Pre-Istanbul

The week before leaving for Istanbul, I was a wreck. I was worried about flying to Turkey on my own. I was afraid that I would be alone at the airport and forced to catch a cab by myself through a city that I had never seen! Turns out, I was worried for nothing! I knew 4 other people on my flight, met up with Suzanne at the airport without any trouble, and made it safely to the Hotel without even a hitch!

The flights over were not too bad. I left Philadelphia at about 8:30 pm for an overnight flight to Munich. I didn't sleep as much as I would have liked due to it being very cold in the plane and the big TV was kept on most of the night. When they did finally turn it off, I slept soundly for an hour or two before the sun came up. Munich was a beautiful sight from the sky. It was so green and lush, with these small hamlets of red roofed houses dotting the landscape. I know that I was partial to the sights due to the fact that I am German, but I immediately knew that it was a place that I would like to return to one day!

In Munich, we caught our second flight to Istanbul. Much shorter, this flight had us on the ground by 4:00 in the afternoon. My first impression of Istanbul from the sky was that it was HUGE! I was floored by the size of the city. I guess I should not have been so surprised since I know that Istanbul is home to somewhere between 12 and 14 MILLION people. For comparison, New York city houses about 8 million. Istanbul is situated in an amazing place between the continents of Asia and Europe. I found a pretty decent map online...hopefully, it will help to situate some of my stories!!

The Bosphorus splits Istanbul into it's European (on the left) and Asian (on the right) sides. To the South is the Sea of Marmara and (not on the map) to the North is the Black Sea. The Golden Horn is the bit of water that divides the European side of Istanbul in half. On the map you can see at the bottom left, the Ataturk Airport. That is where we landed. We drove along the coastal road to the Old City section, also called Sultan Ahmet. There, our hotel overlooked Hagia Sophia and The Blue Mosque and faced Asia.

Getting through the airport was surprisingly easy. We purchased our Visas, got some Lira from the ATM, walked through the passport checkpoint, where they didn't even ask a single question, and then got to the luggage carousel just as our bags were arriving. Done and Done! We were out of the airport within 15 minutes.

The ride to the hotel was a beautifully scenic trip along the Sea of Marmara. The ships anchored offshore provided a beautiful foil to the crowded houses covering the hillside of the city. The coastal road was a four lane divided highway with typical city traffic. Between the road and the sea was a long strech of parks, in which Turks sat picnicking, playing soccer, or just spending time with one another. It was really beautiful, and completely different from what we experienced when we turned off this road and entered the city. Narrow, cobblestone streets would up the hill into the heart of Sultan Ahmet. In these tiny areas, you really have to put your faith in the crazy cabbies to get you exactly where you need to be! Not easy as they are consistently coming within inches (and I do mean INCHES) of other cars, buildings, PEOPLE! It's not the type of place in which you step out into the street and expect them to stop.

Our driver did get us right to the front door of the hotel without incident and dropped us safely at our destination, the Hali Hotel. Hali (pronounced Hal-eh) means "carpet." The owner of the hotel is also a carpet seller, so that makes sense. Our room was nice...a perfect size with a BIG bathroom (about twice the size of mine at home!!!). We went up to the terrace right away (as this was where we were having our first dinner). The view was amazing...seeing Hagia Sophia for the first time was stunning, and I couldn't wait to walk down to it and see the inside!

We had our dinner and then our first presentation, where Suzanne and Mary introduced us to Sufi poetry. It was really nice, unfortunatley, we were all so exhausted that we couldn't get our brains to work and participate. I barely remember climbing into bed, as I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow. Our next day was to be full of excitement!!!