Istanbul

After Budapest, two of my friends and I skipped on over to Istanbul.

Istanbul is an incredible city and is unlike anywhere else I have been.  The city is split between the European and Asian continents and provides a unique dichotomy between western and eastern ways of life. The city is almost entirely urban, and antiquated mosques and market places fill the spaces between sky scrapers and H&Ms. 

{Topkapi Palace}

{Hagia Sofia}

formerly a christian church, then a mosque, now a museum

{The Blue Mosque}

{Istanbul Modern}

{markets, markets, and more markets!!}

Istanbul's oldest and largest market-the Grand Bazaar- covers over 61 streets and houses over 4,000 vendors.  Visitors are told to bring a map and warned that they will never come out the way they came in.  

{Basilica Cistern}

3rd century underground basilica converted into a water reservoir in 500 AD 

{Fishermen's Bridge}

We scarfed down dried fruit and hummus platters but found other bits of Turkish culture harder to swallow.  The attitude towards women—particularly westerners— is pretty incredible. The three of us made a point of dressing modestly, but still received a constant shower of degrading and sexist comments.  The level of harassment I observed in Istanbul exceeded that of any other big city I have been to. And, particularly on the European side, I noticed very few women with working positions. The market place interactions could be pretty exhausting aswell.  Shopkeepers aggressively target passerbys to the point that I’d often speed past shops or cafes that I might have been interested in just to avoid hostility.  The biggest shock fell with the number of young children living on the street.  Kids as young as five or six would tug at my sleeves asking for money and twelve year olds sold cigarettes at street corners.   

 "Istanbul: some call it chaos, we call it home"

-a Turkish saying