I’m settled snug in…
April 26
I’m settled snug in my itty bitty room with a nice window and a view which is amazing at this price, at the Metropolis Hostel in Istanbul, Turkey. It’s been days since I got up this morning, but all the cramped sitting and agonized standing and airplane food is over now and I’ve almost forgotten it already.
This map provides a pretty decent if distorted orientation for where Turkey is in the world – they have marked the Bosporus Strait and the Sea of Marmara as well as the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Crossroads it is.
And speaking of where they are, Turkey has been lobbying for years now for entrance into the EU. This is a topic about which I will have 20 different opinions over just the next 10 days I’m sure. A few EU people I met on the flights certainly had their opinions, along the lines of No WAY.
I hope I sleep for 10 hours and wake up just in time for the breakfast buffet on the roof terrace included in the price of the room. Ahh, right now as I type it’s 9:35pm and I’m hearing my first call to prayer. Yikes, I hope I sleep through the call at 5am. It wasn’t so bad really. I was expecting those screaming crackly distort-o way too amplified loudspeakers but actually it did just sound like a guy yelling out at the top of his singing voice, and it didn’t last very long either. (Ok, the one that came around 1pm wasn’t as good…)