The Blues in Istanbul
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2006
1
48
52
Trip End
May 13, 2007
Istanbul,
Turkey
Sunday, April 29, 2007
The other side - the European side is a wonderful mix of side streets full of little coffee shops, restaurants and bars and also large pedestrianised shopping streets that could be anyplace in Europe.
Luckily for us we have a really good friend in Istanbul ............. John who you will recognise from the Syrian entries , and he took us into his lovely apartment and became our host, tour guide and drinking buddy for 3 days and nights.
In this time he took us up to the highest point of Istanbul on a tower whos name escapes me (sorry John) to look over both sides of the city. Then we took a ferry up the great horn and crossed to Constantinople and visited some really cool mosques before sampling some great kofta that John almost managed to order correctly for us in Turkish. John and I took in a Cuban jazz show that first night while Jimmy caught up on some "beauty sleep" and drank way too much beer.
On day 2 even though we had planned to see the Ayasofia mosque and maybe the great palace too, we just strolled about before taking John to the "James Joyce" Irish bar to teach him the joys of darts and Irish "stew" before watching Liverpool v Chelsea in the Champions leauge semi final and then celebrated Liverpools great victory into the early hours.Again we drank way too much beer !!
Our last morning I had planned to travel down to the Ataturk stadium on a pilgrimage as this was where Liverpool won the champions league 2 years ago , but we had some awful rain that day and so like the Ayasofia it will have to wait until my next trip to Istanbul which wont be too far in the future.
After a day spent on the internet we went to a small little cafe and met another friend from Syria, this time a local guy from Istanbul called Bilgesu, but unfortunately we didnt meet the other Bilgesu..........
A The Tower
a girl we met with the first Bigesu (I know I am getting confused myself but they are 2 cool guys both with the same name) this time but we will next time hopefully !! We spent the evening learning a lot about Turkish politics and all about the May day "trouble" from Bilgesu before parting and going for some dinner and then to a Blues club to watch a band from Johns home stste of Arkansas in the states called The Larry Macay band. The music was great and we had a "few" more beers before leaving the club at midnight and collecting our bags back in Johns and catching our bus to the airport !!It was sad leaving John and Istanbul behind as we had some of the best "Craic" of this trip there and I will definately be back there in the near future !!
