That Was Bazaar.

Day: 36

Well after a night of thinking it over I changed my mind about sitting on a bus for 10 hours to Bulgaria, only to have to follow that with a 22 hour ride into Romania, and follow that with 12 more into Hungary. 44 hours on a bus over the next week just does not seem like the most enjoyable use of my time, no matter how many special sleeping pills I have. So, the new mission of the day is to try and find a cheap ticket to fly out of Istanbul (which still seems impossible to leave) and try to see the Grand Bazaar.

After dredging the internet for an hour or so I realized that I wouldn’t find anything that way, so I headed off to the travel agent next door to see what she had to offer. Her flights where also crazy expensive, she had a loophole though, if I was a student I could get a flight to Budapest (in Hungary) for 110 euros instead of 160 euros. Unfortunately I haven’t gone to anything resembling a class in over 4 years. After talking it over with some guys at the hostel, they suggested Jasper (who was in the same predicament trying to get a flight to Barcelona) and I try to search out a shady travel agent who would sell us the International Student Identification Card (ISIC) without any real ID necessary. Hey, Its 50 euro, so we set out to ask around and on our 5^th or 6^th place we stopped we meant a nice woman who would make us one, no questions asked, for 20 euro. I was still going to be up 30 bucks for the day, so I ran across the street and took a quick passport photo and within 20 minutes I was once again a student of California State!

We headed back to Yasemine, our travel agent, and whipped out our new ID’s, which she giggled at, but still gave us our discounted flights. I accomplished the first half of today’s goals now it was time for us to set out to see the Grand Bazaar, which is supposedly…Grand. A 15-minute walk and we were there.

It was a gigantic assault on the senses, everywhere people where trying to get us to buy things, from lamps, rugs, shoes, leather jackets and scarves to tea sets, hookahs, plates (I should have bought a reserve), and backgammon sets. It was really quite an experience. After spending the afternoon just wandering around the Bazaar and it surrounding area, we had lunch/dinner of Turkish meatballs, potatoes, and bread. Around 5 we headed back to the hostel for a shower, and to pick up our tickets from Yasemine, who Jasper was also hoping to pick-up.

I think he managed because he was gone the rest of the night and I spent it reading and having a beer while talking to the cute British bartender.