FourSquare Map of Istanbul Stops

Last day in Istanbul. I’m going to get my Bosphorus cruise in, damnit! I wake up early and head down to finally do this thing. Oh, you mean it lasts six hours… I must have missed that. Alright, I guess that’s not happening but I still need to accomplish my goal of getting over to Asia. After attempting to figure out how to use the ferry, get tickets, pay… whatever. The folks manning the queue take pity on me and just let me on the ferry. So, ferry to Asia, pretty cool.

There isn’t really much to do or see on the Asian side of Istanbul so I just go to lunch at a local chain called Bereket Doner. The staff doesn’t speak English and after my first attempt at Turkish my waitress takes pity on me. She rejects my initial order and just brings me whatever she thinks I’ll like. No clue what it was but it was good.

Back at the ferry crossing an English speaking attendant informs me the reason I had such trouble figuring out how to pay earlier is because the ferry is free. Great. I sail back across to the European side and head back to the Spice Bazaar to secure some souvenirs. The girl at the post office is extremely patient with me and even packages all my things for me and fills out the forms to send them back home. Fingers crossed that they make it. Hope, this isn’t ruining the surprise but luckily I don’t think anyone reads my blog…

A frantic cab ride back to the airport follows. I should have mentioned this earlier but around old town there are still roman walls so in places the highway breaks up into multiple single lanes to take you through them. Sorry for the poor photo quality but this was spur of the moment as we are flying down the highway.

My flight ends up being delayed an hour and by the time I get home I’m completely wiped out.