Istanbul Day 7 Part 1

Continued from Istanbul Day 6.

Woke up early this morning, 8. The Turks said that we must eat breakfast at this restaurant called Kale. I don’t remember the reason why we need to eat there, but they said that it was awesome. Since today is our last day, we had to make a go for it.

The sky was done crying and today Istanbul greeted us with gorgeous blue skies and nice crisp chilled air that you only get after a hard rain. This weather may just be the best since we’ve been here, and we’ve had other amazing weather here already.

Good morning sexy.

Nice and empty tram in the morning.

We took the tram across the Golden Horn, went to the terminus stop, then started walking. I looked on my iPhone gps and holy shit, that restaurant is pretty far away. It’s not walkable. Well, it is, but it may take me an hour or two… The weather was too nice to be stuck in a taxi in traffic though, so we walked for a bit just because it’s one of those days where feel good to be alive.

Ortakoy Mosque.

This is the entrance to Dolmabahçe Palace. The main attraction for I are the guards enclosed in those glasses boxes. I don’t get it…Why tinted glass boxes?

We walked and walked under the beautiful sky and eventually hailed down a taxi.

First pickup truck I’ve seen in a month!!! It’s a Dodge Ram, but all douche bagged out. The stereotypes crosses continents.

3 lanes of traffic. One this way, one the other way, and one for “HOLY SHIT! We almost just got into a head on crash!”

About to pass the first bridge. Kale is located close to the second bridge.

Nice.

While in the taxi, we noticed a lot of really nice cars. We are definitely in the rich area of Istanbul. We drove along the coast and it was just beautiful all around. The cars were beautiful. The houses were beautiful. The people were beautiful. Money is beautiful.

I think the sky may even be more blue in Bebek, the nice area we are in, than the rest of Istanbul. Our driver didn’t know the way to Kale, and had to stop to ask a pedestrian for directions. He kept on speaking to me in Turkish, but of course, I understood no words. I tried to show him the address on my iPhone, but he couldn’t read the map…What’s up with taxi drivers not knowing how to read maps?

We found it! I ended up just directed the taxi driver with my finger and pointed him the way to Kale.

There is not a single customer in this place. I was expecting a bustling place. I don’t mean that in a negative way, because this area is so nice that I have nothing to complain about. There were no other customers in any of the other restaurants in this area either. It’s Monday morning, and I think that may have something to do with it. I bet these places make a killing at night or for weekend brunch.

I think we ordered the traditional village breakfast. It was amazing!!! I am eating cream cheese with honey everyday now. Everything was super fresh and super good. I never look forward to breakfast just because I am not a breakfast person, but SO and I both agreed that this breakfast was our best meal in Istanbul, hands down.

Love the way a serrated knife goes through an egg. These eggs were some of the largest I’ve ever had. They were just plain boiled, but some how, the egg yolks didn’t tasted grainy and gross to me. I am usually not a fan of boiled egg yolks, but this time it was different, and good. Like I said, this meal was just great all around.

After our meal, the obvious thing to do was to walk along the coastline on the promenade and enjoy the weather and the view.

Stunning.

Beautiful weather makes me happy.

Unbelievable! Oh my fucking god, it was beautiful out.

Look!!! The sun was shining down on us, but it doesn’t sting like the sun in Texas. It was just sunshine, both literally and figuratively.

Hmm…

On this hill, buildings were built all the way to this line, then nothing. I wonder who owns all the forest?

The other bridge south of us that we passed by in the taxi earlier.

Believe this is sakura, cherry blossoms. Saw it all over town here in Istanbul.

Reminds me much of Nice, France.

This was my favorite house. It had a 3 car garage.

Rich people need medicine too.

The Turks had suggested for us to eat kumpir. It’s basically a really fancy baked potato.

We had been looking for a restroom, and then we saw a Starbucks, so we knew they’d have one. When I walked in, and saw all the windows in the back with a view of a water, I remembered what the Turks said to us the other night. They had mentioned that when we come visit Bebek, we must visit the Starbucks. YY said “It’s the best Starbucks in the world!” Well, now, here we are because we wanted to use a restroom.

Looks very promising.

They actually give out smaller coins than just 50 cents over here. I’ve been in Istanbul for a week and this is the first time that a retailer has actually priced something where it doesn’t end in an even TL or 50 cents.

We sat down outside, but the tables right next to the water were already taken. Doh.

Not 10 minutes after we sat down, a table by the water vacates. Best Starbucks in the world would be a correct statement. It was Amazing! Their restroom was nice too.

SO went out to buy some cigarettes and came back with a copy of the local Vogue. It was interesting to see how she reads Vogue. Remember, she’s a fashion designer. She flips through Vogue, points out all the outfits that she likes, blah blah blah, typical of how a girl reads Vogue. Then she flips through it some more, points at models and says things like, “Oh yeah, I met her a few weeks ago when I worked at Paris Fashion Week. She was a really nice girl.”, “Oh, I met this girl too, she’s actually 29 years old but her agency says that she’s only 20 years old.”, “This model was really the best!”. Then she points at a photo of a guy, and says, “Oh, my gay friend woke up at his house after a Halloween party(obviously slept together), and he had to leave quickly because he was almost late for a photo shoot.” So, I ask who the guy in Vogue was. Oh, you know, just Jean Paul Gaultier. High fashion is a small world.

I really liked the ashtray at this Starbucks. But, I think anything would look nice with this background. In fact, I took the photo with the background in focus.

Fucking amazing. You can see the reflections of the clouds in the water.

Jellyfish in the water!!

Best Starbucks, ever!

The water was really clean, then all of a sudden, the current shifted and all this trash started floating by. If you look closely in the middle of the photo, there’s a floating loaf of bread. Above the loaf of bread, there’s an interesting looking jellyfish…made out of latex.

This dead bird floated by with the trash too.

Of course, this is Bebek, the rich area. How dare trash float around here. Dispatch the cleaning boats!

This cleaning boat had a conveyer belt in the front that would scoop the trash out of the sea. It was a very large boat for the seemingly small cleaning duty that it’s doing. But, spare no expenses for the rich. I was really drawn to the white whale painting behind the anchor.

Hungry, time for some food.

Another strange looking jellyfish. The sea in this area was generally void of trash though. I was also finally able to smell a very subtle hint of the sea here. It was nice.

Fucking outrageously gorgeous. As much as I love Austin, Austin has nothing on this. How the fuck is Udaipur in India a nice vacation spot known for the beautiful lake? How can people call the lake there a nice lake? I didn’t think Udaipur was that nice when I was there, and now, after seeing this, Udaipur is just Varanasi.

So happy.

Blue sky.

It was so perfect, we ended up staying at Starbucks for 3 hours, just chilling outside. This will go down as one of the best weather days that I’ve ever experienced and remember. The other one I remember being my first day in Paris when I sat outside at a street side cafe to have lunch. Just like that day, if I could play God today, I wouldn’t have changed the weather one bit. Perfect.