Istanbul- a metropolis bursting with life, pulsating with demonstrations, breathing with every minaret-prayer, smelling of thousand different spices and kebab shops. What better place is there to celebrate a New Year’s Eve? As a German-Italian trio we departed by bus from Sofia to Istanbul in the Night of the 30th to the 31st of December. There and back again for 75 Leva - that amount is even found in the budget of a volunteer. Istanbul welcomed us at 5:30 clock in the morning with shouting sellers, crazy taxi drivers and the obligatory prayers from several surrounding mosques.
What a city! Istanbul as the
new It-Metropolis of Europe?! Never! Old Turkish guys with long beards, sitting
on small stools in front of their shops, drinking sweet and strong tea out of
tiny glasses. Narrow alleys with shops and stalls, overloaded with sweets,
spices and kitschy nonsenses. Screaming vendors of Pilav (rice), Kebab,
Souvenirs, Turkish delights and pastry are at every corner. For those six days
we visited the city, it presented itself very as Turkish indeed!
Our “Soho Hostel”, located
three minutes to Taksim square, is owned by a crazy but adorable old guy who
looked like Hulk Hogan of the 80's!
For New Year’s Eve, we made an
appointment at Taksim square with other EVS volunteers who were currently in
town and started the Happy Hour with British, Colombian, French and Japanese
guys from the hostel. In that night there were more armed police men in the centre
than tourists. Well, at least it felt like that. Random walks through the city,
enjoying all the noise and hurly-burly of “Beyoglu” (our neighbourhood) made it
an amazing night in the city, which appeared to be a fairy-tale of thousand and
one night. “Random” is one of the best words to describe our tourist schedule
of the next days, as you discover a city the best when you get lost and start
walking accidentally through small alleys and big harbours. In this manner we
visited intriguing places, parks, mosques, bazaars, bars and restaurants. “The
city of seven hills” is definitely not a piece of cake for lazy people, either way you have to climb up
stairways in a 65° angle, or you stumble down super steep paths - plain places
are just found around the harbour. As for the ups and downs of the nightlife -
you will find not only bar next to bar, but club above bar above pub in one
building! In this way we discovered the best reggae club of the city “Nayah”
just next to our favourite Irish pub “Bar-Ish Pub”.
Constantinople (the old name of Istanbul) owns more than 3000 mosques, therefore you easily loose the overview of which mosque you have already visited and which you have not. For three days we have been thinking that we have already visited the famous “Blue Mosque”, just to discover after this third day, that it has been “only” another big mosque with some unpronounceable name. Nevertheless incredibly beautiful. For making sure that you enter the mosque barefoot and with hair covered, they even provide scarfs for the women and plastic bags for the shoes. Hopefully it is just a rumour, that the carpets inside the mosques are changed only every 50 years. The way some of them smelled, unfortunately, were proving the opposite.
One day we hesitantly offered
25Lira (Turkish currency) for a Bosphorus boat- trip, which turned out to be
one of the best activities you can do in Istanbul. From the Marmara Sea to the
Black Sea and back again, with the simply never ending city of Istanbul on both
sides of the river. Those 8,43€ (or 16,49 Leva) for a 4 hours trip were
definitely worth it!
For our last evening we decided to visit the Asian part of the city- less touristic, cheaper but nonetheless fantastic. Incredible, when you think about the possibility to visit another continent just for a few hours. After the beautiful sunset at the beach of “Kadiköy” and a final kebab we slowly ended our amazing holiday with a last cup of good Turkish “Efes” beer.
After around 8 hours of bus tour, Passport control and fear for our life (due to the driving-skills of Bulgarian bus drivers in foggy nights) our lovely EVS adventure ended where it started: in Sofia.
For our last evening we decided to visit the Asian part of the city- less touristic, cheaper but nonetheless fantastic. Incredible, when you think about the possibility to visit another continent just for a few hours. After the beautiful sunset at the beach of “Kadiköy” and a final kebab we slowly ended our amazing holiday with a last cup of good Turkish “Efes” beer.
After around 8 hours of bus tour, Passport control and fear for our life (due to the driving-skills of Bulgarian bus drivers in foggy nights) our lovely EVS adventure ended where it started: in Sofia.
MicheleBellotto, Maurizio Novati, Ida Meyenberg
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