Istanbul

Again just 5 hours of sleep before starting the trip. While the night before I visited Nadja and Anže and on return home, I had to do something for work. I finished packing at 1 AM. I woke up at 6 AM and had enough time for the bathroom, breakfast, farewell, and cigarette before Iztok picked me and took us with Barbara to the Brnik airport. At the airport, there was enough time for tea and cigarette. We run into Špela at security. She had the same first flight to Istanbul on her way to India and we had a nice chat until boarding. A return ticket from Brnik to Bangkok over Istanbul was 480 €. 2-hour flight with Turkish airlines was OK (09:30 to 12:40 local time). We got seats at the emergency exit, probably last time I could stretch my legs on this trip, but Barbara was missing the view. Finding a table was a bit challenging. At the Istanbul airport, we searched for the exit and tried to skip the queue but no shortcuts this time. To the city, we transferred with metro and tram (5 TRY each ride; 1 € = 4.16 TRY). On way to Sultanahmet, we met an older Slovenian couple. After cigarette we walked around Hagia Sophia and Blue mosque, took photos and Barbara bought a fridge magnet (5 TRY).

We strolled on the bank, went to the shop (6 strong Efes and bottle of water, 48 TRY), and stopped at Orient hostel.

There Hasan and Bulent greeted us warmly, we went up to teras for talk and beer. It was a bit windy but a beautiful view of Sultanahmet and Bosphorus.

Next, we slowly walked to Grand bazar with all its gold, drunk fresh pomegranate juice (5 TRY), crossed Galata bridge with all fish restaurants and fishermen, went uphill to Galata tower, bought two postcards (1 TRY/pcs), continued up the Istiklal street full of shops to Taksim square, drunk a beer and went with metro to University station, from there we walked to Aksaray where I ate Horhor kebap (11 TRY).

From there we went with the metro to the airport, by this time I was quite sleepy. After passport control, we went for coffee (13 TRY) and a cigarette (13 TRY), we stretch at gate 203. I ate a sandwich from home and watched people try to pass locked doors. While there were daylight savings just a day before we were almost late for boarding and had to run to the gate. 2nd flight for 9h (23:55 to 14:35 local time) had less space so for me no sleep, had a gin tonic (not too strong), and tried to watch some movie.