(Tr)Istanbul

(I'm posting these really close together, I know. It's because I write them offline and I forgot to upload them. If you're playing at home you'll want to read the other post first. :) )

Drivers in Turkey are insane. It doesn't matter how big the vehicle they're driving is, they'll dodge and weave like they're on a superbike. It's quite a thing to see. Anyway for the ride home from the airport we were in a mini bus, so we were at the upper end of the size range for suicidal vehicles and felt relatively safe.

Heather was clever enough to get us a hostel right in the middle of Sultanahmet, which is the most interesting part of Istanbul. It's got the palace and the blue mosque. There's another big mosque that I call the red mosque which is supposed to be the biggest or something, but for some reason we didn't go see that one. I liked to think the blue mosque and the red mosque would occasionally get some capture the flag action going between them. There are labyrinthine gardens and walls all over the place between them so it would be way cool.

There are two big bazaars in that part of Istanbul. The Grand Bazaar, which is full of clothes and jewellery and antiques, and the spice bazaar, which is full of ninjas, but you can't see them because they're hiding in the spices.

You have to haggle in the bazaars, which I'd never really done before except for when I bought Gus (the Hilux, for those not personally familiar with my last, most awesome, car). Heather was very good at it. She got a scarf down to 10 lira from like 35. I didn't do quite as well but it's hard to tell because I have a policy of never checking the price of something I've already bought somewhere else. I bought a wallet and a pair of sunnies and a leather jacket. I lost the sunnies two days later. I'm up to my fifth pair of sunnies this holiday.

Our hostel had a rooftop bar, and on the Sunday night there was a 15 lira barbecue up there. As is usually the case, it turned out that 90% of the hostel patrons were Australian. We made friends with a bunch of Brisbanians and had a lovely time.

After the food there was a belly dancer. She made her money by jiggling about, as you do, then doing some audience participation stuff which was pretty funny, then all but forcing us to jam notes into her outfit. Seriously, she was very insistent. She was, admittedly, very cute, so I'm not complaining, but since I didn't have any small notes it was probably the most expensive part of the evening.

After filling us with beer and lamb they piled us all in a bus and took us to the night life in Istanbul. The first place had a proper live band and played proper Turkish music. I liked it. I particularly liked the part where they sold me a triple scotch for 7 lira (5 bucks). The second place had a live band who played Turkish music until they realised we were all Aussies and then switched to some pretty awesome covers of English-lyrics songs. I ordered a Bloody Mary there but it was pretty awful. I think the tomato juice needed some extra salt or something. Or maybe it just had way too much alcohol in it. In retrospect, judging by the degree to which I was dancing like a spastic, I'm beginning to think it may have been the latter.

I'm getting bored now, so I'll have to write about the part where I totally kick Justin's arse at go-cart racing another time.