Turkish Delight

Istanbul has made a great first impression of Turkey. I flew in yesterday on a quick journey from London. We had a great tail wind that helped us arrive a half hour early. The funniest part of the flight was at Gatwick Airport, where I had to buy a new hair trimmer to shave my head with, since the higher voltage in Europe caused mine to operate so fast it wouldn't cut my hair (don't ask me how that works). I bought a kit in the terminal, after I had passed through airport security. I opened it up later to find a pair of 3" hair scissors. I probably bought them at the airport as people were getting their nail clippers seized at security. Airport security is such a joke.

I departed the airport after a lightning quick walk through customs, grabbing my bag off the carousel in less than a minute. I jumped on the tram and headed into Istanbul. First impression was India lite; it had some smells, like car exhaust and cooking street food, and the sounds of car horns. Thankfully Turkey decided to skip the cow shit.

I arrived at my hostel at 7, tired and hungry. I decided to chill out, and opted for eating and drinking Turkish beer on the hostel rooftop. 

The next day I headed into the Hagia Sofia, a giant mosque turned into museum; one of the prime highlights of Istanbul. The sheer size and magnitude of it was incredible! It dwarfs most other sights I've seen before, including the Taj Mahal. The artwork and detail inside is simply stunning.

Later that day I went on a boat tour of the Bosphorus strait with some people from the hostel. The views of the city were awesome. What wasn't awesome was when the wind blew the tear gas from a protest on the Asian side into the strait, unbeknownst to us until it started burning our eyes. (the protest is about plans to demolish a park in favour of building a shopping mall)

Afterwards we headed out for dinner, which was delicious. If this first day of Turkish food is any indication of the month to come, I'm going to be returning home a fat man! For dessert we went and smoked some flavored sheesha, and were all thoroughly stoned when we left the bar.