Gobble Gobble Turkey

On a whim we made the decision off multiple recommendations to head across to Istanbul, Turkey from Greece.  It was apparently cheap, spectacular & has amazing food.  So we thought why not give it a go while we are so close.
Well I hate to tell you Istanbul, but I will not be returning to you in any kind of a hurry.  We arrived at the airport firstly to discover that our luggage did not turn up from our connecting flight at Izmir.  After some searching around we discovered that it had arrived some other way, I am still not sure how, and was waiting in the International terminal.  Not a great start, but we had luggage, yay. 

An hour or so in the taxi and we finally got to our hostel in the old town of Sultanahmet.  I was honestly not prepared for a city that has a higher population than our whole entire country and the humidity far beyond anything you can imagine.  I was a little shocked/heartbroken to learn that our room did not have aircon and that at night it was cooler outside than in our room, if only it was safe to sleep on the streets!  We decided to head out to dinner for an early night before it got dark.  I was super excited to try some Turkish food as I had heard the kebabs were amazing. I ordered a mixture of chicken and lamb with vegetables.  Well it too was not the best introduction to Turkish food as I was only served lamb and the vegetables consisted of a tomato and a pepper.   I took a deep breath and ignored the fact that I was not served what I ordered and began eating what I thought would be delicious tender lamb.  Growing up on a farm, I have eaten more lamb chops than you can imagine, to the point where I did not eat lamb for many years and still will not go near a chop, so to describe that this tasted like an overcooked chewy lamb chop does it justice.  I reminded myself while eating that there are starving children and the world and that I should be blessed to have food on my plate.

Thankfully my experience with food has gotten better.  The next morning after almost drowning in our own sweat, we headed out to breakfast.  The options for breakfast are very limited where traditional breakfast consists of bread, butter, jam or honey, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese.  Trying to avoid bread here is impossible but I am doing my best and decided to give an omelette a try as this is the only other option for breakfast.  It was served in a copper pot and was more like scrambled eggs with cheese, vegetables and sausage mixed through.  It was surprisingly very nice and I enjoyed that it was not too eggy. 
We had already spent enough time in the main street to realise that you cannot walk anywhere without being spoken to or harassed to enter a restaurant or to buy some water or books off the street that we decided to spend the remainder of the morning doing some research on where to head next.  This turned into a skype session and built up quite an appetite for lunch.  We headed towards the mosques where we discovered a nice restaurant to have some lunch before wandering through the markets outside.  I made the decision to go back to lamb and this time tried traditional lamb kofta in a stew style served with chips and rice.  Now this is what I call traditional amazing food.  The flavours were sensational, the lamb was superbly cooked and the addition of the vegetables in the stew made the dish.  Feeling satisfied we wandered around the markets for a while before take two of organising the rest of our time in Turkey which we decided will be spent at Pamukkle and Gallipoli.

Our last full day in Istanbul and we decided that we must check out some of the major sights.  We headed to two different mosques, one being the famous blue mosque.  I must admit that I was surprised as to how similar they are to many of the other churches we have seen across Europe.   While they were spectacular I was expecting dramatic differences for different cultures however the only major difference to me was the huge courtyards and outside areas that make the buildings such temple like structures. 
Time to try another traditional meal for lunch so I opted for a mixed pide.  These are served in Australia, but very different to what we are used to.  The Turkish refer to a pide as a Turkish pizza and this is a much better description that I can provide as it tasted so similar to a pizza, but the base is more of a bread than a dough.  As I am only in Turkey once I needed to break my no lollies rule that I made about a week ago (whoops!) and have some Turkish Delight. So before heading to the Grand Bazaar market I decided to give a try.  Again something the Aussies don’t do quite right as we coat it with chocolate and have only one flavour, but the flavours here are endless.  The texture is the same jelly like consistency, but I could not find any that tasted the same and I sampled rose, traditional, orange, mint and pomegranate(why break the rule if I wasn’t going to do it properly)!
After gauging this delicious treat we headed to the market where I certainly will not be returning.   By far the largest market I have ever been to but never have I seen so many of all the same shop. The hustle bustle was enough on its own, but the endless salesman trying to get you to buy an overpriced souvenir did not entice me to purchase anything.
To continue with our traditional day we decided to head out on a boat cruise along the Bosphorus River to see some traditional dancing such as belly dancing.  The night started with a buffet meal and it was a hit.  I decided to try a little of everything and my plate was overflowing.  The salads were amazing and we wish we could have wrapped up all the extras and taken them home for lunch the next day. I did have a little chuckle to myself as a large number of the men headed directly to the meat and avoided the entire table of salads except to return to grab what I counted to be about 10 pieces of bread each! They should have just taken an entire loaf!
I was a little disappointed after all the money that we payed that the acts were still begging us for tips and seemed to be a little annoyed when the majority of people refused to give any.  All in all it was a fun night and the dances we saw were very unique.

Our last day in Istanbul and we are avoiding the heat and waiting for our 7pm bus to Pamukkle by sitting under the air conditioner in our hostels common room.  We have ventured out twice however, once for breakfast where I had a small argument with the waiter as I was again not served what I ordered (cheese, bacon and spinach omelette but was served cheese, tomato and spinach), this time I decided to speak up.  Let’s just say that he didn’t take it so well and told me it was what I ordered.  Well after my three days here that was enough for me to turn from polite to angry in under a second and I became one of those customers I loathe but instead of correcting my order, he just bought a small bowl of bacon to add to my omelette myself...hmm Turkey you are not doing yourself any favours.
There was one more thing that I just had to try before leaving the big smoke, so for lunch I had a chicken doner kebab to compare to the Greek gyros and on all reports (me and my travel buddy) Greek gyros wins hands down.  The chicken was delicious but the missing element of tzatziki, or any kind of sauce infact, turns out to be an important element as does the bread to ingredients ratio where it felt like it was 100 to 1!  Time now to organise ourselves for a big couple of days of sightseeing where I am sure our Turkish experience will improve dramatically, well here is to hoping xx