Sea Day/Istanbul/Istanbul

October 25th-27th
Sea Day/Istanbul/Istanbul

The 25th was a sea day, nothing big to report back about there.
The 26th was day 1 of the Istanbul overnight. Unfortunately, looking outside this morning when I was ready to set out, I was greeted by a rather large storm and rain like I haven’t seen since…well…the tornado, ha. So it was raining and the first half of the day was sacrificed to waiting for any hint of the storm passing. The band had blown off their plans to go out, but by about 3:00, I was done raining and set out with a friend from the spa. We were determined to see the Blue Mosque today, rain or shine, and after we suited up for what was sure to be nothing short of multiple hours of monsoon, we set out for a long walk to the mosque.
The roads were slightly disorganized that day due to a large marathon that was scheduled for the morning, whether it happened or not is beyond me, but it seemed like a better idea to walk than to fight with a cab in traffic and then get totally ripped off. So we walked in the downpour, neither of us in appropriate rain-battling clothing, and made our way down the pier, over the bridge and through the city, humorously trying to avoid the large puddles (as if it made a different in the long run…)
We arrived at the Blue Mosque a while later, wet from the knees down, and after removing our shoes entered to observe a ceremony they were holding there. The Blue Mosque is very significant to Istanbul, the largest mosque in the city (I think), and a lot of other things your favorite free internet encyclopedia would do a better job of explaining than me. Well we went in, observed for a while standing in our wet socks, and then slid our soaked shoes back on and left. There are few things less comfortable than cold wet socks going into cold wet shoes as you walk out into a cold wet Istanbul, but hey, it’s my last time in Istanbul and it was going to take a lot more than rain to keep me from laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
At that point we were getting hungry and found a small, local restaurant to sit down at. We ordered Chicken Shish and a “Spicy Meat Pide”, or basically Turkey’s take on pizza, both of which were great. After we finished our meals and Apple Tea, we again stepped out into the storm, which had now amplified, the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do at night.
At this point it was after 6pm and extremely dark outside, making navigating back to the ship just that much more fun. And as I mentioned, the storm got worse…much worse. This was when we forgot about dodging deep puddles, we were more worried about the fast moving streams that had appeared during dinner. I’ve never seen so much water moving so fast on city streets before. I seems as if Istanbul doesn’t have an underground drainage system and all the rain is directed down hill via gutters carved into the streets. I’m sure this works just great on usual days, but on down pours the gutters serve as nothing more but another obstacle to twist an ankle in. Regardless, we pressed on, determined to make it back to the ship without the aid of a taxi. And surprising enough, without a single slip or fall, we eventually returned to the pier…sure it looked (and felt) like we waded though a kiddy pool, but we were back.
I had a couple shows that night that kept me on board till midnight. I was planning on getting off the ship the next morning to check out a Turkish bath, but after talking to all my friends and trying to sell the idea, just like last time, no one was interested. I was bummed out and didn’t go out that night…part because I was still thinking of waking up early, part because I wanted to read more about Turkish baths, and part because I was just disappointed. Well…what cha gonna do? I’ll probably be back again sometime and will find at least one person who would rather appreciate traditional culture then go out late on a Sunday night.
I woke up late on the 27th…I decided I wasn’t going to spend the money on a Turkish Bath to sit there by myself. Instead I got off the ship for about an hour to try to walk to Asia. Yeah, that’s right, walk to Asia. Well, unfortunately it turned out to be as formidable as it sounds - I didn’t make it. There is a bridge however that spans the river separating European Turkey from Asian Turkey, and it’s visible from the ship, it just turns out that an hour wasn’t enough time to make it there and back. So instead I had a brisk walk in my still wet gym shoes and said goodbye to the city.
The rest of the day is just time at sea working on these posts and other computer stuff till my first show at 7:15. Thanks for reading and seeya soon!