You actually can go back to Constantinople, from Greece at least.

So. I am a terrible blogger. I have been slowly writing this post for a week now. I got sick, and then my mother and aunt came to visit, and had midterms, so I just haven't updated. But now its done. Though I don't have any pictures right now because I didn't take any digitally. I only brought a disposable camera with because I was worried about travelling with my digital camera. I'll steal some from my travel companions soon though, and share. If you want a quick recap of the weekend, since I've been so slow, here are the main things I learned on my trip:

1. Getting to new cities at night is awesome.
   
2. Hostels are the best way to travel.
3. I am wicked bad at bargaining.
   
4. Being naked can be fun!
5. Excoticizing things really can ruin them.
6. I'm pretty bad at hookah.
   
7. Food tourism is my favorite part of travel.
8. Istanbul is freaking baller!

So yeah, as suggested by item 8, my trip to Istanbul was really really fun. I was there from Thursday night to Sunday night, and it was definitely not enough time. I really really want to go back again in my life.

We got there after dark, it was around 9 once we had gotten through customs. Our hostel had an airport pickup service, but it was expensive, and we had to book it well in advance to get it. So instead we took public transportation at night, which was somewhat difficult. We got a LOT of directions that were just points in a general direction. Then we turned a corner and Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque were just in our faces, lit up, surrounded by birds. It was totally awesome. We eventually made it safely to our hostel, and got heckled by our first restaurant owner on the way there. At essentially every store and restaurant there's someone standing in the doorway trying to entice you to come inside. When they see a group of clearly foreign tourists though, they get a little... creative. We were regularly called beautiful girls, sexy girls, spice girls, Shakira, and many more. This one particular guy at the restaurant on the way to our hostel called out to us from across the street EVERY time we walked by. It got fairly annoying.

Our hostel was rated the best in Istanbul by one service or another for something like 4 years running. Its the first one I've stayed in, so I don't have anything to compare it to really, but I loved it. It definitely helped that we didn't sleep with strangers and had a cheap room entirely to ourselves since we were a group of 6. But the staff were really nice (particularly the night desk guy), we met some really awesome people (read: cute English boys) and had evening activities pre-planned for us in a city where we didn't know the night life.

However, we didn't spend our entire time in the hostel. The first day we went to Topkapi palace, the Egyptian spice bazaar and a tour of the Bosphorous. We also went out to our only real sit-down dinner, saw a belly dancer brought in by the hostel (I wouldn't be surprised if she moonlighted as an exotic dancer, she was not classy) and hung out with the aforementioned cute British boys at the hostel. We decided against going out to a club with a cover charge with these boys, which was a little disappointing but necessary given how much we still had to do in the city.

The next morning we set out early to try to check out the little Aya Sophia. It was the practice, small-scale version of the bigger famous one, which is now a functional mosque, but it looked like it was closed. We saw the Blue Mosque which was fantastic for many reasons not the least of which was that we got to walk around in socks on its warm carpet. The big Aya Sophia was not as impressive as I had been led to believe, but the Basilica Cisterns were way cooler than I thought they would be.

Then we went to the Grand Bazaar. Some guy the day before had told us not to shop at the Grand Bazaar, because it wasn't a good deal. We didn't take his advice, but we totally should have. When we went in to some of the shops the next day I definitely saw multiple things that were much cheaper, but that's ok. I mostly bought presents for other people, but I also bought myself a backgammon board! It was the one thing I wanted for myself. I was a little too dedicated to getting one really, and I bought one fairly hastily and I'm pretty sure I got ripped off, which was a little depressing when I realized it.

But then we went to the Turkish bath to relax. Turkish baths are fantastic. I only had the slightest idea of what I was getting into. I almost don't want to say what is was, if there's any possibility that you're going to go to one yourself, I feel like you shouldn't read this. It's more fun to go in a little confused. But, anyways, we had to strip down, which for me included my glasses, which meant I couldn't really see anything, and we had to wear this giant croc sandals. We went in to a huge, hot room. It had a huge hot slab of stone in the middle, with a bunch of half-naked women on it. Emphasis on the half naked. We had thought that we were supposed to totally strip down, I definitely didn't want to look like a weird tourist too embarrassed to disrobe. But we were pretty much the only people there not wearing underpants. Trying to fit in can often backfire. But it was liberating! I mean, I didn't have glasses on, so I couldn't really see anyone else in the room, it helped me not be embarrassed about who could actually see me. And the women there, particularly the workers, were so comfortable with their bodies. And then we were bathed. In this warm warm room, when it was cold and rainy outside. It was lovely to be pampered when I'd been worrying about organizing travel. They scrubbed us down, I could see the dead skin just flying off my body. Then they soaped us up, and the way the did it was the best part. They filled up what looked like giant pillowcases with soapy water and air and then twisted it closed. Out came huge clouds of fluffy white soap. It totally engulfed me, got in my mouth and up my nose. It freshman year foam party all over again! And then basically gave us a massage. And then we laid down on the hot rock and got warm and dry. It was lovely.

One of my friends had been sitting in Starbucks for over 2 hours because she knew she wouldn't enjoy the bath. So eventually we had to go back in to the cold world. After spending some time at the hostel we went to a Whirling Dervish show. We didn't quite understand before we got there that it was really just at a restaurant, so we ended up paying for dinner on top of it. The whole thing just felt very commercial. Someone at the hostel the next day said that when she went to see the whirling dervishes in the states she could feel the energy in the room change when they started dancing. That wasn't the case at all here. It had the air of a performance, rather than anything religious. And honestly, its not even that interesting. They spin. My English/GWS friends had a very extensive conversation about how we had "exoticized" and ruined it. I don't know if that's exactly why, but they were at least partially right. I have never felt so much like a dirty tourist in my entire life.

The rest of the visit was not quite as interesting. We smoked hookah at a awesome local bar by the hostel (and I was wicked bad at it). The next day we walked around the Asian side. The best part of that was probably our 50 cent sandwiches. The food there was awesomely cheap. And awesome. It really became evident that food tourism is my favorite thing. Trying new food always always improves my mood. But yeah, all in all, I loved Turkey.