so I've never been on a plane for more than three hours and i haven't been on a plane before this trip in 12 years. so it was kinda scary that i was now going to be on a plane for almost ten hours to get to Istanbul. so to calm the nervousness i had a beer before i left to go to the airport then when i met up with my friend i had another beer and she thought it would be a good idea to order us two double shots of jack. i can admit i was feeling a little tipsy and didn't know at the time the plane would be serving more free booze. The main sign I was a little fucked up was my analogy that I was like a fine wine that needed to be sipped to get the full effect. Don't even ask me to explain that because quite frankly I don't even remember what we were talking about for me to give that comment. So fast forward to us getting on the plane and the flight attendant yells at me for not turning off my phone lol which turned out to be a good thing since that's how we met the girls from Dallas who were sitting in front of us. i will say i can fly anyway if u give me enough beer and wine. by this point i was a lot more tipsy so i don't know exactly how but we started chatting with the girls from Dallas. and I'm pretty sure we were very loud but whatever. all that booze and i only slept for three hours.
welcome to Istanbul! Ive always wanted to go there since i took a art history class back in college and now it was finally happening. it was everything i thought it would be. first day there we went to the Hagia Sophia and the blue mosque both are absolutely breath taking. Day two we did the Bosphorus cruise which was another great day. Seeing all the sights along the Bosphorus strait was amazing. We got off the cruise at the last stop (Anadolu Kavagi) to take in the sights and check out Yoros Castle and the sights. No one mentioned that it was a hike to get to this damn castle and of course we had no water. Walking up hill in the sun is no fucking picnic I will tell you that much. But it was worth it when you get up top and take in those amazing views. Walking down was nothing compared to that hellish walk to get up there. After getting back to Istanbul we decided to hit up the spice market. which is a very crowded place with people standing in front of their shops trying to get you to come in. The sales people are kind of aggressive but i guess you have to be given there's competition everywhere around you. More on this later. Day three was more sight seeing and probably the low point of the trip, so we decided to go to the Grand Bazaar, which is like the Spice Bazaar on steroids. We encountered this guy who was selling flavored tobacco so I stop to see how much it is, basically he started high and worked his price lower but i didn't like how pushy he was being so i was going to leave. That's when he proceeded to call us niggers! yup niggers. Shocked the shit out of me because I've never been called that to my face a day in my life, people may say it behind my back but never to my face. It kind of floored me but we were in a different country so the only to do was to leave well i guess since niggers didn't get a rise out of us he called us rednecks. I never knew you could be a redneck and a nigger and on that note all i can do is laugh because he obviously didn't even know which insult to call us. That kind of put a damper on my mood for the next hour or so but when we got back to the room we got a email from the Dallas girls and decided to meet up with them that night for drinks. Oh yeah I got the girls email on the plane but see above about how drunk I was...yeah I shouldn't take peoples email addresses when i am drunk because boy oh boy did I mess it up and the email was kicked back earlier that day. Thankfully I gave them my email and they wrote us. We had a great time in Takism with them and again somehow I got pretty tipsy but a good night in deed. Day four was more sight seeing with the girls from Dallas. I know there names but i guess they will always be the girls from Dallas lol. Day 5 it was time to say good bye to Istanbul and hello to ATHENS!! more on this later
Back to Istanbul I don't know if I would ever go back, not because of the one incident at the grand bazaar but more so that the people there are very pushy. At times that pushiness can become overwhelming especially when you are just trying to walk down the street. I get it, they have to be aggressive but that aggressiveness can turn folks off. I know that's what happened with me. I got sick of saying "No thank you, we are not hungry" or "No thank you, we don't want to buy anything", or No, Thank you we are just browsing". I will say these men are determined to get your business. Even if they see you shut down the guy at the restaurant right next door to them they will still ask you if you want to look at the menu. Best sales line we heard was "How can I get you to spend your money", got to love the guys honestly and that he was straight to the point, we didnt buy anything from him but i respect his hustle. It wasn't until day four that I just was over having to deal with people trying to get you into their shop. Like in the spice market I went and brought things from the guy who didn't come out of his shop to get us. I liked not feeling pressured. Besides the nigger/redneck comment we were called Michelle Obama (ALOT), The Spice Girls and one guy thought we were South Africans. I was also not impressed with the food. I think the biggest mistake we made was trying to go to nice looking restaurants because it ended up being the best meal we had was 5 lira ($2.82), new rule when overseas try the cheapest food you can find because that might be the gem.
The flight to Athens was over before it even began which was a change after flying for 10 hours to get to Istanbul. I will start off by saying that Athens is dirty, I don't mean that to be offensive its just I wasn't expecting it to look like that. It made the roughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx look like gems. So you will understand my concerned look when the cab pulled over and said this is your hotel. All throughout the cab ride I thought we were just driving through the bad parts of Athens...WRONG!! Day 1 in athens was just chill, we basically just walked around the areas by the hotel but the best thing happened. I had the best gyro and beer (Amstel Light). I thought things in Istanbul was cheap but a gyro for 2 euro was great and 2 for a beer I was in heaven!. Day two we went to Acropolis which was great to see in person. And getting up that hill looked very intimidating and after the Yoros hike you would think we would have learned our lesson but we didn't. So the hike began with no damn water lol. But once at the top i realized it was no where as bad as the Yoros Castle hike. See the Parthenon in person was something I will never forget. This trip will always be special to me since it was my first. Day three we did a short bus tour to the temple of Poseidon which was also a cool sight to see.
The vibe in Athens is totally different than it is in Istanbul, I think we were only approached with a menu once and people were not pushy to get you to buy things from them. We were tourist but we weren't treated like tourist and that was a breath of fresh air. Overall, the trip was great and I had an amazing time. Now its time to plan the next vacation and I am thinking Paris or Spain but it depends on which place I can convince Brandon to go to...so until next time.
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