How can I spend your money today?

Our first day in Turkey was a complete and total culture shock. Actually, I might even say that the first few minutes were the biggest culture shock. We got into port pretty early, but Turkey has this policy where everyone on the ship has to carry a landing card. I am not really sure what it means or anything, but we had to wait in line to go and get it. Megan, Dice, and I were all in line together, and we were just about to get into the door of the room they were giving them out in when this gem of a guy totally cut in front of us along with the other 30 people behind us in line. Megan was pretty pissed so she said “Well after you!” So that just open the flood gates for me to start saying stuff to the back of his head. He never turned around though. Typical SASers.

We finally got our landing cards and went to meet Juliette down at the gangway. We decided to start off the trip by going to the Grand Bazaar because Katie, Nicole, and Maggie had an FDP with SAS, and we had to meet them back at the ship when that was over. So, we are obviously dressed pretty conservatively to respect the culture, but that did not stop people from STARING at us. I literally have never felt like such a zoo animal in my life. We obviously didn’t know where we were going, but we finally found our way to the bridge that we had to cross to get to the Bazaar. As we crossed, there were a TON of men fishing off of the side of the bridge. I’m pretty sure every SINGLE one turned to stare at us as we passed. I really am not exaggerating either. It was really, really bad. I mean, not bad, because I understand that we totally look like foreigners, but really noticeable.

So, we start on our way through the city. We had to get money out in order to go shopping at the Bazaar, so we stopped at an ATM. For some reason, my card wouldn’t work, so I had to keep looking for one. While I was waiting for Juliette and Megan to take out their money, this man walked past me and TOTALLY grabbed my ass. Pretty classy huh? I didn’t see who it was though because the streets were incredibly crowded, but it was a great welcome to the country. I guess I can’t really be surprised considering the fact that we were in an older part of town and not many woman walk around on their own. In addition, at least in the area that we started out in, most women were wearing headscarves or were covered head to foot except for their eyes.

We all got money out and started to walk up this super steep hill towards the Bazaar. Okay, so to put this in perspective for you, the streets are exactly a small car length wide. The sidewalks range from very large to nonexistent in an instant, and people drive like lunatics. I thought Italy was bad, but this place is off the charts for reckless driving. So, lots of people walk in the streets, especially when the sidewalks disappear and when you get to the streets that have a lot of shops on the sides. Not to mention the fact that they put a lot of their products out onto the street. So, narrow road, PEOPLE EVERYWHERE, and 4 American girls. Insanity. We basically were weaving our way through crowds of people up this 60 degree incline while people are yelling at us from their shops because they want us to come inside. Talk about sticking out. Yet, some of the shops were pretty interesting, and we weren’t even to the bazaar yet! They have so really extravagant formal and wedding dress shops, and they were really fun to window shop.

We stayed focused though, and finally made it to the entrance gate to the Grand Bazaar. So, the Grand Bazaar is kind of like a huge shopping mall, but not at all like a shopping mall at the same time. It is indoors, and each of the shop owners rents out their small piece of the puzzle. There are over 3000 shops within the Grand Bazaar. They sell everything from jewelry to clothing to lamps to rugs to pipes. IT IS AWESOME.  I absolutely loved it.

We really weren’t looking to buy anything right off the bat, because we knew we would be coming back with everyone else. We wondered in and out of a few stores with one of the store owners say “How can I spend your money today?” haha. But we ended up finding this amazing scarf place where the men were really funny. No one else was looking to buy, but I really loved the scarves in the store and didn’t want to pass them up. Probably the best thing about buying stuff from these guys is bargaining the price. The scarf shop had two younger guys in it that automatically started pulling every scarf they had off the shelves for us. He started wrapping them around our necks and showing us some really cool ways of wearing them, not without almost copping a feel either. They were nice to us though and were joking about the prices and such. He said that I was a pretty tough bargainer because I really didn’t want to pay over 80 lira for them which he agreed to. He tried to get us all to throw in a kiss too, but that obviously didn’t happen. Even though the men are incredibly flirtatious here, I guess I can kind of understand. Since the women in their culture can sometimes not even speak without permission, there probably isn’t much flirting. But we just brushed them off, and we got back to the scarves. I ended up walking out with a great deal on a couple cashmere scarves, so I was satisfied.

We also went to another scarves place which is where the other girls got their scarves, and the man there was really nice. He offered us tea while we were in his shop, but we turned him down which I kind of regret now. 

While we were in his store though, we heard the call to prayer for the first time. The call to prayer is this Turkish song that literally rings through the streets 5 times a day which calls everyone to prayer. I was kind of under the impression that everyone dropped what they were doing to pray, but that wasn’t really the case. I think it is more of a reminder that you need to pray at least 5 times a day. Some people prayed right away, but others didn’t. Also, they don’t have to go to a mosque to do it. They can pray wherever they are.

It was getting pretty close to when Maggie, Katie, and Nicole’s trip was going to be ending, so we started heading back to the ship. We realized that we had about a half hour to get back to the ship for free lunch on the ship, so we literally ran from the Bazaar to the port. We were really dipping and ducking through people then! We made it back just in time to eat. After we ate, we met up with everyone else, and they really wanted to go back to the bazaar after seeing our scarves. So, we headed to the spice market first before going back to the Bazaar. The spice market is another huge market that sells all kinds of spices, herbs, teas, and candy. They even have cheeses and meats, but we weren’t really looking at that. This one man pushed our group into his store, and let us try some Turkish Delight for free. Turkish Delight is a type of candy that is made out of a variety of different nuts, honey, and sugar. It was really delicious. None of us bought anything from him, but he was still very kind. And guess what. His name was ALADDIN! How cool is that?

We walked a little farther in the spice market and found some really cool spices, so we all stopped to browse. The man running the store struck up a conversation with me and asked where we were from. I said the U.S., and he proceeded to tell me that he knew me from somewhere. I said “yes, you do. We just met about two minutes ago!” and he said “No, I have seen you in my dreams”. Pretty corny, but still pretty hilarious. We bought some spice from him and set off for the Bazaar. Now, I thought that it was crowded earlier in the day, but once it hit Friday afternoon, the streets were PACKED. Like solid body on body action. It was insane. Luckily, we didn’t lose each other and made it to the Bazaar in one piece.

The best part of the Bazaar is not even the shopping but it is the bargaining and getting to meet Turkish people. A lot of them have been so kind to us, but we have run into a few that clearly are NOT fond of Americans. When we went back to the Bazaar the second time, I asked one of the men working at a t-shirt shop if they had any Turkish soccer jerseys, and he yelled at me “We don’t have any t-shirts!” Since he was sitting in his t-shirt shop, I clearly was not welcoming, but other than that, everyone has been very nice. They sell these really amazing lamps all through the Bazaar that are gorgeous, so we kept scoping them out. We finally stopped in this one man’s store and got pretty serious about buying because he had these amazing stands that were handmade. I bought my lamp first for about $45 which I thought was a pretty good deal. After that, we all started looking, and he offered us tea. This time, we accepted and he brought each of us (there were 8 of us) a glass of apple tea. Just in case you were wondering, apple tea is this amazing mix of tea, apple cider, and hot apple juice. It was delicious. Apparently, it is pretty customary to hang out in these stores for a while and drink tea with whoever you are buying from. So, there are these men that work at the bazaar who deliver tea to any store owner that buys it. They have these really cute silver trays and carry so many small teas at once. It looks like quite the task.

Megan is a pretty indecisive shopper, so we hung out with this guy and drank tea for over an hour. It was a lot of fun. The lamps are all so unique and really amazing to look at. He was so kind to us and gave us a small dish as a gift for buying lamps from him. We also took a picture with him which is touristy, but whatever. He was awesome!

We walked a little deeper into the Bazaar after getting our lamps and literally lost sight of women. There were men everywhere though and none too shy to yell things at us as we passed. Mind you, we were all dressed appropriately with our knees and shoulders covered. Still, I am sure they knew we were tourists. One guy selling jewelry even went as far to asking Candice if she liked Turkey. Of course she said yes, and he proceeded to say “I have a big turkey”. Yah. So, we headed OUT of that area of the bazaar and walked back down to the port to shower before dinner.

For dinner, we decided to take one of Rick Steve’s recommendations and ate at a place called Hamdi Resturant. It was a pretty fancy place, but they were obviously really excited that we were eating there. There were 9 of us because Nicole and Amanda came, and so did Juliette and Chelsea. The waiter was really nice though, and we went up an elevator to get up to the floor with a good view. I discovered another of Candice’s fears: elevators. The girl is afraid of planes and elevators, but she wants to work with the criminally insane and enjoys movies like Halloween. Pretty hilarious. We were sitting next to a group of women in traditional Muslim dress which was pretty weird because we usually don’t see groups of women walking around without men. They seemed to be a little annoyed with us, but we are all naturally loud, so we can’t do much about it. They brought appetizers on a tray right to the table, so we didn’t know if they were included or not, but we got two of them just to fit in. We ended up having to pay for them, but they were delicious. 

Megan, Candice, and I each got our own raki too which is a type of liquor that is native to the country. It is 45% alcohol, and is SO strong. They give you a little more than a shot of it in a glass, fill the rest of the glass with water, and add ice cubes. The liquid then turns cloudy when he adds the water. We got the kind he recommended, and it tasted like nasty black licorice. It was really nasty, and I couldn’t finish it, but at least I tried it! The waiter let me get a half order of two different kinds of kabobs. One had pistachios in it, and the other had veggies. They were SO good. We then got this pistachio dessert that was made of this really flaky, sweet bread. They seriously put pistachios on everything here. It was really good though.

After dinner, we wandered around for a bit. We stopped at a hookah bar pretty close to the ship that was a really local place. They definitely do hookah differently over here. First off, SO many places have it, and locals really do love it. The people at this bar were clearly laughing at us because we had no idea what to do. The guy who owned the place came over and recommended an apple flavor though, so we agreed pretty quick. We just wanted to try it. We ordered a hookah for 5 of us, but all of the locals that were there had their own hookah. Insane. We smoked for a while, but they kept putting new coals on the hookah without us asking. So, it pretty much never stopped being super strong. So, eventually we couldn’t smoke anymore and it was hurting our throats, so Candice tried to tell the guy putting coals on our hookah that we were done. Of course though, he did not understand English, but Candice just kept saying over and over again “I think that we are done,” and “Like I think that we might be done with this”. It was hilarious. She couldn’t think of the word finished. He got a coworker that could understand, but by that point, the whole place was laughing at us. Not to mention the fact that we were the only women there which is pretty much the case when we go anywhere after dark. I also bought a calling card and called Mom, Dad, and Brandon which was nice. It was really late by this point, and there were creepy men outside of the port, so we went to bed.