ISTANBUL PART THREE
In 2007/2008 Leigh Anne was working for a magazine and was assigned to Istanbul for six months or so, when she heard we where coming to Istanbul she contacted a friend whose name is L’event, he made our stay in Istanbul quite spectacular.
He own’s the hotel we stayed in and he own’s a night club in the middle of the old town, he is a publisher/ photographer, quite the business man, he also had a personal driver who ran the girls all over the place including picking them up at the airport .
The second night we had all arrived ,he held a welcome party on the roof top of the hotel bar that specialized in a drink called Gintail which was Hendricks. G and T with crushed cucumbers and lime,it became quite additive needless to say.
From the roof top we proceeded to the night club , and there we stayed until 2 am dancing the night away, or as my bro says ,,,, grinding the night away!! , it took 2 days for most of us to recover.
the next couple of days where spent site seeing , the grand bazaar was the biggest shopping area I have ever seen , we actually went there 3 times over our time here and maybe saw a third of the place , quite the place , also the spice bazaar was a site, this was maybe the size of a football field, and what was funny unless I missed something , all the stalls where selling the same things , hey what do I know about spices, but great fun bartering with the shopkeepers , they are all generally so friendly.
Except maybe one , after bartering to cut the price of a watch Kevin liked and agreeing the price we said we would return later with the money, when we did return the next day we where given “ asta lavista baby” ( spell) I am selling nothing to you , we made a quick dart to the left, without the watch.
as I said generally the Turkish people where very friendly, whenever we were on the metro which was always full by the way younger guys would stand for Trish to sit down, quite amazing in this day and age .
Some amazing things we saw, Galata tower, the Blue and many other mosques, the call to prayer, the antique district, the amount of street cats, generally all very friendly and tagged, and well fed, the amount of street dogs ( not as many as cats) also well fed, it’s like each district adopts them, maybe it saves having your own dog to look after, taxi drivers are like anywhere else, mad !! How nobody dies ,I do not know , musicians on the street, one guy followed us with his banjo or 15 minutes waiting for a tip, he was quite bad also,!! A glass of pomegranate juice was 50 c , other juices were a bit more expensive at 75 c a glass , all fresh and crushed in front of you .
I will complete Istanbul’ s final nights later
m
