Between the chaos and the madness: Istanbul

Coming from Amsterdam to Istanbul is a bit of a shock. We don't speak a work of Turkish BUT as planned there was my name on a piece of paper and a driver waiting to take us to our apartment and  next to our driver were Emma and Suzo and Jeseka. This was an unplanned coincidence. They were arriving from Riga in Latvia and well our drivers were standing next to each other and though we were scheduled to arrive at different times Emma and her party had been whisked through customs and visa rigamarole and so we had emerged practically together. 

We have been spending most of the past week with them doing a variety of activities including visiting some of the top tourist destinations: engineering marvels: (Haiga Sophia & the Cisterns), art wonders the Chora Church with the ancient christian themed Byzantine murals and the shopping extravaganza of the Grand Bazaar. We have learned to travel on the trams and take the funicular and have visited both ends now of our extremely curvy street (Serdar-i-Ekram  Sak) in Beyoglu so we know where we are and how to get back here. Touring around with Emma in her wheelchair in a mostly not very accessible city adds a whole other dimension, but Jeseka and Suzo are fearless and determined drivers and well we pretty much went where we wanted. 

So our friends left for Dubrovnik this morning and we are sad but have considerably slowed the pace.

Today we searched for and successfully discovered the Galata Tower, we live very close to it, but with all the hills and curves and turns and tiny crowded streets it becomes invisible until you get right below it.  The views from the tower are spectacular.

So we have traded the Amsterdam sounds:  water lapping against canal walls, boat motors, the whirling of bicycle wheels and clanging of chain locks and the morning visit of the Heineken truck clattering bottles re-supplying the square; for Istanbul sounds: the five AM call to prayer (and the 4 other calls from the mosque minaret just outside our window), the bread sellers cry in the morning, the after school street play of the many neighbourhood kids and the colony of cats that frolic at night. I believe there are more cats here than bicycles in Amsterdam. (way more) Let's talk abut the dogs later!