{"id":388,"date":"2010-08-01T17:06:21","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T21:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=388"},"modified":"2015-02-14T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T18:39:16","slug":"istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t know what I expected Istanbul to be like before I arrived, but the city is like nothing I have ever experienced before!\u00a0 It is a huge, bustling, noisy city full of people from every part of the world.\u00a0 Parts of Istanbul are as cosmopolitan and modern as New York or Paris and other parts of the city are as backward as any third world country.\u00a0 Istanbul is a city that is full of surprises with something new to experience on every corner!<\/span><\/p>\n

I will start at the beginning of the trip.\u00a0 My son, Chris, and I arrived at Ataturk Airport on Monday morning, August 1st.\u00a0 The night flights across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe are just awful.\u00a0 It is pure torture to sit upright on a small, hard seat for nine hours, be fed disgusting “food”, and then be catapulted into the bright sunshine of a new city.\u00a0 Ataturk Airport looked like it was still under construction and smelled of hardening cement and wet paint.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a long walk following “baggage claim” signs to an area which looked like JFK Airport’s Immigration windows where a long line winded its way to several caged inspectors.\u00a0 As we joined our fellow travellers at the end of the line, I noticed three windows to the left with a big sign that read, “VISA”.\u00a0 I had read that a Visa was necessary for Americans to enter Turkey, so we moved over to that line.\u00a0 After the agent stuck a small sticker in our passports and collected $20.00 from each person, we rejoined the entry line.\u00a0 We received a quick stamp in our passports from the inspector and went on to the baggage claim conveyor belts and finally out to the waiting drivers.\u00a0 Chris immediately spotted my name on a piece of paper and we introduced ourselves to our driver.<\/span><\/p>\n

We followed him to the garage to a waiting VW bus and got our first glimpse of Istanbul.\u00a0 The first thing we learned was: “do not drive in Istanbul”!\u00a0 Not only are the signs in Turkish, but it’s every driver to himself!\u00a0 There are very few stop signs or traffic lights and no “yield” signs.\u00a0 It was like an amusement park ride with the car moving at a fast speed, cutting off other drivers, and taking over the road. We had finally made it to Istanbul!\u00a0 What a ride!\u00a0 What a welcome!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know what I expected Istanbul to be like before I arrived, but the city is like nothing I have ever experienced before!\u00a0 It is a huge, bustling, noisy city full of people from every part of the world.\u00a0 Parts of Istanbul are as cosmopolitan and modern as New York or Paris and other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,3,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-istanbul","category-travel","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8697,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/8697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}