Day One in Istanbul: Success!

A lovely first day in Turkey. Nothing too exciting, really, but we started to get a sense of the city in a nice, slow, relaxed way.

We decided to spend our first day just exploring the area near where we are staying. It turns out that our house is located just a few minutes walk from one of the main centers of Istanbul, Taksim Square, so it's a pretty hopping, cool area to be in. We spent some time wandering around there, drinking coffee, ambling about and just soaking in the feel of the place. We stumbled upon an outdoor used book fair where we spent a lot of time poking through books and an interesting variety of all sorts of other random things (like a huge box of old black and white photos of totally random people, for example. Hmmm.).

Istanbul was named the European Capital of Culture for 2010, which is quite an honor. To demonstrate some of this culture, there was a tent set up in the middle of the square where they were showing people how to do "marbling" on paper. We almost got to do one ourselves (would have been the best souvenier ever!) but, alas, they were closing. Ah, well...

We had read in a city guide about Istiklal Cadessi, which is, as the guide book points out, the street where you go to "see and be seen". It turns out that it is right off of Taksim Square so also right by our house... we're totally staying in a prime location! We found what we thought was the street but when we saw how crowded it was, we thought something must be going on, something HUGE like a riot or a strike. We figured we were out of luck, that we wouldn't be able to check it out, but the closer we got we realized that there was no major uprising happening, it's just that crowded. The street is a cool mix of new and modern, yet also mixed in with the old and traditional. If only there could have been about half a million less people there. But then, I guess, that would be less people to see and to have see you!

Sarah and I got a recommendation from our hosts about what would be a traditional Turkish restaurant, and we headed out for dinner. We muddled through the ordering process but still couldn't tell you what we ate. More than anywhere on this trip so far, I am feeling keenly the disadvantages of not being able to speak the language. When needing to order something, I am reduced to being a mute idiot who can do nothing but point and gesture. I can't even apologize to them about just how pathetic my Turkish is. The guys have taught us some basic Turkish words and I've even written them on a "cheat sheet" I carry with me but even with looking at them, by the time I go to need one, I have absolutely no recollection of how the words are pronounced. Turkish is waaay harder than Spanish!

And then, of course, we couldn't resist dessert. All day we were passing bakeries with beautiful displays of goodies in the windows and all day we resisted. But the pull of the baklava was just too strong, so after dinner we went to the pastry shop that had the most beatiful window display and had de-lish, ooey, gooey baklava. It was worth every single Turkish Lira it cost us. Mmmm.

We headed home and the guys had a friend over when we got here (there seem to be lots of people coming and going here all the time). Turns out he is at least minorly famous in Turkey. They showed us a clip of him on a Turkish talk show, singing a solo of traditional-sounding Turkish music that he composed himself. I thought it might be some prank or something but then they talked him into singing for us and he's the real deal. Day One in Turkey and I'm already meeting famous people. I have a good feeling about this town!