Steven and I discovered we had similar breaks for Hanukkah, so we decided to utilize our time and travel! I hardly think that my 3 layovers in European airports during Birthright trips qualify as visiting Europe so the decision was made to visit Istanbul, both in Europe and in Asia. But Israel is technically on the Asian continent so I guess I shouldn't be so excited about going to another part of Asia. I'm just excited about it all.
Today's adventure begins last night when I got home from the WUJS tiyul/trip to the North, had to do laundry and then pack for 4 days. I stayed up way past my bedtime trying to get to a lot of things before I left, and then awoke at the lovely hour (ahem, no) of 6am when my alarm went off. I quickly put the last important belongings in my bag, had a quick breakfast (cereal!) and went to Steven's apartment so we could get picked up to go to Ben Gurion airport.
6:45am - sherut (shared cab) arrives. A few other passengers are already in which means we only have a few more stops to go to fill up all 10 seats. Pretty soon we're on our way to the airport. We ask which counter is ours, have our bags scanned, head over to get our tickets, go through security and head to the gate. Plenty of time to kill, about 2 hours. Well it IS Hanukkah, why not start the morning with a sufganiya (donut)? YUM! Sugar rush to the head; we both take out books to read until Seth and Nicole, other members of the WUJS program, arrive to the gate. They are on the same flight as us! We shared some travel plans incase we had some overlap in ideas, but none of us have cell phones that will work in Turkey so we're going to have to sort everything out by email.
The gate for the plane changes with no announcement, but thankfully we get to the new gate with plenty of time as well. We board the plane and Steven and I have the row to ourselves. No strangers - hooray! We can spread out a little bit. The flight is just over 2 hours so it's not too bad, aside from the increasing pressure in my head from the altitude drop as we land, and the cold I've been battling for the last few days. After we land in Istanbul, we meet Dina, our travel agent rep outside of Passport Control and Customs, who tells us to wait seated down for our shuttle to arrive to take us to our hotel. Gives us just enough time to get some Turkish Lira from the ATM to spend while we're here. And observe all of the religious Muslim women sporting hijabs (head coverings) who are walking around the airport. So this is what it feels like to be in the minority again.
Dina shows us the way outside of the airport to wait for our shuttle. We walk into a huge puff of smoke. No way is it even humanly possible to smoke more cigarettes than Israelis do, or so I thought. Wow, there really is a lot more cigarette smoke here than in Israel. At least at the airport. We'll see how the rest of the city and country are. We get onto the shuttle with the other families and travelers who booked with the travel agent. Dina starts speaking in Hebrew to everyone - uh oh, this is going to be interesting. She knows we are English speakers, but between both of us, we get most of what she is saying. Don't drink the water in Istanbul, it's not safe. But don't drink the water from the minibars at the hotel because they are way too expensive. Go to the store and save yourself some money. She also tells us about different possible tours while in the city, gives us her phone number, and says call for any reason. What a sweetheart! She was also one of them smoking like a chimney.
We get dropped off at our hotel and check in, go up to our room, and with a killer headache all I want to do is lie down for a nap. Lucky for me, today is apparently construction day all over Istanbul! One of the elevator shafts in the hotel is undergoing construction, so the workers are finishing up for the day with their last of the noise and the hammering, but for quite some time. Meanwhile, the air conditioner in the hotel is basically not working, so we open the window to get some fresh air (which definitely cools down the room) but there are other people making all kinds of racket outside too. Just some peace and quiet is all I ask for in a hotel! Well we don't get exactly that, but I was able to rest up for a little while before going out for a walk in the neighborhood we're in, to find some dinner and check out the sights. The fresh air does wonders for me and by the time we sit down at "Diana" our restaurant, I'm feeling much better. The wait staff are more than happy to serve us, they speak English and have English menus as well. Makes this pretty easy! I ordered a vegetarian pizza for dinner - hey we're in the Mediterranean. Kinda. Really I just didn't want to be too adventurous with foods on day 1 with a headache. Food was great but too much - couldn't finish my plate.
We walked back to the hotel, taking in the sights again. Fortunately, the sights included a candy store that had Turkish Delight and Baklava. Well, I might only be in Turkey once, so of course we hit it up! The staff at the candy store also spoke English and were very friendly. They wanted us to buy more than we did but we stuck to our guns and bought only a small amount of each. We get our sweets to go, head back to the hotel and called it a night!
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