Istanbul - Day 1

Friday – 6/8/07
First day in Istanbul: already an adventure

Well the flight was long as we had a 3 hr connection/layover in Frankfurt, but as am now an expert at sleeping anywhere, anytime – I slept through about 7 of the 10 hours we were en route.

We get to the Istanbul airport, get our bags – no problem and then headed to catch an airport/hotel shuttle. We were stopped by this guy standing right in front of the door and told us that we could get a shuttle at the rental car place. So we followed him and the guy there said it was gonna be 50 turkish liras for the both of us to get to our hotel which was in Taksim and the the shuttle would go directly to our hotel. We thought that was too expensive and were about to leave when he bargained down to 45 and then 40. again we thought it was too much so we left. As we walked back to the airport/hotel shuttle area, the guy a couple doors down stopped us and tried the same thing. He said 45 and then 40 when we told him the other guy offered us 40. again he said that the shuttle would go straight to our hotel instead of stopping everywhere on the way. So we agreed even though I was a little hesitant…Rafael had the money and was ok with it.

He quickly took our bags and told us to follow him. When we had to go inside the parking garage, Rafael and I looked at eachother knowing that we shoulda stuck to our guns and taken the airport/hotel shuttle. The guy crammed both of us in the front seat with the driver (mind you – Rafael is a BIG guy) and there were 4 other people in the back seat.
I KNEW we definitely didn’t get what we bargained for…we ended up hitting 2 other hotels (NOT near ours) and it took a good hour at least to get to our hotel. There was also a little adventure on the way from the last hotel to ours. We were going up this tiny one way street when another truck started heading down! Our guy honked and yelled but the other guy yelled and wouldn’t budge. I think for some reason, he had to park on the sidewalk near where we were and wanted US to reverse. By this time 2 other cars had gotten behind us and all 3 of us had to reverse. The other guy moved forward and BARELY left any room for us to go around him. The hotel time our guy is yelling and cursing at him and then spits outside his window towards the truck guy once we finally pass. He doesn’t speak any English, but he turns to Rafael (I’d moved to the back seat once the other passengers left) and goes “Turkish people”. Haha – we all laughed. Then he offered Rafael a cigarette (which was refused) and asked in Turkish if it was ok for him to smoke cause he was stressed. What were we gonna say, so he did. FINALLY, we end up at our hotel – the Hotel Marmara, which was a pretty nice looking hotel. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so Rafael grabbed something quick to eat at Burger King. Yes – burger king…not my first choice but we were starving and it was close. We got back to the hotel, our room was ready and when we get there we find out they gave us 1 double. Hahaha – obviously that was NOT gonna work. So we had to call and switch rooms. By the time all this was done, it was about 4:30pm. We headed to our first destination – Dolmabahce Palace. Not too far from our hotel so we walked it. Unfortunately, what we didn’t realize is that the Palace closed at 4pm and the café nearby was all that was open. So we walked around and took some pictures of the outside and decided to come back Sunday morning as it’s a 2 hour tour. Then we headed over to the Ortakoy area and checked out the restaurants (too bad we’d already eaten) and the little vendor shops where they sold random jewelry, sunglass and purse knock-offs, etc. Nothing too fancy or anything that peaked my interest, so we left to head back to the hotel shortly after checking out the area. The coolest part of Ortakoy was the view. It was right on the Basphora River and had a gorgeous view of the other side. I took a couple of pictures and will post them later.So that’s it for now. Tonight Rafael and I are heading to Reina – some fancy schmancy restaurant/club for dinner and then we’ll check out the night-life in the area. Should be interesting…will keep you posted later!