Merry Muslim Christmas
Merry Christmas Everyone!
I arrived in Istanbul a couple of days ago after a delayed and tiresome train journey through Greece. The late ferry arrival from Santorini meant I had to take a night train to Thessaloniki. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the train broke down, and we ended up arriving 5 hours late in Thessaloniki. You can’t really book train travel in advance in Greece, but I was originally planning to take a 7 am train straight to Istanbul per advice online, but it turned out there is only a night train to Istanbul with compulsory couchettes. I spent the day wandering around Thessaloniki with a guy from Chile who was a bit anxious about most of life but was entertaining to explore the city with versus alone.
The train was great! There were only two couchettes in each cabin with a small sink, mirror, and outlet. I shared mine with a friendly Serbian man who gladly exchanged the last of my Serbian currency for euros. (PS It’s impossible to exchange it outside of Serbia, so plan accordingly if you go) He spoke fairly good English, and we were able to have some good conversations.
We arrived at the border around 4 am and were directed off the train to a small office that reminded me of a trading post you might come along in the middle of no where while camping. The skinny man inside would randomly pick a passport and yell your name as everyone was trying to pack themselves into the office to get out of the cold. Depending on your nationality you paid a different amount. Afterwards you could simply go back to the train to sleep…. until the custom agent would come knocking a little bit later. Just enough time for you to have just fallen asleep to be precise. Depending on his mood and your appearance, he would simply stare at your luggage or make you open every pocket. Thankfully, I got a stare somewhere between “you’re a young traveler, go spend money.” and “I don’t want to deal with unpacking that backpack.”
Turkey is an almost entirely Muslim country, which means since arriving in Istanbul I’ve been reminded five time a day of where I am. Sometimes its nice to mentally pause for a second, and put everything into reality; at other times, I wish I wasn’t as close to the megaphones attached to a nearby minaret. There is a vibrant life throughout this city. It is still a constant hub of movement with influences from all over the world. However, it is still distinctively Turkish and so far a very interesting place. Unfortunately, the weather has not really behaved, and it has been bitterly cold and rainy most days, last night there was some snowy-sleet falling, and I did see a little snow on some distant hills. I’ll settle on calling it a semi-white Christmas
Since Turkey is a Muslim country, Christmas is known as just another day. As such I loked for the Indian Consulate to start processing my visa. I got to the general neighborhood, but kept getting the run around by a dozen people or so all swearing to know exactly where it was, but never succeeding in getting us there. I finally gave up after realizing I narrowed it down to a two block radius, and I would have to wait until morning for them to open anyways.
While debating the exact location of the consulate, I was duped into a ploy. A shoe polisher walked by me and dropped his brush, which I promptly picked up and handed to him. He was so grateful he insisted on shining my mesh hiking shoes. After him trying and I not letting him he insisted on asking me for 18 lira (about 8 euro) for his bum leg and his sad attempt at ruining my shoes. I gave him a lira and walked away laughing. I was walking around with Brad at the time, and we both decided next time we would have a little fun with them. Here’s hoping they try again!
I spent the rest of the day exploring the Grand Bazaar, which has over 4500 shops and 22 entrances. The area is divided into gold, carpets, antiques, denimwear, etc. with other random shops sprinkled around and an even larger outdoor market surrounding it for blocks. It was a fun place with pulsing crowds of people. Other than that, I called home in the evening to wish my family a Merry Christmas, and went out with some other people from the hostel for little spicy hamburgers. It was great to hear from everyone, even if it was for the briefest of moments. I hope all of you had a wonderful white Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone!
