a city person which I realize but it was worth asking.
Looking back I realized Cliff would have gone nuts in this city of 17 million natives and God knows how many tourists. My hotel is at the heart of the tourist district. All I have to do is walk 200 meters to insanity that lasts from about 0800 until 2000. The fact that I have seen everything I wanted to see in four days and still have not been in a vehicle is a testament to the location but I am done. I do not need to see another mosque for quite a while and I look forward to not having some many cool thing to take pictures of if that makes any sense.
I am still an overweight beer swilling slob but at least I got another good day of walking in today. If ever I could use and enjoy a hot tub, now would be the time. I think if I were flying home to D.C. today, I would have to be paraplegic so I could manage the flight without my legs driving me nuts. I walked from the hotel to the Mosque of Suleymaniye the Magnificent which was awesome but, as I said, I am starting to feel like a character in the “Red Mosque of Death.” I am no longer minaready!
From the mosque, which was built on of the seven hills of the city, think Rome, I walked down to the Spice Market and across the street to the Galata Bridge, famous for being a hot fishing spot for locals and a so so place for seafood for tourists. On the way, I came across yet another huge mosque, the New Mosque. The fisherman do their thing from both sides on the top of the bridge and restaurants are located underneath with a break in the middle for boats to get through. My intent was to cross the bridge and go up into Galata tower which was reputed to have the best view over all of the city.
The tower lived up to its reputation but I am lucky I lived walking up to it. Thankfully there was an elevator that took you up nearly to the top. There were the usual tourist traps near the top, a restaurant and a night club that no one was really using. I can see where the club might have been cool, at night with a 360 degree view of the city, including the Golden Horn and Old Districts. I cannot imagine getting down the hill from there after a few drinks though. Talk about rolling drunks….
Anyhow, after exiting the elevator, you go up two more stories on a spiral staircase…more on spiral staircases later. The staircase is adequate for one person, one way but had to handle multiple people both ways including those individuals who thought for some dumb reason that they needed to take pictures of each other on the staircase. Slowly we turn and all that.
The capper, pun intended since we were at the top of the tower, was the instruction to go around the outside viewing area passage way, which was about as wide as the average back street in the Old District, two feet. The sign clearly said to go around to the right, clockwise. There was no clock wisedom for about half the crew. As I worked my way around to the right, I battled the idiots that didn’t get the picture. Oh, and speaking of pictures, did I mention that getting around the viewing area was made difficult not only because of the wrong way Randy’s but because of…wait for it…the people that had to take pictures of each other while on a narrow walkway 100 feet off the ground.
Before I forget, I have to mention that today seems to be the driest day I have had here with a wicked nice breeze blowing off the water. I have been up on the rooftop terrace for about three hours and am just loving it, Laughing Gulls notwithstanding.
And so, after a lotta Galata, I headed back down from the tower and back across the bridge. I stopped at a seafood restaurant for lunch which was good but expensive. I ordered the grill swordfish with a salad. That came with bread and spices and herb in oil to dip it in. I only ate have the bread and half the salad but the swordfish came out grilled on a skewer with only five or six pieces on it. At 55 TL with tip I thought that was pricey but it was recommended. Once again, I wish I could have had a doggy bag. I could have cut my meal expense by a third if I could have taken my leftovers with me.
After lunch, I generally followed the tram line back up to Hagia Sophia from where it was a short walk back to the hotel. As usual, I washed up, read, and cooled off for awhile. Since then I have been on the rooftop terrace writing and talking to Craig and Karen, the Aussies. I wanted to work on photos but the brilliant sunshine made viewing the laptop screen difficult enough that doing so was nearly impossible.
I think it is time now to get some grub. I might see about getting a small pizza so I can save half of it for breakfast tomorrow. Since I am heading off to the airport at 0500, I am not sure what my eating opportunities are going to be in the morning.
I ended up going to the Sultan Hostel Cafe where I had a couple of brews and ordered a the pizza. I ate half of it and saved the rest for breakfast as planned. While there there was a woman who I assumed was Turkish. She looked very pregnant and apparently felt very pregnant. One of the waiters at the place appeared to be the father of the child. She was riding him unmercifully.
First she demanded candy and after he brought it to her, she chowed down on 2 or 3 chocolate bars and a bag of gummy worms. Then she ordered some salad that she just shoved into her gaping maw complaining about the food the whole time. Meanwhile, the future father sat with her to eat a pizza out of which he got only about two slices. It was pretty funny to watch his coworkers come over and steal slices when he wasn’t looking!
Last night was the Euro Cup soccer final featuring Spain vs. Italy..only a moderately huge rivalry. They had three wide screens in the place and the manager was, in a very biased manner, giving out the best seats to his cronies. Eventually he asked ne if I would move over join the pregnant monster at her table. I was afraid but I agreed. Come to find out the woman is from Swansee, Wales, and has been teaching preschool for five years in Istanbul. She was not as far along in her pregnancy as I imagined. She was at 6.5 months and preparing to head home to have the baby in Wales before she lost her National Health coverage.
She got all excited when told her we were going to Dalyan noting that she had been there a couple of times and really enjoyed it. I bailed out of the eatery shortly before the soccer match. It was really filling up w/ spectators and I had no interest in the match so I gave up my seat for someone that cared. Oddly, I noted on the way back to the hotel that after one block there were hardly any lights on. I stopped at my usual corner store to get some water where the proprietor told me that power was out all over the district.
That did not seem to be the case because lights were still on in some places. The desk clerk at my hotel told me that power outages are common enough that some places, including hotels were required to have generators. Of course mine did not have one. Thankfully, as per my custom, I had a flash light with me. I went in and packed up my bags then went out and chatted up the cabal of desk clerks in the area and the the Aussies, Craig and Karen.
I crashed at about 0030 which was stupid because I had to be up at 0430. Thankfully it had been a fairly cool day with a strong wind so I opened up my balcony door which made for a comfortable, albeit short, sleep. the off to Daylan.
On a final note for this entry, if I never see a another spiral staircase again in my life I won’t regret, after repeatedly climbing the spiral staircase up and down three flights between my room and the roof top terrace in my hotel, I am done with them. They were narrrow and dark and since I was drinking beer on the roof I kept having to go down three flights to my room to use the bathroom.
