Istanbul to London - Kebabs, Mosques, and Couchsurfing

When buying our plance tickets from Kathmandu, Nepal to Buenos Aires, Argentina, we discovered the best bang for our buck would be to stop over in Istanbul and London for a few days each. Although not on our original itenerary, we were excited to see some unexpected places. We have also eliminated South Africa from this trip in order to spend more time in South America.

While we were dreading the travel week ahead of us, we were excited to head to Istanbul, Turkey for a quick 2 days. Jodie and I have been in countless airports now and by far the craziest one has been the Kathmandu International Airport. I will never complain about security checks in the US again. When we arrived at the airport, there was a line outside to actually get IN to the airport. After 10 min of waiting in that line, we were denied entry because we did not have printed boarding passes (as we were travelling via electronic tickets). The police officer/security guard made us wait outside while an airline rep was being fetched to help us. 20 min later the police let us inside but not through security and told us to sit and wait. After about another 15 min, no rep yet so the police guy suddenly had a change of heart, and let us go through the metal detector to get into the airport. Once inside, with tickets freshly printed, we proceded to go through 3 more full pat-down security checks before we could get on the plane. After an uneventful layover in Dubai, we were off to Istanbul. We bought tickets through a discount airline which we have learned that they always fly to the farthest airport away from any city center. This wouldn't normally be an issue but we arrived at 1am on a plane full of boisterous and impatients Turks and we were pretty tired. As soon as the plane touched down in Istanbul, while it was still speeding down the runway, one man jumped up to get his things from the overhead compartment because he was in such a hurry. This triggered about half of the plane to also stand up which sent the flight attendents into a frenzy. We thought it was hilarious.

Luckily at 1am we found the last airport shuttle for the night that was about half the price of a taxi. It would take us about an hour to get to the city center where our hostel was located. We stumbled into our hostel around 2am and were very happy to get some rest after 17 hrs of traveling.

Istanbul proved to be a whirlwind of site-seeing, kebabs, and tons of walking. We managed to spend 20 hours seeing the sites in 2 days. As you may remember from history class, Istanbul was the capital of 3 different empires and, therefore, has a ploethera of historic sites and musuems. It's name has changed with each of the ruling empires from Byzantium to Constantanople to Istanbul. You know that song is going through your head right now....you know the one.

Istanbul straddles the Bosphorus, which is the channel that links the Black Sea with the Mediteranian and also seperates Asia from Europe. The historical regime changes has led to a diversity of religions from early Christianity to Muslim.

One of our favorite sites was the church of Hagia Sophia, a church built around 500 AD, the largest for 100 yrs until St Peter's Basilica was built in Rome. We were amazed walking through the caverness building knowing that it's been around for 15 centuries. When the Ottoman Empire took over Constantinople, the church was converted to a Mosque and the all of the Biblical mosaics decorating the church were plastered over and only recently have they started restoring them.

We also had our first experience inside of a working Mosque, the Blue Mosque, which is nearly as large and spectacular as Hagia Sophia. We toured Topkaie Palace, an old Ottoman palace, which was where the Sultans used to live. There were endless rooms filled with all sorts of relics encrusted with precious stones like diamonds, emeralds, and rubies on display. It was hard to imagine the luxurious lives these rulers lived.

Being the Kebab lovers that we are, we managed to eat 4 of them each in 2 days. Although they were very tasty, our best kebab award still goes to New Zealand where we could get lamb with any kind of sauce. In Turkey we could not find lamb and they were sauceless.

We also sampled some fresh fish sandwiches which were literally served straight off the boats in the peir. The sandwiches were ok but the atmosphere was terrific with lots of Turks quickly grabbing the sandwiches to devour while sitting in groups at small stools and tables.

It was strange going from the impovereshed streets of Kathmandu to the European feel of Istanbul. I think we are getting a little numb to all the culture shock we've experienced throughout our trip. We would like to return to Turkey someday to see more of what it has to offer as we really enjoyed the history and vibrant culture there. Everyplace has been so different from the last and our next stop, London, was not an exception to this.

Heading to London, it was a nice relief to have a short, non-stop flight that arrived at a reasonable hour of the day. After navigating our way through the "Tube" (underground subway system) with our large packs we arrived at our couchsurfing hosts flat on the Northside of the city. This was our first couchsurfing experience eventhough we attempted to find hosts in a few cities before. We had no luck with it until now. Couchsurfing.org is a website where travellers who need a place to stay are linked up with people who are willing to host them. Our host just, Jakob, moved to London 6 weeks ago from Germany. He is staying rent free in the 4 story loft as a caretaker for this property that had previously been occupied by 6 squatters. London has a unique law that allows people to legally inhabit vacant properties if they find them open. Jakob had recently cleaned the place out and was starting to repair some of the damage made by the disgruntled squatters that the landlord wanted out. Among other things, the central heating was not working which made the place very chilly with the freezing nights. Luckily we had recently been in Nepal where we were used to the cold temperatures and lack of heating. Jodie says that London is way colder than Nepal. Jakob proved to be a gracious host. Our first night there, he invited some friends over (some Germans, Japanese, and a Londoner) and fed us a traditional British dish of mashed potatoes and meat pie. We returned the favor by buying him a couple of pints at the local pub and also helping him with his English wording on his resumes. We got along with him quite well and we seemed to have alot in common including his love for cheap and free things. He is frugile just like us as displayed by his collection of chairs, dishes, and mirrors all found on the streets. Although this was my first time to London, this was Jodie's third time so she got to play tour guide for me. In London, we spent another 2 days of busy site-seeing to soak up what we could in such a short time.

We were eager to see the wonderful musuems that London offered including the British Musuem, the National Art Gallery, and the National History Musuem. Some of the highlights of these musuems were the Rosetta Stone, mummies, Mexican Revolutionary art, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, and dinosaurs. We walked until our feet got tired and we mastered the Tube seeing such sites as Big Ben, Parliment, the Tower Bridge, and Buckingham Palace. Jodie bragged that the last time she was at Buckingham, she got to see the Queen and Princes waving from the balcony. Not this time. We ate fish and chips and once again, some kebabs for good measure. We definatley got our fill of musuems to last us for a long time. We have not yet got our fill of kebabs. I am hungry right now, that is why I keep talking about kebabs.

By the time we post this blog we will be in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We are currently typing this in the airport in Madrid, Spain waiting 8 hrs on layover about to board our 20th flight segmant since leaving Hawaii last November. We have navigated 24 airports and we've lost track of how many hours we have spent in transit. It will be nice to finally arrive in South America, our last continent before heading back to the states, with the majority of our flights behind us. We have been surprised at the widespread use of English in most of the places we have been but now we will have to brush up on our Spanish as most South Americans know little English, as I learned while travelling there 4 years ago. We are very excited to get there!