back to istanbul

so the last two days I just lazed around Selcuk. On Friday I went to have a traditional Turkish hamam (turkish bath). It was good. a little weird, but good. Because this town I was in is a small town, the hamam isn't a touristy thing, it's the real deal. These women spend ALL of Friday afternoon at the hamam. It's like the local gossip place...ok so I don't speak Turkish, but I can tell the tone that is used when women gossip... (and on this particular day I'm pretty sure I was the topic of gossip! i don't think they get a lot of tourists at this hamam. and i realized pretty quickly that this was the place you came to be seen... haha that sentence works literally as well... It's so weird to be in a world where it is the norm to be covered up, and expected to be covered, but as soon as ur inside the hamam, it's NOT normal if you are covered up. so strange for me...

i wanted to go out yesterday to see a little beachside town called Kucadasi, but it was thunderstorms and rain and hail all day... so i had to entertain myself until 10pm when i had to catch my bus. so i got very bored. but then i caught my bus. good bus company. they served good cake...the marble kind! (we judge the quality of the bus company on the type of cake they give you!) nah it was a very comfy ride... until I got woken up and booted off at 7am, 2 hours before we were meant to get to istanbul. I got directed in my bleary eyed, semi-conscious state to a servees, and tried to communicate in them with a mix of broken english and arabic (because of course that's what Turks can understand!) that i needed to go to Sultanahmet, not some other suburb, all the while trying to count my bags (suddenly realising I had left one on the bus with mum and dad;s awesome and slightly expensive wine jug in it!) don't fret though! I got it... im just so used to counting three bags... not four. this extra luggage thing is gonna take some adjusting to.

so once all my bags were accounted for, I got onto this servees, slightly fuming because I was told that i would have to catch the metro at Aksaray, and catching the metro with 4 bags was going to be a real pain in the ass. and then they don't even drop me off at aksaray!!! they drop me off way earlier thinking i'm a stupid tourist, i won't know where I am. So i got more annoyed, but the guy had already pulled my bags off before i could argue with him, so i just got off...

and then had to haul my luggage down the stupid stairs to buy the stupid ticket, and then haul them all back up to the top to get on the tram... only to then realize that i am on the wrong side of the tracks... (i'll never get used to this right hand road driving thing!) and so i crossed the tracks, with my four bags, only to THEN be questioned by the officer dude where my ticket was coz he thought i had come in from the road, but hadn't seen me come across the tracks. So i rambled in really fast english, in a really annoyed voice what I had just gone thru, and you know how there is a gossiping tone...well there is an annoyed tone too, and it's the same in every language... well at least in turkish, and he got the idea and left me alone.

and THEN... i had to find my hostel. well. Turks love to be helpful... and i got about 5 people telling me where my hostel was... all pointing in different directions of course. After about half and hour, and 2 litres of sweat drenching my clothes, i stumbled across the Antique HOTEl.. not hostel. hotel. i needed hostel. So because I'm super prepared and all, I didn't have the addy of my hostel on a piece of paper, but i had it on my laptop. So i put all 4 bags down, sat on them, got my macbook out, got the addy. then got a taxi driver to take me there. to then find out they were all booked out.

but the good news is they have a sister hostel. just as nice. around the corner. adn i had a room all to myself! for a few hours anyway, and now I'm sharing with a japanese guy, but he's really nice, so it's cool.

and today i did a bit of shopping. went for a big walk. found out about an awesome topkapi palace tour which is cheap! and then had dinner. and now i'm looking at going to bed real soon, coz I'm stuffed.

love me