"Excusse Me Sir, Your Mustache, It's Tickling My Back"

So we are behind as usual, I appologize and hope we can contiune to entertain...keep in mind we are past the two month mark, and at this point we will only have a month of travel left. It is crazy how quickly life passes, but honestly at times it feels like it has only been a week, then you look at some of your pictures and it hits you, you have been half way around the world, for two months, and still have 30 days left, it feels amazing.

After leaving Greece and biding farwell to Lauren, which was tough after sharing such a memroable time together, we moved on to Istanbul. This was my first time in a traditionally Muslim city and I found the culture and people unbelievable. This place was very new to me and the culture was all around us, there was an atmosphere in Istanbul like no where else. The first thing that we noticed approaching our hostel was the unmistakable Blue Masque and Hagia Sophia, I will get to them later. Our hostel was on a side road off a main street, it was completley full, not a bed to spare, there was a friendly staff, and a breathtaking view from the roof deck of the Bosphorus in one direction and the Blue Masque in the other.

Our first night in Istanbul it was the weekend so we ventured into the social center of the city, Taksim Square. We walked through the streets, which were easily the most crowed ones we had seen yet, sampling a local beer here and there and then called it a night. We got back to our hostel around 3 am and were looking forward to getting some rest. Only one problem, there was some woman sleeping in my bed. The genius at the front desk checked her in that night and gave her my bed, a bit frustrating. After a few words were exchanged I ended up in a honeymoon suite.... but not alone. While Sean slept soundly in our original dorm I shared a room with some large man, shirtless and snoaring. I quitely crept past him and crawled into bed, clutching my valuables, and hoped he would not be too startled to find a young American sharing his room. The next day the sleeping arrangments were sorted out and I could move back down to the traditional 14 bed room we were staying in.

Our first full day Sean and I were served a serious helping of Istanbul history. We spent hours pondering the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sophia was orginally a church built in 400 AD by the Byzantines, but when the Ottomans took over they changed it into a Mosque. Today it is a museum and is the only place in the world where you will see a huge mosaic of The Virgin Marry above the Mihrab of a mosque, very fasinating. The Blue Masque was the first masque we had ventured into and it took my breath away. After removing our shoes and walking in Sean and I spent the better part of an afternoon sitting on the comftable carpted floor of the masque. We watched groups of muslims prey and staryed up at the blue and white porcelin mosaicics that fill the ceiling, one of the most amazing buidlinngs of the whole trip.

That night we found another part of Turkish culture that has stuck with us throughout the trip, water pipes and backgammon. The two go hand in hand, neither takes much skill, but you can spend hours on end partaking in both. I managed to frustrate Sean in ways I never thought possible, after defeting him time and time again, in the game he claims "its just a roll off, we might as well just roll once and that decides who wins." We spent many nights on our roof deck, playing gammon, puffing on shesha, listening to the evening prey call coming out of the Blue Masque, and meeting different people. One night we met these two Dutch guys, Dirk and Jobe, who both shared an interest on backgammon and hoka smoking.

They found it fasinating that the majority of our conversations revolved around food. For those of you who dont know, one of my favorite things to do before or after eatting is going into intense detail about either what I am going to order or what I just ate, whether its George's cream of crab soup or a Mcdonalds double chee. They thought it was so funny when we would go on rants about some random food we had dabbled in that day, I now understand while Holland is not known for it's foods. Anyway let me go ahead and rant for a bit on some of the local cuisine Istanbul had to offer. The first and one of my favorite, the meat kart, you could pay $5 and get a huge pita full of your choice of lamb, chicken, beef, or meatballs, typically I would go with the balls. There was the local fish market, where we sampled the fresh fish sandwiches that were caught daily. The climax of our food experiencse in Instanbul was discovered on our final night at around 4 am when we stumbled upon the local "wet burger" stand. There were two stands located directly next to each other, one had a line out the door, the other place was empty. We waited in line and spent $3 on what we both agreed was hands down the best late nihgt food we had ever eatten. It was a honey glazed bun, with a hamburger inside, more like a meatball, with marinara, chesse, and a bit of mayo, the bun and burger simoltaiously melted in your mouth with every bite, my mouth is watering thinking about it.

On a bit of a more serious note, one of the nights we were in Istanbul there was a terroirst bombing that took place in a residential neighborhood just 30 mins from our hostel. The bombs were placed in trash cans, one was set off, then the other went off about 45 mins later after a crowed had been drawn out, 17 people were killed. It was strange, the next day everything in the city was still running like nothing had happend, everything still open, people all over, and no real sense that a bombing had just taken place the night before. I asked one of the guys working at our hostel about it and he gave us the impression that this happens all the time, and that it is nothing new to them, not really that big of a deal. It was a real wakeup call for Sean and I, the thought never crosses my mind when we are traveling, that we really are in some dangerous places.

Anyway on a lighter note, the last truely cultural experience we had while in Istanbul was when we were talked into a day at the local spa. The night before we had met a guy from the US named Hari, he was raving about this world famous Turkish Bath and we decied we would tag along. My only experince with massgaes and spa treatments consits of vactions in tropical destinations with my family, so the masseuse is typically an attractive local and the massage is noramlly long and soothing. This is not quite the case for a Turkish Bath, or Hamam, from what I had heard its a Turkish man that doesnt massage you, but rather beats you. The set up is a large marble room, tempature of a sauna, and little bathing stations surrounding a large marble platform in the middle, we were dressed in only a cloth wraped around us like towels. The three of us were sitting in the room awating our treatments when in walks a 250 lb Turkish man. He walks up next to me, delivers a heavy open palm blow to my back, grins and ask me to follow him. This man is in the same outift I am wearing, he has got a mustache on him that looks like a rat crawled onto his upper lip and died, and his body hair to skin ration is far too high, not my typical masseuse. I am a bit nervous, but go, he takes my cloth off and tells me to lay face down on the marble platform. I quickly follow his instructions and he begins to beat me like I just informed him of the affair I was having with his wife. The massage/beating goes on for about 30 mins, then he leads me over to the washing stations. Now this large Turk starts to soap me up and scrub me down like a new born baby, he exfoliate ever little nook and crannie of my body and then slaps cool water on me. He ends the treatment with a through shampooing of my entire body. He scrubs and scrubs, at one point he's got my leg over his shoulds and is dangerously too close..., all the while his body hair is accumulating soap like the peaks of the Rockies. The treatment ends, my main man wraps me in two fresh towel, shakes my hand and we part ways, we bonded in ways I never thought possible between two men. Sean, Hari, and I had some black tea in the lobby area, recovering from our Hamam, but unanimously decied we had never felt so relaxed, you'd be suprised what a large Turkish man can do to you.