Weekly wrap-up | travel
Biding Our Time In Istanbul
My week in photos — Week 23 — August 18–24, 2022
On August 18th, I wrote a post entitled No Plans Can Sometimes Make Life Complicated. In it, I spoke about our decision to head up to Bulgaria to visit a friend, then come back down to Turkey in November when we will help our friend at his olive orchard for the harvest season.
We had planned to leave on Sunday, but one thing led to the other, a couple of expenses came out of our account that we weren’t expecting, and the next thing we knew, it didn’t make sense financially to make the journey to Bulgaria just yet.
Most of our static income comes in at the beginning of the month, so it really just makes sense to wait until that happens. Then we will feel that we have the flexibility we need to make the journey. Sometimes we have to just sit still in this life because it is when we spend the least amount of money.
We are still staying at our friend's hostel, and yes, we are still in the dorm. However, it has been very quiet here, and most nights, we have the room to ourselves, so it hasn’t been as bad as we thought it would be. The summer season is winding down now, and with September, the city clears out, or so we are told.
So day by day it is getting quieter and quieter which is fine with us.
Our host finally asked me to do a small painting project the other day. She wanted a small feather and the word hostel painted in a little bit of an obscure place by the door. As far as the overall design is concerned, I’m not a fan of the location, but it is where she wanted it. For reference sake, Reesha is Turkish for feather.
It got me excited and I was happy to do it. I have also been bothering her to give me another project. I’m not good at just receiving something (accommodation) and not giving something in return. Chris thinks I need to learn to accept gifts better. This is largely true, I will admit.
On Friday, we went on an excursion to take our laundry back to our laundry guy. We dropped it off at 2:00 and he said that we could pick it back up at 7:00 pm. We were surprised by this as we usually have to come back the next day.
It didn’t make sense to go all the way back to our hostel just to return to get the laundry as it is over an hour's walk away, so we decided to find something to do in the area instead to kill time. Of course, this is the one day that we didn’t have our computers with us, so we couldn’t just sit and do work.
I guess it was a forced afternoon off, which was sort of nice.
Being that we were just up the hill from the Bosphorus Strait, I looked on GoogleMaps to see how far the transit bus would take us up the strait. It turns out that it will take us all the way to the Black Sea if we have the time, but you have to change buses at one point. Instead, we settled for a journey that took us most of the way up. We decided to just ride the bus, then get off and start walking back. When we would get tired, we could just hop back on the same bus and come back to where we started. So that is what we did.
As you can see, the bus route goes right up the edge of the water, so we found the bus stop, swiped our transit card (it was charged about 50 cents), and got on for a lovely scenic ride. I am actually planning to write a whole article about this adventure because it is surely a nice and affordable way to see the Bosphorous and kill an afternoon.
I would say that 90% of the way is a boardwalk that runs along the water's edge between the bus and the water, and we watched fishermen fishing, people lounging in the sun, boys swimming and diving into the water, and just a lovely summer day unfolding in front of us.
On the left side of the road, we passed small and quaint communities that lined the hillsides. We were enamored with the area and couldn’t get over the fact that people could live in such peaceful surroundings and still have such easy access to the bustling city via the incredible transit system.
At some point, we decided we had gone far enough and got off to start walking back. We bought some snacks at a grocery store and sat on a bench to eat them and watch the world go by. It was then that a stink bug landed on my knee and I got a pretty cool picture of it (and realized how hairy my knees are!). We also found several exercise stations along our way and I couldn’t help but try out one of the contraptions to see how it all worked.
We ended up walking for quite a while and would occasionally just sit on a bench here and there to take in the sights. It was fun to watch the antics of the locals as they fished and boated and did their summer business. We haven’t experienced true summer in 5 years now, and the happiness and good feeling vibes in the air are palpable in comparison to climates that are the same all year like they are at the equator.
We eventually grabbed a bus back to where we started and got our laundry at about 6:45 pm, perfect timing. We then caught another bus back to the hostel as we didn’t feel like walking anymore that day. All told, we spent about $1.50 each traveling on three buses.
On Saturday, we set out to find a library where we could do some work. However, both that we found, after walking long distances to get to them, had problems with the wifi. In one, it wasn’t working at all for some reason, and in the second, we needed a Turkish phone number to connect to it, which we don’t have yet. I asked the man at the reception counter if we could use his number, but he claimed that we couldn’t. We were fed up and just made our way back to the hostel to work there. At least we got our exercise in.
That evening we stuck close to home just wandering the neighborhood and came across these cats and dogs waiting for treats from the butcher shop. And we also saw this stunning tile mosaic in one of the transit stations of the city. Every station has its own unique art piece, and they are always a treat to look at.
On Sunday at the end of the day, we wandered away from the hostel in a direction that we hadn’t been before. We came across some adorable streets with very colorful houses. It is surely a neighborhood that we would get along fine in I think!
We also came across another popular area called Balat. It had some very funky buildings decorated very oddly and a plethora of cafes and restaurants lining the streets. It is only about a 20-minute walk from our hostel and we didn’t even know about it.
On Monday I painted the feather, and yesterday we finally went to the beach!
We woke up to no power and couldn’t get online, so we decided that instead of wasting a lovely day, we would make our way back to the beach that was next to the fancy hotel that we didn’t get to the week before. We hopped the bus from almost in front of our hostel and rode the hour-long journey back over to another part of this massive city. I actually documented the journey by video and am inspired to do a YouTube video about our day. I haven’t made a video in many months so it is high time to add some fresh content over there.
On the way, dark clouds were threatening to ruin our day, but thankfully they abated and just caused a light overcast for much of the time that we were there, which was nice. Our lilly white parts haven't been in bathing suits for about 2 years now, and that was only for about 5 minutes in Morocco when we tried to swim in the freezing Atlantic Ocean. Before that, it was the beach in Costa Rica in 2019!
We swam in the Sea of Marmara, the fifth sea that we have been in since 2015. The water was really a perfect temperature, not too warm but just refreshing enough to cool off. I didn’t notice much salt in the water but Chris claims that he did. We hung out in the sun for a bit then retreated to the shade for the remainder of our stay.
It was nice to see the area in a not-so-busy state as we had seen it the previous Sunday when there were mobs of people clamoring to get in the water. Tuesdays are good beach days in Istanbul.
Last night, Tuesday evening, I got the news that I am a new editor for the Globetrotters publication! I am so excited to join the team over there and be part of a great publication that is growing fast!
That brings us to today, which is Wednesday. We really didn’t do much today but hang around the hostel working online. Which is fine.
Sometimes it’s nice to just sit still.
Istanbul is a wonderful city to have to bide time in. There is so much to see and do and you really don’t need a lot of money to do many things. People watching, and seeing new scenery, for the most part, is as much entertainment as we need.
Thanks for joining me in my week in photos. I hope that everyone has a great week!
xo Jill
Thanks so much for joining me in my week in photos. Dennett started this challenge in her publication Weeds & Wildflowers during the beginnings of the pandemic, and it has since grown to include many authors. Check out the amazing writing and photography of Anne | Erika | Jane | Eileen | Juan | David | Mia | Susan | LensAfield | Kim | Barbara | Diana | Barb | Sandra | Shruthi | Ellie | Pene | Olive | Gustavo | Penny | Scott | Sasha | Tracy | Lisa | June | K. Barrett | Ivy | Shell and of course our host Dennett.
If you want to read about my past weeks, I have put all of my weeks in photos into their own list:
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