Life Is All About Adventure: Istanbul June 11th

Welcome to Istanbul!

So the day that we were not sure about came. When we left for our vacation we knew we would be going to Istanbul and we were thrilled. We had heard great things from friends and of course the Travel Channel is full of awesome episodes about Turkey (ok maybe not full of them but hey I at least knew about it). So we really were looking forward to it. Then we began to get news of protests...something about a tree...oh wait something about a park...no! was it wages and other freedom things...as we only saw the news when we were in port, we just heard rumblings from other passengers about trouble in Istanbul. We continued with the thought "well we have 10 days before we get there", make that 7...umm it is not sounding good and we will be there in 3,2,1 yeah... Well every chance we had S would check his phone for updates from his work. I mean who knew if we were even supposed to go ashore. How safe is it? Eventually we decided that if the boat was still going to make the stop then we were getting off the darn thing. We chose to not take a tour because as we had previously discovered a huge tour bus with 50 very American tourists, most more in the "wise adult" stage of life stands out. S and I blend. We have often been considered locals here in Jordan and once we were even asked if we were Iraqi by the 7- 11 Guy! Now LL doesn't blend. Even in Turkey she attracted plenty of attention, but she is a drama queen and thinks she is the star so we can't fault her for that. When we arrived we were ready to go ashore until we discovered LL's room key was missing. If you haven't cruised before then you don't understand the importance of this. Your room key is your life. You use it as a credit card and as a passport. It allows you to get on and off the boat. Without it you don't leave and if you loose it ashore it is a pain to get back on board. So we frantically searched the room. She had been playing with them and I thought nothing of it. Where could she possibly put it in this 10 X 10 space that we would not be able to find it? Well after searching for 30 minutes I gave up. We went to the desk and had to get new cards made (we later found it. She managed to shove it in the desk drawer. Who knew it had drawers?). While we were waiting for the cards we could hear music. The city had sent the welcome committee! It was so nice and yet it reminded me of years watching parades and the Shriners going by. Oh happy memories of childhood popping up in unexpected places. We had to take a video of it. Eventually we were able to go ashore. We walked along the dock and had to go through customs. Then we once again were in a warehouse industrial type area. I get the fact that cargo is kinda boring but seriously this ports are starting to be depressing on first impression. Anyways. We figured out how to get out of there and we were on our way. The one thing we wanted to do was shop in the Grand Bazaar. That was it. I know there is more to Istanbul than just the Bazaar but that was what I came for and if I only had one day in the city I was going to spend it shopping! Lucky for me S didn't mind this idea. We had a map and directions on roughly how to get to the bazaar and what areas to stay away from due to protests. The ship was docked on the Asian side of Istanbul so we found the bridge and off to Europe we went. All along the bridge were people camped out fishing and underneath the bridge were restaurants selling fresh fish and things. You definitely could not say the food wasn't fresh. Once we were off the bridge we walked through the smaller and much less expensive spice market then made our way through the city to the Grand Bazaar. We just kept walking. We knew a general direction to go in and we kept at it and eventually we came to a T in the road. We decided to go right and lucky for us in 100ft we found Entrance # 18 to the Bazaar. There are 21 official entrances to the place but we heard rumor of some where in the 50's if you count little alley ways. I was pretty much instantly in love with the place. This was much more what I had hoped for when we were in Egypt and not at all what I was dreading after our Souk in Egypt experience. We walked around casually. Yes it was crowded with 250,000 visitors a day. We were sure to run into someone. We entered shops. We bargained. Funny story. S and I had no idea what the exchange rate was and when we found it on a bank sign we read it wrong or something so we though it was 4 of ours was 1 of theirs (random #'s because I can't remember the actual rate). SO let me tell you I bartered like crazy for the lamps, the cute shoes for LL, and the present for my Father in Law. lol We wandered that entire place. I had guys remember who we were and continue to hound me about buying a rug or trinket. Eventually we left and I was highly satisfied with my purchases. We came out of the bazaar to a mass of people in the street. It was the most crowded thing I have seen in a long time. We navigated our way through it and found a shwarma stand for lunch. We then decided to find the Blue Mosque. Well we found a great park instead. LL loved running around and playing on the playground. Once she had had enough we tried to leave and get back to the boat. Instead we ended up at the Blue Mosque! We took a few pictures but really had to be getting back to the boat. We turned around and started walking back. On the way back we saw black smoke rising above the city on the Asian side. Everyone on the Europe side was acting like nothing was going on but we quickened our pace just in case. As we were walking back we came to a corner and S stopped to tie his shoe. As he was doing that I heard a strange noise. Then noticed that the sprinklers had come on in the park we were in! The only problem, there was no time to get out of the way. LL was sound asleep in the stroller, S tried to jump in the way and shield her from the water but it didn't work. She got wet and woke up screaming. As the water passed and we tried to calm her we realized the water was going to come back. Ut Oh!! We tried to get around it but there was no where to go and running through it was not an option. S reached down and grabbed the sprinkler head and twisted it so it would spray the other way and we were free to pass! It was hilarious. S and I were laughing our heads off but LL was not amused. As we walked further down the street we came upon a guy with 3 white bunnies on a box. We stopped to admire the bunnies and the guy came over and started to hand one to her! He then realized what he was doing and handed it to me instead. LL was able to pet the bunny while I held it. I was impressed it did not even pee on me! She was sad to see the bunny go as we left but it really cheered her up from the sprinkler experience. That guy and his bunny earned that money that day. We then made it back on the ship and had a great evening on board. Oh and that black smoke? Yep it was from the protests. This is when that whole thing really started to heat up.