Awake in Istanbul!

Our third and last day in Istanbul and we are beginning to feel normal again. Being a little more decompressed and relaxed makes the crowds a bit easier and more fun to take in. Last night we had an incredible meal at a restaurant around the corner. How could it be bad with an eggplant appetizer and then stuffed eggplant followed by baklava?? The evening was much warmer and we took a lovely walk through the Hippodrome. Mike also befriended a local dog and got a little more attention than he bargained for! The pup seemed starved for attention (he was playing with a can after all when Mike whistled at him) and wanted to play like Sunny which causes a little apprehension when it’s a street dog in Istanbul. Mike was finally able to get away from him and his friend but only after being softly chewed and slobbered on. It definitely got some laughs from me and other folks walking by! We spent our last day doing some familiar things such as walking through Hagia Sophia and being overwhelmed at the magnificence of this place in history.



Also drinking a beer in one of the many fish restaurants under the Galata Bridge.



We feel that we could sit there forever just watching all of the boat traffic, as well as the tourists and Turkish families strolling by.





Also the dozens of fishing poles on the level above us casting their lines into the Bosphorus only to bring up a fish the size of a sardine.



We also stopped in a bakery we went to a couple of years ago that had the most amazing baklava. We ordered a piece and savored it only to find that it was on the house when we went to pay. The morning started off with sunshine but the clouds darkened and wind and rain came as we left the waterfront. We battled upstream on the tiny sidewalks through the hordes of locals making their way to the waterfront to catch a ferry back home. We then hung out in our cozy hotel lobby until it was time to leave for our bus. Once at the otogar (bus station) we had the sense that we were finally traveling….and all from the smell of the squat toilets. Our friend Steve calls Nescafe the “taste of adventure”. Well, now I call squat toilets “the smell of adventure”!