Istanbul

So this is about where I started keeping any kind of journal, my entry for Istanbul merely outlines directions to the Syrian Consulate and some of the stuff I saw there, mostly designed to poke my memories to life again.

After worlds hung out at the Airport for a while, bought a plane ticket and then ran into a whole host of debate related folk, including the CA team, who were pleasant as usual(Right Siobhan). There were 4 flights from Ankara to Istanbul that night, if one had gone down, right there you lose close to a quarter of Worlds, thought that was interesting.

Once in Istanbul took the train to the Blue Mosque are(Sultanamhet) and met Mike who informed me that the cheap hostel was full, so I stayed at the one with more people I knew at it.

My first day in Istanbul consisted mostly of trying to locate the Syrian Consulate. I had a map, I actually had 3 maps, only 1 of which had the consulate on it, and none of which had the area in question on in in any detail. So off I went in search of the consulate, on my way I found the Hilton Hotel, the Military Museum(which was closed, and they had guns pointed at me when I asked for directions, they didn't know where the consulate was). I then found a Movie Theatre, and a whole assortment of monuments and parks dedicated to Atatürk(I will touch on him in a later post), all in all it took me almost 4 hours from leaving my hostel until I found the Consulate, when I got there they told me the Visa office was closed, and that even if it wasn't I would need a Letter of Recommendation from my government. That was frustrating.
But I knew where the Canadian Consulate was and it was easy enough to find, and I got to ride on a scary little trolley that looked and felt like it would fall apart imminently(pictured above). It was seriously scary, also I discovered that Turks are all deaf, we followed 2 minutes behind one lady who only got out of the way when we hit her.
A letter of recommendation from your government, which says that they passport number in the passport you have is in fact you. They confirm this by asking you if this is your passport, then write the letter. It took 5 mins, and cost $50, have I mentioned how much I hate bureaucracy to you before? This will become a theme for my time in Istanbul.
I ended the day by buying a Middle East guide book to replace the one I left at home and walking around some markets. Day ended with sunset over the Blue Mosque. I think I went to dinner with Julia and some guy from Ottawa starting a round the world trip, then a place with Sheesha and backgammon with Kristen, Sabrina and Michelle.