Taksim Area

I sat at the bus stop at 12:30 to go downtown. The weather today was gorgeous. Unbelievably so, considering the last week of snow. The sun beating down on my neck was a wondrous counterbalance to my atrophied legs after 38 hours of not leaving my room and my growling stomach 42.5 hours of fasting.

We got to Kabataş at 1, and I broke my then-43 hour fast with what I want to describe as a personal Turkish challah. It's shaped like a bagel, tastes like challah, but has some spices on the outside to give it a little flavor. And it's only 1 Lira.

A couple weeks ago I got an email from a girl named Sarah, who's on my program here, asking if I and one other student arriving to Istanbul early wanted to crash at an apartment she rented for the nights preceding the start of the program (which starts tomorrow). The two recipients of this invitation, David and myself, both accepted. I was on my way today to meet her at her place.

With a little food in my stomach I wended my way to Taksim, then on a metro only one stop to Şişhane, near Galatas tower, where Sarah's apartment is.

I found the road with little difficulty, and then the apartment too. Sarah was on the first floor, and promptly answered the door.

The apartment is a small, two room place, with one bed in the living/kitchen area and one in the bedroom. Everything inside comes from Ikea and it is very clean and warm. Very nice place.

Sarah and I got to know each other a little, then headed out so I could get some more food to supplement my meager intake thus far. We got some kebap (surprise surprise).

Back at the apartment we waited for David, who was being dropped off by family friends of his around 3. He arrived almost perfectly on time.

We all chatted for a while, then David took a nap to deal with his jetlag (had just got in from a connection in Frankfurt from Logan)

3 hours later, Sarah and I had watched 3 episodes of Archer and woke David up. We all went out to dinner, around 9.

Dinner was at a place Sarah had found in a book called Istanbul Eats, which has been her foodie bible since arrival. It did not disappoint (except the price). I had a lamb steak meal which was incredible.

After dinner we wandered for a while searching for a hookah bar. When we passed a dark alleyway that looked creepy, I gave David a look and he agreed, and we walked in.

Just a little ways into the passage we found Grand Boulevard, a restaurant that served hookah as well. We got tea and coffee and sat on the balcony smoking for a few hours.

Come 12:30 we ventured to a nearby Irish pub that was to show the Super Bowl if enough people showed up to watch (they normally close at 2 and kickoff was at 1:29). They didn't show it because only we showed up.

We made it back to the apartment around 1, and desperately tried to find a place to stream it live. Could not get it to buffer fast enough on nfl.com with the VPN we had to use to get it to work in the first place, so we switched to radio. That didn't work out too hot either, so we just kept refreshing an updates page.

Around 3:30 or 4 we passed out, with a 9:30 alarm set.