April Showers and Istanbul

April Showers bring May Flowers???

Okay, that works in America but here? Not so much - in fact, the tulips have bloomed and are now starting to die. I always wondered about that - why would you want a flower that takes all winter to come up again and only blooms for what? a couple of weeks and then dies again. Seems to me the flower spends more time germinating and less time making my world prettier - let's go with something a little more, permanent. (Don't ask me what, I'm not a gardener!!) Just some random thoughts for you. I'll add a recent photo of the tulips in Istanbul. Just so you can see what I am talking about.

Which brings up the point, I finally made it to Istanbul!! Yes, it was lovely. I spent the day as a tourist. I normally do not like to do this but I felt in order to truly experience the Sultanahmet area, I should act as almost EVERYONE else there - a tourist. I took a "tour" bus to Harem (pronounced - Har-um) and then took the ferry across the Bosporus Sea to Istanbul. It is also the same ferry that takes one from Asia to Europe. Pretty cool, if you think about it. I drank beer on two different continents in the same day! Life is good.

I arrived in Sultanahmet. This area is beautiful. I started with the Spice Bazaar. It reminded me of an exotic flea market. People spoke every language possible and I believe, one could find just about anything there. Myself? I was drawn to the Harley Davidson Shirts! How often would that opportunity arise? Harley Davidson, Istanbul...I know what my brothers are getting for their birthday's this year!

Speaking of Birthdays - I spent mine here last week. Thanks for the all the well wishes. I ended up having food and fun with friends. Good times!

Back to Istanbul... The Blue Mosque and Ayia Sophia are beautiful. The Palace is lovely ... I took more than 100 pictures. One needs to be a tourist when coming to here. Of course, since I am less than an hour-and-a-half away, I chose to stay outside of everything. I will wait for a dreary day to explore the insides of these structures. The Hippodrome is pretty cool and it is conveniently located in the same area as everything else.

I also found a pub or two and enjoyed libations with my travel partner for the day, Sam. Sam's mum works with me. Sam and I managed to do an informal assessment of pricing of the beer in Istanbul. With a random sampling of just three establishments, we determined, the mean price for a pint is about 6 Lira which converts to about $3.60. A bit pricey but in a Moslem country - I'll pay it, depends on how thirsty I am.

I enjoyed my day in Istanbul and plan on returning but I am going to be exploring the lesser "touristy" places next time. Although not less touristy but possibly more interesting, I am hoping to go to Izmir next month... I'll keep you posted.

Turkey remains an interesting place. I have yet to get bored and for those that know me - well, it's always a fear. I'm learning Turkish and might be up to 100 words, if you count 1-20....ha Seriously, though, it's not as hard as one would think. It's a fairly easy language if you understand pronunciation... that being said, I still don't have a complete sentence down.

Enough for now... Turkey is a hidden jewel. Others can have Italy and Western Europe - I'm digging it here!