istanbul review day one

Istanbul Review - Day One

When we arrived in Istanbul last Friday, we were greated by Ahmet, a

Turkish man who spoke pretty fluent Dutch. He'd lived in the

Netherlands for 22 years and was back in Turkey now working for a tour

company. As we drove the half hour to the hotel, he explained a few

things and commented on the city. I understood most of it. I wasn't

that interested in what I didn't understand.

The first thing I noticed was that there are a lot of flowers along

the highway going into Istanbul. That's a pretty good sign. Yes, the

houses and buildings off of the highway were a little used up looking,

but it's nice to see tulips and other flowers.

Ahmet told us that Istanbul is considered the third most beautiful

city in Europe - after Brussels and another city. He also said that

many Dutch people who visit tell him that it's much cleaner than

Amsterdam. When we got out of the car, Fred said, "Brussels?" (He

doesn't have a very high opinion of Brussels.) And I will say in no

uncertain terms that "clean" is not a word I would use when talking

about Istanbul. It's not particularly dirty, but there are sixteen

million people living there. It's pretty gross in places. Amsterdam

wins.

Mostly what we did on Friday was walk around and get a sense of where

things were. We were close to most of the big things that we wanted to

see. The Blue Mosque was just a few blocks away. So we took a quick

walk to see if we could pop in for a quick preview. On the way through

a nice little park, we were greated by a young Turk. He was chatty. We

weren't quite sure what he was selling. He followed us and continued

talking. He asked if we were brothers. We said yes, of course.

To make a long story short, at the end of our interaction, he invited

us to be his guests at his cousin's tea house because "in our culture

two cups of tea make four friends"...or something. There were only

three of us, so that doesn't add up. So he was bait for his "cousin's"

tea house. When we declined, strongly, he made a sharp left turn and

waved us off. Some friend.

We'd gotten a restaruant recommendation from Ahmet. We were sat in a

little alcove with other couples - strange seeing that we're brothers

- and served in a slow, careless way. We were not impressed with the

food. We drank Turkish beer. We should have dropped Ahmet's name. Cute

restaurant, but it was nothing to write home about.

The hotel was pretty nice. It's close to the action, but on a little

side street. Still, it was quiet and it had everything we needed. For