ISTANBUL

Oh sweet, sweet blog... I am back. I'm fresh off of the plane, and the only thing on my mind after a shower and putting food into my mouth is unloading some of the awesomeness that was Istanbul-Adventure onto you.

So here we go - Day 1 of our adventure started with a 10-hour flight. yay.

Here we are getting ready to board our flight to Istanbul!

Upon landing, we spent some time searching for our ride who was supposed to be sent from the hostel to pick us up. We never found him and decided to take a cab instead. This turned out to be the greatest idea ever because we had the most skilled cab driver in the world. He was also probably the fastest/scariest… Kelly and I shot each other a "we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore" glance after attempting to find seat belts in the back seat. Of course there aren't any seat belts. I guess you don't need them when The Transporter is taking you to your hostel.

Yerin and Kelly posing with their new friend (random Turkish guy) next to our hostel.

Another store front near our hostel… (and our first Turkish photobomb.)

Every store had these gorgeous lamps inside/in front of them. Kelly and I went a little lamp-crazy.

We walked around a bit in our neighborhood of Sultanahmet and foraged for food (be warned, this becomes a constant theme on our trip).

We really lucked out with finding this restaurant, totally a local spot - no tourists in sight. The food was AMAZING and this is where we got our first taste of Apple Tea. <3

The first of many.

Yer-Bear mastering the technique. Drinking out of a teeny tiny super hot glass is not easy.

It was here that we also had our first Adana Kebab. Also phenom.

Following dinner, we walked the long way back to the hostel so we could check out the sights at night.

Our neighbor, the Hagia Sophia. nbd.

After our quick tour of the square, we went to check out the view from the terrace on top of our hostel. We were also on the search for more Turkish Tea (we were under the impression of there being a bar on the terrace where we could sip on some tea and sit a while).

… there are about 5 floors to this hostel, and the only way up is a teeny tiny windy staircase. Needless to say, this was the only time we ever went up... and there was no tea. :/

The view was pretty spectacular.

After all that exploring/climbing, we decided it was time to pick a neighborhood bar and make it "our bar." We would end up there every night on this trip to recap, wind down, and to plan the next day's activities… and to partake in fourth meal, because traveling metabolism is a monster.

Yerin decided to stick with what she knew, and that is french fries. French fries and mayonnaise.

I had the cheese plate and whatever Turkish cheese this was, it was phenom. A little bit like goat cheese, a little bit like feta. A lotta bit delicious.

We also tried some Turkish beer.

After food and drink, we walked the half block back to our hostel and waited for Kelly's friend Caroline, who was flying in from Adana to meet up with us for a day of adventure.

Check back tomorrow for Day 2!

I am going to now reacquaint myself with my amazing bed and hopefully catch enough zzzz's before work tomorrow. As much as I'm missing Turkey right now, it feels goooood to be home.