İstanbul - Gün 3

Pazar (Sunday) was full of...shopping.
Our hotel wasn't more than a block from Istiklal Caddesi (above). The side streets are quite nice- if you wander far enough you can find where the locals go to eat.

I bought myself two books at Robin Son Crusoe books, since they cost the same as they do at home: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and The Davinci Code.

The other exchange students had breakfast at a Chinese Sushi place, but I opted for a Turkish pastry and some fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice. I figured I'd save my ailing stomach the trouble of digesting fake Chinese food in the morning.


We ended the visit at a nargile cafe in Ortakoy (another section of Istanbul), resting on the bean bag chairs.

After a bit of hunting, we found a bus company leaving for Ankara at 8pm. We took the servis to the station, and began our journey home. At about 9pm, we still hadn't left the borders of Istanbul, so we asked the stewardess when we were supposed to arrive in Ankara. She said On iki which means "12". We didn't leave Istanbul till an hour after that. I think the problem was how our bus slowed everytime it saw a group of people on the side of the road, and yelled "ANKARA" at them, trying to get them to board the bus. A long story short, we arrived in Ankara at 3:30 am, several hours after midnight. But I'm home.