Istanbul - day 1

First off:

My name is Dan Irby and I am traveling with my friend Kate Jordan from Istanbul to Cairo overland during the month of July.


We arrived yesterday at about 1 PM and rode the tram for about two hours from the airport to the Beshiktash neighborhood where Ohran, our Couchsurfing.com host, lives. This is right along the Bosphorus and we sat on a bench in a little park, next to a mosque watching the ferries dock, quickly dozing off waiting for our meet-up time with Ohran, but not before I got into some language confusion buying sesame bread (simit) and some corn-on-the-cob.

The call-to-prayer rang out next to us and echoed throughout the city around 4 PM and we soon walked northeast along the coast to Ohran's neighborhood, sat drinking tea, walked up to his apartment, found him not home, and then sat in a park by his building looking nervously at a pack of dogs. A passing vendor in the park asked us our nationalities and upon hearing American he laughed, declared us "Rich!" pointing at his bag of snacks. Kate finally walked over to a group of stoned guys and managed to gesture her way onto their mobile and Ohran and Marion, a couchsurfer from France, came to meet us. Ohran, some kind of polyglot computer programmer, last night alone hosted two French girls, two Americans (us), Marion, his brother, and he is currently sleeping on the living room floor of his three-room flat. He is some kind of awesome. Apparently this is the way he lives normally.

Showering is good. Down the street we tried to order some vegetarian meze (Kate eats no meat or fish) and ended up with some bread, stringy green stuff, and eggplant ... I gestured to a dish on a neighboring table and our well-inentioned host brought us the rose on their table, so we laughed a lot. We supplemented with ice cream up the street and the cashier told me, upon hearing we are Americans, that he would be traveling to West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Boston ... what for? He thought for a moment then said, "BIG shopping!"

Passed out. Sights today ... arming myself with a crib card for language barrier. This part of the city seems full of mostly locals and these young Istanbulites dress super metro.

güle güle