Sleep is for the weak

After working on finals up until the deadline and packing like a maniac with no time to sleep, suddenly I'm on a plane heading to Istanbul with really no clue what I'm doing. The airline, KLM, had a language game and that comprised my training in Turkish. Now I know like two Turkish words. To make matters more interesting I arrived in Istanbul with much less than I departed with. I decided to check my backpack and precisely zero of the bags from the flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul made it successfully due to a mixup at the Amsterdam airport.

So with nothing but an iPad, an empty water bottle, and a passport, my adventure began with the first goal to get to Taksim. The only instruction I received from Abeer ( my friend studying abroad whom I'm staying with ) was to get to Taksim to meet Danny, another friend visiting Istanbul.  It ended up being quite trivial to hop on a bus to Taksim and it was a great way to see some of the city.

Istanbul is incredibly hilly and everyone drives extremely aggressively. If you want to cross the street, waiting will accomplish nothing. You just have to go for it. I also quickly noticed that the city is very homogenous. Diversity is minimal and everyone looks similar, or rather, Turkish.

After meeting up with Danny and taking another bus to meet up with Abeer at his flat, we wasted no time before going out to dinner and deciding on going clubbing that night. Let me quickly summarize my first experience with real Turkish food: delicious. We then ventured back to Taksim with two girls Abeer sort of knew. The night ended up being alot fun at this club on a roof. I met a lot of people and even ran into a guy Danny and I met on the bus earlier that evening.

Six of us piled into a taxi at around 3:30am. Taxi ride from hell. We raced through city going extremely fast but to nowhere.  The driver wasn't going the right way at all. Pretty sure the driver was trying to scam us but he didn't account for one us being Turkish. We didn't get back to one of the girl's flat until 4:30 or so. At this point the last time I slept in a bed, or really slept at all, was Wednesday night for 3 hours or so. It was now Saturday morning so when I was offered one of the extra beds at the flat, there was no hesitation before accepting. We slept for 4 hours before getting the next day started off with a Turkish breakfast (delicious).

Inside the Aya Sofya

Looking up at the dome

Medusa

We said bye to the girls and met back up with Abeer to visit the Hagia Sofia (real spelling: Aya Sofya) and the Basicila Cistern. I didn't even make it to dinner after the day of walking around. I passed out at 6pm and didn't really wake up until 3am. A rest well deserved on my sleeping mat which had finally arrived with my backpack from the airport. Pictures below.