Istanbul, 15km of exhausting fun and Thessaloniki!

Awesome way to have a meal, choose what looks good from a huge selection. The police eat there so it must be good, right

Marathon expo with some sort of weird mascot. James, Jenifer in the armpit and myself.

The "Blue Mosque" and the sultan himself!

Gearing up for the big race, you can see the bridge across the Bosphorus Strait behind us. Jenifer, Alex, and myself.

Before the race with some of the other PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteers).
Kristen, Alex, Erwin, Me, James, and Jenifer.

After the race finished. Notice the change in color of my shirt. I wasn't really standing on my own at this point!!

Turkish Viagra at the Spice Bazaar. Thing was huge, the spice bazaar that is.

Spice Bazaar, this place was awesome. So many free samples, i even bought some Apple tea and some tea for an Albanian friend.

Turkish ice cream. Stuff is like cold bathroom caulk but actually tastes good.

Eating dinner on the Asian side of Istanbul. They must not get too many Americans cause they put this on our table when we arrived.

Sultanahmet Mosque, Istanbul.

Aristotle Square, Thessaloniki.

White Tower, Thessaloniki.

Thessaloniki

Friday October 15, 2010 I headed to Istanbul, Turkey for the 32^nd annual Intercontinental Marathon. I of course did not participate in the full marathon but instead opted to run the 15km race. Fellow PCV’s Alex, James, Jenifer, Erwin, Katharine (age 53), and Kristen also participated in the 15km race while Katie, Carrie Anne, and Chris ran the full and arduous marathon. In case you don’t care about the history of torturous activities that crazy people partake in for fun I will enlighten you. The marathon is a 42.2Km race (26miles) that originates from a story of a messenger who ran 22 miles from Marathon to Athens with news of the Athenian victory over the Persians, only to collapse dead upon arrival after delivering the message. Ya, sign me up for that, sounds like a great idea!? In all seriousness I really do respect, envy, and for some reason distrust anyone who can complete a ridiculously unnecessary distance like a marathon. I thought I was going to pass out after I ran about a third of the marathon distance, but we will get to that later.

We started the trip out of Tirana International (A.K.A. why would we fly anywhere but international) Airport on the somewhat deceivingly nice Albanian Airways. On first glance of the airplane I was honestly a little intimidated. I am not the biggest fan of flying to begin with and this thing looked like a furgon with wings. I could not have been more struck by “don’t judge a book by its cover.” The inside of the plane, the staff, and the comfort of the ride was up to par with any other line I have flown. We even got a sandwich on the 1.5hour long trip which was great. We arrived in Istanbul without a hitch except that when we arrived Alex and I remembered that we had no money except for Albanian lek, otherwise worthless outside of Albania. The fee for a Turkish tourism visa is $20 and between the two of us we had 15euro. Lucky for us there was a non-functioning ATM machine at the gate of the visa window. We had to roam the hall of the airport for 3 hours looking for some gracious person to transfer our lek into Euros, Dollars or Turkish Lira. Totally kidding, although this may seem like something that would happen to me while travelling unprepared, our friend Katharine just let us each borrow the visa fee out of the oddly large amount of USD she brought with her, you know just in case some idiot may need USD.

Although we were not prepared financially we had, surprisingly enough and against my usual travel etiquette, already secured a hostel. We really lucked out. Although James and Jenifer were not entirely thrilled with the conditions of our temporary living quarters (a 6 bed dorm room that smelled like a locker room in an apperantly clean hostel with a clueless staff), I was absolutely smitten with the area the hostel was located in. As far as a traveler is concerned, accommodations are not as important as location and the area we stayed in was perfect. Just to be specific and a bit pompous, I am not a tourist. One, I don’t spend any money that helps the economy so I don’t affect the tourism industry, hahaha. And two, a tourist is someone who travels to other places in order to claim that they have been there and of course to see some famous shit. While a traveler is someone who travels to other places in order to experience culture, something outside their normal environment or activity, and of course, to see some cool shit. Like some leprechaun once said, “There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The only pot of gold is the rainbow itself. So leave us the fuck alone!” Taksim Square appeared to not have many tourists; in fact I don’t believe we ran into any other English speakers except a particularly amusing encounter that I will touch on later. The area, called Taksim Square, was vibrant and teeming with people but as far as I could tell by their interaction with wait staff and shop keepers they all seemed to be Turkish.

The first thing we did following checking into our hostel, as any real traveler would, was to engage in the local fare. Albania is not known for being a culinary capital of the world and frankly the food is good, but fairly repetitive and boring. Turkey was not. It did not take us long to find the first feeding ground. Many of the eateries in Turkey have items displayed in the window to entice passing onlookers. We were suckers to such a brilliant marketing tactic. The first cafeteria we walked by, I’ll add a photo, reeled us in and the food was awesome, inexpensive too. I can’t exactly say what we ate but I split a number of items with James, who salivates at the very thought of new food.

When travelling with a group of people larger than two, I tend to take the easy way out. When it comes to choosing refection, I don’t make too many decisions, or even participate in the decision making process. I have come to learn over my days that my indifference can sometimes appear as annoyance, but I really and truly do not care where I eat most of the time. On any menu throughout the world I am 82% sure that I would be able to find something palatable. My parents know this fact all too well. Even on occasions that are designed for my benefit, I often respond to the question of what I want to eat as “I don’t care.” Seriously, I am just happy to be out of my usual routine. On the other hand, people I tend to travel with have extremely particular eating habits and preferences. For example, I traveled through Europe with my man Pat. Dude is picky as picky comes. He doesn’t eat tomatoes, or anything new for that matter. Really, tomatoes. Unless they are in a sauce or ketchup the dude will not have it. How does a guy of 24 not eat tomatoes, ow the puzzle that is Patrick. Anyway, my current company was a mix between two vegetarians and a guy who gets distracted by the slightest of culinary savvy, a trait that makes him incredible to hang out with but a bit of a pain to pick something to eat. Kid wants to eat everything he sees. Thankfully, since I was so hungry after our extremely long flight (kidding of course but I am usually hungry) we ran into this cafeteria with all kinds of traditional items for everyone.

After our first feast we headed straight to the Marathon expo. The expo is where we would gather our t-shirt, bib number, and electronic chip that would calculate our times. Alex had participated in a half marathon in Maine before and informed us that there would probably be some free shwag at the expo as well. They must do something a bit differently in Turkey because there was no free stuff, just a handful of vendors attempting to sell things. We did however get a pasta meal because we were participating in the run. This was good because I was already hungry again. Following the expo, it was time for some real Turkish culture. I had observed along our journey from Taksim square to the expo (a marathon shuttle had picked us up at the square) that everywhere I looked there were Turks drinking these small transparent glasses of tea and smoking nargile. Turkey was a place with a culture I could easily get used to. The food was great and it didn’t seem like anyone was in too much of a hurry to get anywhere special. You could just sit, drink a tiny cup of tea and smoke a fruit flavored tobacco that came out of a really gorgeous pipe for hours while chatting with friends, or in our case a waiter who seemed to enjoy our company (most likely because of the American girls).

The next day we woke, ate of course, and searched out a tour of some sort in order to gain our bearings on this new and exciting city. We decided to take one of these “hop-on-hop-off” tours. I had taken them before and really enjoyed it in the past. You are able to get a pretty good grasp on the layout of the major attractions of the city without becoming lost. Istanbul is a city saturated in history. As the capital city for two empires, the city is a palimpsest. Everywhere we walked, minarets of historic mosques, old city walls, or hamams could be seen. One of the main tourist areas of the city is a section of attractions which include the Basilica Cistern, Sultanahmet Mosque, and Hagia Sophia. We of course went to all of these places, but if you want to know what it was like you are going to have to make the trip, or look it up on the internet I suppose. Sunday was the race so we tried our best to make it back to the hostel early enough to get to bed at a decent hour.

The Race We woke at around 6:30 Sunday morning so we could make it to the location where the shuttles would pick us up at 7:30. After getting dressed we headed to the main square and as soon as we got there, James of course realized he had forgotten his electronic chip which would record his time. Alex and I decided to go on without him while Jenifer went back with him to make sure he didn’t get lost on the way, a fate which often finds James. We didn’t see the dastardly duo again until about 15 minutes before the race started. I was honestly a little nervous during the minutes before the race began. Although I wasn’t running a full marathon, I had been having trouble with my knee so I hadn’t really prepared enough. I had hurt my knee in a biking accident during my final year of college and it periodically gave me trouble, but lucky for me it was only a problem during the last 5km of the race. When the race started it really was an amazing feeling. Here I was in a beautiful and historic city with thousands of other people from around the world about to run across a bridge that separates two continents! I have never enjoyed a run so much. Seeing the city via a 15km route, that was of course closed to traffic, with people cheering you on as you went was something special. Towards the end of the race however I was getting extremely tired. I had never run that far in my life and the last 5km were a little rough. It got even worse after we passed the golden horn. I knew that the race would finish at the Sultanahmet Mosque (aka the Blue Mosque) which is famous for its 6 minarets. Every mosque I saw I grew increasingly hopeful that it was the finish. I must have run past 5 mosques, it actually made the time go by quicker because I was so preoccupied with counting all of the minarets! I had split up from the rest of my PCV friends during the first minutes of the race but I would sporadically pass one of them or in one case be passed. Alex and James were a ways ahead of me the entire race and there is a point in the 15km route when you loop back and see all the people who you are ahead of. This is towards the end when I was running along trying not to cry, and heard some crazy blonde girl yelling from across the barrier. Kidding about the crying part, I was really enjoying myself. This was also the motivation I needed. Alex was a good ten or fifteen minutes ahead of me so I started to kick it into high gear, well that was until I saw the sign that we still had 3km to go! Around this time of my motivating competitiveness, I passed another girl in our group named Kristen. I was pretty happy about this because she had run the full marathon in Athens the year before, this did not last long. As soon as I saw the sign displaying the length remaining in the race she passed me. I did my best to catch up to her for the rest of the race but was unsuccessful. This would have been fine except that at one point towards the last 700meters the race starts uphill. I can see Kristen in the distance, about 20 meters ahead of me, and she is power walking! I was trying nearly as hard as I could to catch up and this girl was walking! This only lasted for a few minutes and then she picked up the pace again. I asked her after the race if she was just mocking me the whole time which she denied. I finished the race in 1hour and 30min, 8.5 minutes after Alex, 12 minutes behind James, 1 minute behind Kristen and thankfully ahead of the rest.

Darken pa Mayton Following the race we basically just hung out and did the tourist thing. One night however Alex and I went out for dinner without the other two. We were having a great time with the other two, don’t be mistaken. We decided to replicate our operational procedure that worked so well in our Balkan tour. We would go to several places to eat and just split something, in order to spend less money but get a taste of many different places and cuisine. We started with sushi, moved on to a greasy bar platter, and finished with illegal Turkish street food, drinking Turkish beer along the way. Just a note on our choices; we chose sushi because the one place that serves it in the capital of Albania is way too expensive and the bar food because you just can’t get that stuff in Albania. The final course was actually something we had seen on a downloaded copy of “No Reservations.” If you aren’t familiar it is a travel show where this dude cruises around to different cities around the world and eats. In Istanbul there are these guys everywhere in the more popular areas of the city who sell muscles that are stuffed with rice and spices and then drizzled in lemon. I forget why the “No Reservations” guy said they were illegal but it had something to do with how the muscles are procured and the informal nature of their sale. There may be a small issue with health code also but it wasn’t like we bought these from a guy who hid them in his pockets and then we found a dark corner to gorge on them. They were sold out in the open, and they were goooooooood. They were served cold but I didn’t get sick, did I mention they were cheap as hell, 1lira for two. After we finished with our muscles, we decided we would check out one of the many establishments that seemed to have live rock music. The area we stayed in had a plethora of bars, cafes, and restaurants. The two bars we went to and listened to music were excellent and we had a fantastic time.

The Turkish Bath The day after the “Mayton free evening,” the four of us headed to a hamam to do the Turkish bath thing. I honestly am not into getting a rub down or massage from anyone but I had to experience it once. I mean it would be against my nature to travel to a place and not indulge in what the city is famous for. We asked around and found a cheap hamam that was coed. Coed in the sense that it catered to both men and women, not in the sense that we were all in the same room. James and I were given a small dressing room and instructed in barely audible, broken English to disrobe and don a small towel. We were then led to our respected hamam, or bath. The room had three sections. One held a large marble slab that and the area where the attendants worked on the guests. The other two rooms were areas where the guests could lay down and pour warm water over themselves while they waited for their turn. The entire area was marble floors and basins with domed ceilings. James and I immediately went to one of the “waiting” rooms and laid down on the floor, for no other reason but because we saw some older German gentleman do the same. After a ten or so minutes waiting and discussing how strange it was to just lay on the floor next to other sweaty foreigners in a steamy room, a large, hairy Turkish man came into the room wearing a similar style towel as the guest but in a different color. He didn’t speak English but kind of motioned and gestured his way around. He motioned for me to sit down near a basin and brutishly moved my body into the positions that he required to begin the first phase of my “bath.” In case those reading this do not know what a Turkish bath encompasses I will explain. They start with a cloth scrub that is placed over their hand, one side of which is extremely coarse and intended to remove all dead skin (and possible the first live layer). I imagine this would not be a good experience for a germa-phobe because the cloth was visibly dirty, but I didn’t care. It was like having someone scratch your entire body, I tried not to focus on the fact that the person doing the scratching was a giant Turkish man. After the exfoliating, he began to wash me with soap and water, including a shampoo job, hahaha kinda weird to be honest. I should mention that this is not a gentle wash; he was basically stretching my limbs and roughing me up a little. The second phase of the experience was a bubble massage. He guided me over to the large marble slab in the middle of the room, adjusted my towel so he could work and my nuts weren’t hanging out, and then began the beat down that is a bubble massage. He started out with a large towel that had wooden balls in it and was extremely bubbly, then he used the towel and his enormous weight to crack most of the joints in my body. It was a strange and awkward experience that I would probably never do again but “when in Rome.” When he was done he motioned for me to return to the original waiting room and rinse myself off, now it was James’ turn. After I sat and rinsed myself off for a bit and contemplated what had just happened, I realized I did feel a lot better. My muscles that were sore from the race were feeling loose and I felt fluid. The attendant then pointed at a towel that was hanging in the corner before you exited the room and made a motion for me to use it. I thought it was to dry myself but after I futilely attempted to dry myself with this coarse thin material he motioned that I was to change into the fresh dressing. Not knowing what was custom, I dropped the old and wrapped myself up in the new towel, apparently there is a method in taking off the old towel and putting on a new one that requires a lot less exposure because the attendant shot me a whistle and laughed. If the experience wasn’t strange enough I left being made fun of, o’well. In the lounge area of the hamam I was given another towel, one that is meant to dry yourself with, and a hot apple tea. I sat there waiting for the others and thinking that although this was an interesting and slightly rejuvenating experience, I had just spent about $40 for someone else to bath me!! Don’t get me wrong, if anyone reading this is headed or ends up in Istanbul, go to a hamam. It was an interesting and mostly enjoyable experience, I however prefer the type of bath we went to in Budapest.

Thessaloniki, Greece We stayed a total of 5 nights in Istanbul and then Alex and I took an overnight train to Thessaloniki, Greece. We shared a berth that was really awesome, two beds bunk style and a sink. It was the best way to travel. You go to sleep in Turkey and you wake in the morning to the Greek landscape flowing past you through a large window. I have also travelled on overnight ferries which was a comparable experience. I was not overwhelmed with excitement about going to Thessaloniki. We had heard that it was an okay place to spend a day but was nothing to write home about. I have found that taking other people travel experiences to heart is usually a poor decision. I really enjoyed the city and didn’t realize what a historical place it is. The food was also excellent and we stayed at an inexpensive but charming hotel close to most of the attractions. I have never seen so many bakeries per square mile in my life, so needless to say we had a pastry or two while we were there. We spent one night in Thessaloniki but because we arrived before noon and left on a night bus around 8pm we saw most of what was to offer in the town, although we discussed staying an extra night. Then it was back to Albania, it was funny, they have about 5 bus operators who go between Albania and Thessaloniki. All of the carriers leave at the same time, have shops located in the same block, offer the same price and service, and are of Albanian nationality. We hadn’t even left Greece and where already speaking Albanian. My fellow PCV friends like to call me “old man bait.” Men in this country seem to love me. As soon as these men waiting to leave Greece heard me speak shqip I was arm and arm with some old dude telling him about why I live and speak shqip, Alex thought this was particularly funny. Jenifer calls me a Chameleon. In this part of the world, I can pretty much blend in. When we were in Turkey I was asked several times for directions by both Turks and foreigners. Many of the waiters also thought I was a translator and would look to me to order for the table, even though I don’t speak a lick of Turkish. Most Albanians I meet also think I am a native. They often ask me, “what is your origin” which I always respond to as “I am American.” Often I get the response, “but your parents are Albanian, right!” This works in our benefit most of the time, instead of the foreigner price for things I always get the Albanian price. This included our taxi trip from Durres to the Airport before we left for Turkey. Jen had walked around the day before trying to figure out what was the best method to get to the Airport. All the taxis she inquired upon instructed her that the price was 2500lek to the Airport and she would not find a cheaper price. The next morning we went to the first taxi we saw and I told the rest that I would handle it since I had done so in the past many times. The driver told us that the price was in fact 2500lek, then in Albanian he said, “for you it will be 2000.” This may not seem like a big decrease in cost but we get about 700lek per day as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Okay, I see this is getting a bit long, as usual. I will try to be better and update about the holiday season following its completion of course. Happy Holidays to anyone who actually got this far to read the greeting!