Istanbul is not Constantinople

So after a little over a week a part, it was time to reunite in Istanbul. Each of us had our own way of reaching Turkey. Jon chose to take a boat to Bodrum and bus from there straight to Istanbul. Evren and Russell came overland via Sofia, Bulgaria. We all made it in one piece and gladly reunited at what would prove to be one of our best hostels yet, the Metropolis Hostel in Sultanehmet district of Istanbul so named after the Blue Mosque which goes by Sultanehmet in Turkey.

Blue Mosque

But before we could fully reunite, we were met by our fourth roomate, Carlos aka King Carlos (ok, Jon was the only one who called him that). Carlos was from South Afrika (with a very distinct and borderline un-understandable accent) but his parents were from Portugal. We learned all this after five minutes of conversation with him. I should also mention that Carlos is crazy. Literally. He talked to cats and well, developed quite the reputation on the street where we stayed. Despite this, we endured three night with King Carlos before ultimately sucumbing to his distinct order and switching rooms. I am only mentioning Carlos to give you a good sense of some of the people we interact with. This trip has run the gambit of personalities from the successful Norwegian business man we met in the nearly bankrupt Iceland (take that for gauging us on food Iceland) to Ceasar, our comical hostel host in Istanbul.

Fisherman overlooking Bospherus River

Anyway, back to Istanbul. We spent the 5 days we were here exploring the city and seeing most of the sites (see forthcoming pictures). Istanbul is quite the city (it is the largest city we have been to by far at nearly 16 million people) with a distinct culture from most of Europe. However, you still get the sense you are not completely out of the Western World. Now on to Izmir for our next adventure.