Arriving in Turkey

Saturday November 14th
We left Greece in the morning, stopped at the fruit and bread stands on the way to the metro station and made our way back to the airport. When we arrived in Turkey we had to go and pay for our visa into the country and then go through passport control. You are only allowed to be in the countries of the European Union for a certain number of days and with my study abroad and then traveling after Turkey I was cutting it close on exceeding that number of days. Luckily Turkey is not included in those countries with a limited stay without a student visa so I was able to get stamped into Turkey, showing that I left and would then return on to the countries of the European Union. I had to make sure I got that stamp in my passport or I could have risked going to German jail. The hotel we were staying at had a guy waiting for us at the airport to shuttle us to the hotel. I have always wanted to be one of those people who has some stranger holding up a sign with their name on it! When we arrived at the hotel Tm began speaking Turkish and the man in charge seemed very surprised. They chatted for a bit about how is Mom is from Turkey and his Dad meant his mom while stationed their in the Air Force and that Tim was born in Turkey but moved to the United Stated when he was three. As it turned out the language connection got us an upgrade on the one hotel room so Mom and Dad had the upper level suite in the hotel! After checking into the hotel and admiring the view we had from the rooftop terrace of the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Bosphorous we headed out exploring. Our first stop was to try and get something to eat but we ended up in the Grand Bazaar before that happened. As we were standing looking at our map of the Grand Bazaar a man asked if he could help us, not thinking anything of it Tim began speaking Turkish again and the man took us to a nice Doner stand. This is like a pita or gyro. Well little did we know that after he left us at the food stand he would be waiting for us to show us carpets at his shop within the Grand Bazaar. The shop owners in the Grand bazaar were very ambitious to try and get you to come into their shops and buy something. I felt like the shop owners could not place who we were or where we were from because Dad and Tim had their hats from Italy on and then Tim would speak Turkish. All in all it was a bit crazy and we ended up outside the Grand bazaar and then onto the spice market for more enjoyable shopping. We had dinner that night at a place right along the street our hotel was on. Again just like all the shops, the restaurants were also trying to get you to come and eat at their places. We had a nice table right along the street, under a canopy with heaters! We shared several appetizers with different yogurt sauces, humus and veggies. We order two large entrees and had plenty to eat. Near the end of our dinner Tim started talking to the owner and he explained that with our hats on we tended to look English and that people in Turkey do not like the English. He told us to tell people we were from Ireland and that because the Irish do not like the English, there is a strange relationship between the Irish and Turkish because they both do not like the English. He served us apple tea on the house at the end of our dinner and I think that is when we began to fall in love with Turkish tea, or cay has it is called in their language.