The Beginning of the End

So Turkey was a pretty cool place to go, probably the biggest surprise, because I was unsure of what to expect, but I had a blast!

Our last night there, after the money dried up, we sadly got McDonalds. I know! I am in a foreign country and what do I eat? McD's. It was a low moment aka everything, especially food, it really expensive in Istanbul, so I had to.

It was pretty gross, but then we just wandered the streets and looked in terrible tourists shops and met up with my friend T who took us for Hukka & apple tea. YUM.

So I realized after a few days of constantly being offered apple tea, that it is the tea of choice. It is basically apple juice hot, but soooo much better. It was delicious! I now wish I got some to bring home, but E informed me there is a cool international market in DC, which I am going to hit up!

So the 4 of us hung out, smoked some strawberry hukka, people watched, and talked about our great adventures. It was perfect, yet totally sad that it was coming to an end.

We went back to the hostel & changed into comfy plane clothes, checked our email, and caught the shuttle at 12:15 AM to get our 4AM flight to Frankfurt.

The airport (the cheaper one) was only an hour away and we got there with more than enough time and through airport security...I think this is the first time since I STARTED the trip that I left more than 15 mins to get there...GO team.

J slept on the dirty airport floor and E & I took pictures and ate delicious chocolate...I miss it already. (I lived on this type of choco by the way people...it is amazing.)

We caught our flight & headed to Frankfurt.

Bad Ass Bargaining

So being women (no offense to women who don't like shopping and bargaining) the girls & I dedicated the entire day to getting some shopping done with the last $50 in our bank accounts.

Sadly T had the pleasure of telling us girls the night before that our plan had a slight problem....the Bazaar is CLOSED ON SUNDAYS!

What thE HECK. OMG. The well-known, 4500 shop Bazaar was closed...but we dedicated a whole DAY to shopping!!! NOOOOOOOOO.

So we decided, screw it, we are gonna find a bazaar and haggle anyway! And that is exactly what we did.

Next to the Blue Mosque there is a smaller bazaar, called the Artisan Bazaar, which has really beautiful bowls, tea sets, and other cool things.

One store had these beautiful light blue/dark blue plates & small jewelery holders that I found myself wanting, very badly...so I bought a few things for friends and family and a small thing for myself.

Next on the agenda was a BIG ticket item. Pashminas. As many as we could hold & afford.

Sadly, again, Istanbul is expensive, BUT we did awesome bargaining, and each got 2 really pretty pashminas for 20 lira. They are sooo nice! It is the best thing to get in Europe and totally worth a round-trip ticket!

Next we decided to wander through the streets and just see where the wind took us...it was cold, but happily not raining for the first time.

We wandered down and found the Big Bazaar, which sadly as T warned us, was closed.

However this other random bazaar, which was a guy fest for some reason...like it was jeans & underwear and 97% men...very odd.

But we did find purses & sunglasses and I fell in LOVE with this one mustard colored, over the shoulder, fake Jimmy Choo (YUM!...and people I don't do yellows, but it is the best bag evvverr)

And E found an awesome choco & blue purse and we decided to bargain. Bad Ass hats on!

Each bag cost 160 lira aka 140 bucks. I had about $10 left in the bank account.

Crap.
I want it.
Okay..so the two bags together he told us would cost 350 lira. Heck No h20.

We told him 100 lira. He looked at us like we were crazy & told us we had credit cards and money and he could never sell it to us for 100.

We said 100.

He told us that Bush's daughter was at their shop (yah RIGHT.) and he sold her a bag for 1000 lira. We told him that was bull and no American in their right mind would ever pay good money for a knock-off, especially a girl who can get the real bag in America for LESS.

We still said 100.

We started to walk away.

We WON.

The owner said the day was slow, and if we had cash only the bags were ours for a special offer of 100 lira.

We ran, got the last of the cash out, and got our two bags for 100 lira!

It was awesommme. I sleep with my bag I love it so much.

Best way to end an awesome Euro Trip!

Buy One, Get Me Free

Our second day in Istanbul we decided to hit up the Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar (ladies and gentlemen it is the size of 3 or 4 football fields and hosts 4500 shops!)

Of course it was raining, since rain follows us, but again, we couldn't give up the day, and we made the best of it!

We headed to Topkapi, got our tickets, and headed into this huge palace, which takes a few hours to go through. It was awesome! We got to see the old kitchens, hundreds of rubies, sapphires, and swords, plus countless plates & garbs of the big kings who kicked everyones butts & got what they wanted!

But seriously the place was awesome and it was a good thing to do on a rainy day, plus I look good in my rainy day outfit & gives me a reason to not get dressed up, which is always a plus.


(girls at Topkapi Palace)

That took us through most the day and we were going to go to the Bazaar, but figured we would dedicate an entire day to that on Sunday.

So we again did some cat napping, grabbed some food at our hostel, which was cheap & filling, and the manager sang 80s songs to us while he smoked. It was pretty entertaining!

We walked outside of our hostel to grab a cab, and let me tell you that everyone warned us about the sketchy Turkish men and how you have to be careful, but I give these guys props. They are creative!

In just a few mins walk down our street we got just these few calls:
"Hi ladies, do you have facebook?"
"Buy one, get me free" (at a store)
"Charlie's Angels"
"I think you have an appointment with me"

...well done men, well done. If you are gonna hit on me and be creepy, at least be creative!

We grabbed a cab, met T and went to a club called Babylon, the apparent hot spot of Istanbul. But again, expensive! It was 35 lira to get in the door aka $30, which I don't think I have ever paid to get in some where and they played 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s metal...oh jeez.

Then I had the bright idea that drinks were more expensive than shots (according to the dude at our hostel) so I ordered J & I a shot of tequila....24 LIRA. What the HELL.

So that was all the money for that night and the girls & I had an awesome sober dance party on the floor for my last night in Istanbul, with air guitar and head bobbing included. Beats having a hang over!

Rain Followers

So after we finally made it to Istanbul alive and got on the tram to our hostel we were ready to go to sleep immediately, but like the troopers we are, we dropped our stuff off, showered our dirty dirty bodies, and hit the road to explore.

We first went to Aya Sofya aka St. Sophia, which was a church, turned mosque (surprise!), but the annoying thing was it cost 20 lira aka about $18 to go in. Wasn't Jesus all about giving? aka poor just graduated college kids should get in FREE.




There are no student discounts in all of Istanbul by the way!

But it was a cool place, with awesome views of the city and some great architecture. Then we moved onto the Blue Mosque, which is the biggest and most well known in all of Istanbul, and that ladies and gentlemen, was free!

It was pretty awesome sight to see and women had to have heads and legs covered and shoes off. It was so pretty inside and people were praying, which was cool to see. I was excited to be in a city that was totally different from any other and it was soothing to hear the calls for prayer. I even took a video like a nerd!


(me at the Blue Mosque)

Then after our two sight seeing adventures, we decided we needed a huge nap, as my friend T was taking us out for a bit of Turkish partying.

That tiny nap turned into about a 4 hour nap (yum!) and we got up and used some free internet, which was a huge plus for our hostel, and T came to get us...the only thing was it was raining!

So T took us to the hot spot, only that hot spot has lots of outdoor bars, which no one was about to go to because it was so cold! He then took us to a club called Ridden, which is the only club in Istanbul that plays rap and hip-hop (I was craving it!) and we danced and hung out.

It was a great start to the trip, but sadly this stupid rain keeps following us! What the heck!?