Merhaba Türkiye!

Oh man, has it been a long day. Our flight was delayed by...I dunno, a lot? About an hour and a half, I believe. They claimed it was due to weather, but, I mean, c'mon, JFK, a little spritzing shouldn't shut you down. But then, we were off! The man originally seated next to me graciously agreed to switch seats with Marcos, so I was able to encroach on M's space on the flight––what a guy! The dinner and breakfast were lackluster, but at least they fed us. And I was able to sleep for about half the flight, which was good!

Vendor selling simit, bread with sesame
seeds: a commonly-eaten snack that Marcos
and I have not yet tried

For anyone flying into Istanbul on Delta, you should know that you need to buy your visa before you walk around the snaky line for passport control: the instructions in the airport/airplane are not clear in that regard. I attempted to get a SIM card for the phone that Steve had lent me, but after some 10 minutes at the counter and after being cut in line 2 times, I decided it was not worth the effort. I may try again at another counter that's not in an airport and see if I have better luck, but otherwise, just call my Google number (message me if you need it), as I'll have internet access every night and can Skype with you once I get your message!

Beautiful gate, but we have no idea what it's called

We were afraid that the GPS that Marcos brought from the US wouldn't work here, as it showed the dreaded "searching for satellites" message forever in the airport, but once we got out in the open it worked. Phewf! I still used a fair amount of data getting the initial directions to the ferry, but I shan't need to do so any more :-) Speaking of driving, oh good Lord do you not want to in Turkey. Everyone drives like a crazy person! Turn signals aren't used, traffic signals are often ignored, and the lines denoting the different lanes are evidently just there for decoration.

This is supposed to be a 2-lane street

There's also a ridiculous range of speeds on the highway, with some going 40 mph and others 70. The guidebooks say to drive defensively, and yes, you have to if you don't want to get into 15 accidents in the first 10 minutes. Thankfully Marcos is doing all the driving (and those who have driven with him knows he also drives like a crazy person, but compared to everyone here, he's perfect) so I don't have to suffer through the stress too badly.

Random street in Istanbul

The first ferry we came to (Yenikapı) wouldn't have a boat to Bursa until 6:00 at night, so we decided to just drive it. About an hour later, we came upon another ferry at Eskihisar which left about 5 minutes after we got on it, and judging from the several other ferries out in the water along with us, I suspect they leave there every 15 minutes or so. Handy! It cost 50 TL (~$25) for us both, and considering time and gas saved and how awesome ferries are, it was money well spent. Also, gas: nearly $8 a gallon, but we were expecting $9-$10, so...that's something, I guess?

Goodbye, Eskihisar 

Hello, sister ferry

Sitting out on the deck was very pleasant with the breeze, though the salt water spray did not help my post-flight hair. It took us another hour-plus to get to Bursa, and after a brief bit of being lost, we found our hotel and got settled in. A shower has never felt so good, ha!

As we hadn't eaten (or drunk much, whoops), we headed out after washing up and found a little restaurant about a block away from our house. We suspect they may have been about to close, but they served us anyways. They gave us the option of sitting inside or out, and we opted for out, as the evening is a rather ideal temperature, only to realize a few minutes later after being stared at by a number of Turks that it is Ramazan (=Ramadan), and therefore quite rude to eat in public during the day. We won't be making that mistake again!

patlıcan, left, and salad, right; not pictured: bread, pudding, Fanta

We got the patlıcan dish, as that was a word I recognized (it's eggplant), which was really delicious: stewed eggplant in tomatoes with ground meat, garlic, and onion. Very tasty! It also came with a salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and olive oil; I will probably get diarrhea from it, as it seems unlikely that the vegetables were washed with anything other than tap water, but I am not about to spend my whole time here eating nothing but meat and bread! Besides, I figure my lactose intolerance has given me some experience with grouchy bowels. (TMI, but that's why you love me, right?) And also a ton of bread, a can of orange Fanta each (I tried to ask for orange juice, but used the wrong term for 'orange', asking for "orange-colored juice" [turuncu suyu] rather than "orange-fruit juice" [portakal suyu], hence the Fanta, haha!), and some magical dessert pudding with cinnamon. It was more than we could eat, but as I'd only eaten almonds since the cheese-egg-croissant on the plane, I was happy with the excess. And the final tab was 16 TL (roughly $8 for the both of us). Yay cheap food!

OMG food! 

We wandered around for a little bit more, but we're both tired and after finishing this post I am going to wash my face and go to bed. Marcos is currently snoozing on the bed with Turkish tv on the background; it was initially some soap opera, then music videos, then news showing rather graphic accidents and buses being shot at, and now some guy who built a helicopter powered by a bike? Weird.

The cat that tried to bum food off of us, but we had no
easily-removed protein. Marcos wanted to bring it home,
of course.

Tomorrow, we will explore Bursa some, and find the original home of İskender kebap (Bursa's special version of kebabs). There's a number of mosques and tombs to visit, though we'll have to see how I'm  feeling, and I absolutely want to find some kestane şekeri (sugared hazelnuts, Bursa's other signature dish)!

For now, I am going to go to bed. Hopefully my future posts will be less disorganized/sleep-deprived!