Cordial House Hotel Istanbul

I got an upgrade from a twin share to a single room last night, it was absoluetly beautiful. First time I had a room to myself in over a month!!!!! It had a TV and everything, I found an American kid's christian channel, so spend part of the evening watching Psalty the Singing Songbook tackle the issue of Anorexia. Very educational. The manager of the Hotel offered to show me around today, taking half a day off work to do so! Turkish people are incredibly helpful and hospitable. We started ou...

The last two days have been museum days. Yesterday morning, I went to the Basilica Cistern. It's bcompletely unlike any of the cisterns I saw in Israel. Its turkish name means "sunken palace" and that makes sense. It's beautiful actually. Very decorative.A bit of a highlight for this place was this: I had finished with my chewing gum and spotted a bin, it was empty, bar a coke can, standing rightside up. I threw my chewy in the bin, and ting! In it went, through the ring pull hole! What a sho...

On my way to the Grand Bazaar today, I was stopped by a rug seller, who invited me in "just for some tea." I told him I wasn't going to buy anything, that I didn't want a rug, and he said that it was okay, just come in for some tea, so I did. The fact that apple tea is nearly coming out of my pores is insignificant. His name was Tommy, he was 25 and had just recently returned from Iraq where he was working on a US Army base, selling carpets. He had been selling carpets since the ripe old age ...

It took us a couple of days to make it to Istanbul but we have arrived. We took a flight from Basel Euro Airport to Istanbul and when we walked out of the front doors of the airport we knew it was going to be a challenge. Our first objective if finding our hostel. The directions we had received did not include the directions from this airport so we were going to have to wing it. There was no phone in sight and the people around spoke very little English. We asked around and from the few respo...

We arrive to Istanbul at 1205

apologıes for any squıffy punctuatıon - keyboard has turkısh layoutç Arrıved ın turkey on saturday. Flıght ın from Frankfurt was a bıt haıry, some turbulence and spılt drınks and screamıng chıldren (me ıncluded). Was very happy to arrıve at Ataturk aırport ın one pıece. Got a bıt stranded ın Aksaray whıch was mental - very busy wıth market traders and street vendors. No hassle, just looked pretty shady. Can't quıte belıeve ı don't work for a lıvıng at the moment and have yet to get my days so...

I had been on the train from Bucharest for almost 24 hours by the time I arrived in Istanbul. I had carefully written down my route from the train station to the hostel (google maps-what a lifesaver), so after I walked the platform for a block to the station from the train wagon, I bought a map first thing. I studied it; took about half an hour to draw my route on my map, but I finally was able to nail down my hostel location.
I noticed that I could take the light rail almost the whole wa...

Im goıng to keep thıs very brıef sınce I just arrıved and the sun ıs settıng behınd the Hagıa Sofıa out the wındow and I want to catch the vıew - but Istanbul ıs nothıng short of spectacular. From the aıport I took a bus to metro to funıcular to tram and only got lost navıgatıng the tıny cobblestone streets of the old cıty tryıng to locate my hostel. Throughout the drıve from the aırport to the metro, the cıty unfolded- mınaret after mınaret to a skylıne domınated by suspensıon brıdges and sk...

These keyboards are annoyıng the shıt out of me so I apologıze ıf thıs comes out as funky as my last post. Istanbul has been fantastıc, although a bıt too tourısty for my tastes. Before leavıng I spent the bulk of my tıme readıng about the more remote destınatıons on my ıtınerary, so I dıdnt exactly know what to expect from Istanbul. Cleary Istanbul has a rıch archıtectural and cultural hıstory, wh&...

This morning was our first day in the city of Istanbul. We only planned to be here for 3 days, therefore we were pretty aggressive with our itin here.

First we visited Hagia Sophia (the church that was build over 1500 years ago). Despite the technology at that time, they were able to build a dome that is large enough to have housed the statue liberty inside the dome (well... minus the torch). See pic

We also visited a underground cistern (a huge underground water reservoir that...