Merheba!!! From Uyan, Cankurtaran - Sultanahmet


First of all I have to tell you all that I am still in jet lag from the 10+ hour time difference between Seattle and Istanbul...and I am still reeling in the effect from the long flight, food changes and some serious language barriers!

Lets take a look at some of the pictures taken at Seattle airport and from the Boeing 757 {Delta Airlines} as we flew... over many a mountain ranges and some great European Lands. Above is Mt. Rainier...

Below, I think is Austria...

So anyway, this was all taken before arriving at Istanbul and then once we reached Istanbul it was a little bit of a daze...Even though it was easy getting through Immigration and Custom's checks, it was not easy getting anymore information than their city map...We needed to know how and where to exchange our currencies to Liras and how to get to Sultanahmet...and that was really hard cos the localites just can't speak any English to save their life! But they are delightfully forthcoming and friendly just like in India where common people are curious about tourists and may seem friendly even though they are of no use...:)


After my in depth analysis and some sort of understanding of the general population around here and establishing that there is a serious language barrier, I have come to the conclusion that only 1 in ever 7-8 people can speak some sort of English and 1 in every 10 people can speak decent English...

By that I mean that 1 in 7 people can give you some basic directions such as right, left, straight...etc... they can understand and relate to some basic words such as Metro, Taxi, Hotel, Water etc... which the others, the common people don't even know...and as for the 1 in 10 really decent English speaking people...what can I say, so far we have only met one - Payam and he gave us a few tips on what to see and what to do and what not to do...which was serendipitous!

Alright now that I have managed to report on the 2nd day pretty much everything I could think of that happened in the 1st part of yesterday...I will leave you all with some more pictures of our really tiny hotel room and some city sites of Istanbul as some of the buildings that I saw from the tain reminded me of Kurla, Kalina in Bombay! and some other rountanas that reminded me of Lucknow and Delhi...