Istanbul was a quick trip and we may have hit our limit in Istanbul.   In case you’ve been keeping up with our blog, the border station between Bosnia and Croatia took almost 6 hours to get through.  After zooming into Zagreb, Croatia at 8:45pm for a 9:00 check-in and 3 mandatory challenges to accomplish, we got really creative, and really stressed.  You’ve never seen anyone shove black risotto or fish stew in their mouth as quickly as Donna to make the time limit.  She was impressive.  ( She had to apologize later to the concierge for spilling food  on the velvet chaise)  And, the risotto and soup was eaten without utensils!  Needless to say, we missed all the other scavenges in Croatia, so we did not come close to winning the multi-day leg, but we worked very hard to accumulate a high point total and had a blast doing it.  

We were sent into Istanbul at 5:30 pm, a few hours after arriving and it turns out that Istanbul is HUGE, like 15 million chaotic huge!  This was a surprise to us and after trying to make it to a dinner reservation only to enter the wrong metro station, determine that the other metro station really must not exist, and try (and fail) to get an uber/taxi that couldn’t find us, we returned to our room defeated, but thrilled to be there by 9pm.  We also had a delicious dinner at the hotel rather than eating “unique” food items across the city for scavenges.  We had AMAZING sushi. Was it amazing or was it just not hummus, cucumbers and bread again. 

Our morning was more productive and Shannon may have agressively insisted that we take a cab.  Donna loves a good subway, but it was time to give up on the maze in the Istanbul metro.  (From Donna . . .I concede.  Shannon has also taught me the value of the EXIT row on flights.  Sooo worth the $$)

We were able to see the highlights of Istanbul with the Blue Mosque, Topacki Palace and Hagia Sophia.  They are stunning  and massive, but most impressive was the view later that evening.  We refuse to visit another mosque, church or cable car for the next few months.  We may need to do a count at the end of the trip because it was a LOT of them. 

Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

A highlight of this leg was our cooking class where we made lentil soup, an eggplant dish, zucchini patties, dolmas and a delicious fig and walnut dessert.  Two other teams happened to be in the same class, which allowed us to debrief and connect about the trip and relax, just for a moment.  

The Grand Bazaar was …grand and also massive, just like the city.  Thank goodness google maps worked in the bazaar because we would never have found our way out.   It had most everything you could want and most likely never need.  We spent much of our time searching for the Tree of Idleness and Russian dolls, and we failed on both.   No one we talked to knew what in the heck we were talking about, but we learned later they do exist in the market.  But, we made the best of it.  

We rushed over to our Hamman appointment and we may have different descriptions of the experience, so we’ll give you both perspectives.  It was really everything you might imagine from a Turkish Hamman.  Unlike our hamman in Georgia, we are pretty sure this one used a different body scrubbesr for each person. Thank goodness!  We even got to take the scrubber with our dead skin home. 🙂  Shannon was a little overwhelmed by the birthday suit phenomenon (this is a clean blog for the children).  We were initially placed (in said birthday suit) on a marble step next to a sink and bowl where were were apparently supposed to pour water on ourselves for ten minutes.  It was HOOOOOT and stuffy, so I guess that was to keep us refereshed.  Stone step, birthday suit, many people in the room. Not Shannon’s favorite.  Oh, forgot to mentioned the face mask like item that was supposed to cover the nether regions.  After the lonely, strange sitting experience, we were scrubbled all over and then walked over (holding hands..to avoid slippage?) to what looked like the outside of a marble fountain where we started face up..in said birthday suit.  Then, water with a load of bubbles was poured over us before beginning a full body bubble massage.  That was lovely.  The experience ends with our attendent litterally washing and conditioning our hair (that was a new and strange experience). 

Donna’s impression was that it was awesome (minus the birthday suit situation) as it was a gorgeous spa and after 20 days of traipsing through 11 countries, I was in need of a massage.  The best was sitting with Turkish snacks and Ottoman Sherbet at the end, with skin softer than it has been in years. 

Our grand finale was the “360 degree restaurant” on the 6th floor of what appeared to be an apartment building.    We walked in an barely passed the dress code.  Our fellow travelers from the Scavenger Hunt came in afterwards and were told they were not dressed well enough.  They must of felt sorry for us as we did look pretty rough and this was a nightclub, fancy place. 

Cisterns

Mosque Cat

Overall impression:

Instanbul was so big and crowded that it was difficult to appreciate all the city had to offer in 1.5 days. I think we both agree that it would have been nice to see some of the areas out side of the city.  

Best food:  Hotel sushi (ha!), Turkish coffee (Donna only) and “grilled olives”

Worst Food:  no bad food was had but so sick of hummus and bread that is served with everything.

Will we return?  Up for debate.  Likely but we would take time to enjoy the city and not waste time figuring out the Metro. 

Now off to Montreal for the final day of a 23 day trip!  It has been an exhausting, exhilirating, competitive, eye-opening and absolutely wonderful all at the same time!