This morning we arrived in Istanbul, a little later than we had been told, so when my alarm went off at 5:40 am to watch us pull in, we were still in no sight of land... so I went back to sleep and missed it! That's ok though, I heard a lot of people say it wasn't worth waking up for anyway!
I did get up early anyway to get to breakfast before it closed. After breakfast, immigration still hadn't even gotten onto our ship, so I could tell it was going to be a long morning! Finally around 9:15 or so, they got on and so we had our diplomatic briefing where a US Ambassador comes onto the ship to talk to us about Istanbul.. thankfully that is shown not only in the Union, but on our TV's, so I layed in bed while listening to it, and ended up taking a nice nap!! After that was over, we all had to get our 'landing cards' which are blue cards that we have to show in order to get in and out of the port and allow us to travel throughout Istanbul only. You have to get a visa in order to leave the city, which I don't plan on doing because Istanbul is huuuge, so I don't need to worry about going outside of the city.
Once we were allowed to get off the ship (around 10:30 or so, when usually its by 8!) I got off with some friends and walked around a little bit to find the Grand Bazaar which I would categorize as the largest flea market I have ever seen in my life!!!! There is an estimated 4400 shops that line sidewalks and an indoor type place.. it was absolutely crazy! I spent hours there and didn't see all of it, that's for sure.. and I was getting so lost inside, you never knew where you were or where you had already been, it was crazy!! There was soo much there, it was really quite overwhelming.. I was so overwhelmed I only bought one thing, which is pretty unusual!!
After being at the Bazaar all day, we were all exhausted and went back to the ship for dinner, and a little time to relax!! I wasn't even hungry from smelling fish and odd things all day, but it was nice to sit down for awhile and have about 8 glasses of water! My friends at dinner all convinced me to go see Harry Potter tonight, because we were kind of advised not to really go out, and there was not much else to do, so I gave in.. and spent 2 1/2 hours of my time in Turkey in the movie theater!!! I couldn't believe I was going to see Harry Potter, but sure enough that's where I just got back from!! I have to say though, it was a really good movie, and wayyy cheaper than in the US, I got into the theater, popcorn and candy for 11 Lira, which is not even 7$, so I thought that was a good deal! During the movie, I almost forgot I was in another country, until the screen went black about an hour into it, and it was time for intermission!? Most of the movie theater was full of SAS students, so everyone was so confused, why was there an intermission during a movie!? It was sooo weird.. but thankfully the movie came back on after like 7 minutes.. an odd amount of time!?
So, before we got to Turkey, we were warned how the guys here are "charmers" and they sure try to be! Let me just name off a few things I was called today.... "babyface" "angel" "angelface" "charlie's angel's"... and not to mention we were asked a few times if we were sent from heaven, if we come from paradise, and many other things.. I was also told though that I have nice skin and a good color, and could pass for being Turkish!? So, I guess that's good...?
Also, since Turkey is a very Muslim country, many of the women wear long skirts and shirts with a headdress, and some even only show their eyes, which was a definate culture shock coming from Greece!! It kind of sucks though because we were advised to not show our shoulders or too much of our legs, so I wore a short sleeved shirt today and capri jeans, which can be extremely hot when it's in the upper 80's and your surrounded by the hundreds of people running around Istanbul.. but I cannot complain too much, the Turkish women have to do this every day, not just for 5 days..
So, Istanbul is a CRAZY busy city.. but so far I do like it! Tomorrow I will be going to the Asiatic side and going to different palaces of Istanbul with SAS, so this will be fun, and I will have reached my 3rd continent!!!
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