Last Day and a Dramatic Exit

The last nine hours or so have been quite stressful, but I’m happy to write that we’re all on the plane headed towards home! Backing up, yesterday was our last day in Istanbul and we made the most of it, mostly by shopping and eating, and lots and lots of walking. And of course one last hammam visit!

The first mission was to check out some antique stores that Topher had read about within walking distance from our apartment. There were several blocks with at least two or three antique stores per block. The kids seemed to enjoy looking almost as much as we did, but fortunately the jack knives were all too pricey for them. Topher was looking for a particular type of door knocker that we had admired and seen frequently in Greece. They are also made in Turkey, and several Turkish antique shops we had visited previously had the same ones but not the right size. We had decided to give up when we came across a place that looked like a good bet, as they had a lot of architectural antiques outside (pictured at left). They had one and for a good price, which we inadvertently bargained down because we had very little cash!

We then walked back to the main drag to get more lira, and to buy the kids stuffed baked potatoes, which they had been dying to have since the first day. I went looking for boreki instead, but sadly it wasn’t as good as the place near our apartment. Next we caught the

metro to the university and Topher went off to look at a Byzantine church near the gate that the Turks entered the city in 1453 (pictured opposite bottom right). I took the boys back to the Grand Bazaar, which they wanted to visit again. I quickly tired of the bazaar as it became quite clear that the prices were about triple what they are elsewhere, and I hate bargaining. David looked at watches, but I convinced him to wait and buy elsewhere.

We walked toward the Spice Market (also called the Egyptian Market, pictured below), where we were going to meet Topher, stopping often to look at shops along the way. It was basically one big market all around the Grand Bazaar all the way up to the Spice Market. The boys were very patient with me as I looked for scarves, especially as we walked through the wholesale scarf area! Unfortunately most were very ugly and polyester seemed to be the preferred material. David cheered up when we found him a cheap watch. The Spice Market turned out to be just a smaller version of the Grand Bazaar, in a newer building, with a higher percentage of the same tea/spice/candy stores that are everywhere. The kids enjoyed some free samples, and we stopped for a snack before meeting up with Topher.

We did a bit more looking around before walking back to the Grand Bazaar to take the tram to a hammam that we had read about online. It was described as a no frills hammam and it was relatively close by so we decided to give it a try. David wasn’t interested so he sat in the waiting room, Hugh went with Topher, while I went to the women-only hammam next door.

The first thing that was slightly off about the whole experience was

when they tried to charge me more than Topher had just paid next door (it’s the same business), when I didn’t even want the full package. I managed to get them down to the same price (even though I still wasn’t having the full package) but I think that only resulted in them giving me poorer service. After only about 10 or 15 minutes they started my treatment (usually it’s at least a half hour of steaming and working up a good sweat) and about 15 minutes later I was all done! They didn’t offer me tea or water or even to sit down and relax before getting dressed, which was so different from my previous hammam visits. I realize this is all very bourgeois to complain about my spa experience, but it’s just so annoying to be treated like a stupid tourist. And frustrating to not be able to say anything because you don’t speak the language! I asked for water and helped myself to a chair for a bit, then went next door to wait for Topher.

On the men’s side they were much more friendly, and ushered me into a small storeroom/office to wait, since the waiting area was for men only. They offered me tea and cigarettes (I only accepted the tea!), and David joined me. Topher soon came out wrapped in towels looking very Turkish and also quite relaxed. He also had tea, as did Hugh. We swapped stories of our experiences, and fortunately Topher had really enjoyed his treatment and Hugh was happy to watch while soaping himself. He declined having a massage or scrub from a stranger.

Topher then went to get dressed and as he was coming out I overheard the guy charging him for our tea! That is unheard of anywhere in Turkey except in restaurants, and even then it is often free. It wasn’t much so Topher paid it, but then the guy demanded “backsheesh”, on top of the tip Topher had already given to his attendant! To avoid an argument, he gave the guy a small amount more, but unfortunately that soured the whole experience for him. All that to say that if you ever find yourself in Istanbul, avoid the Sofular Hammami! I think overall the Aga Hammami was my favourite of the ones I tried. I found it interesting how each one has their own flavour and each person would likely have their own preference, like a favourite coffee shop. If I lived in Istanbul I would probably keep trying new ones indefinitely!

By this point we were more than ready for supper, so we took the tram back to our neighbourhood, bought a few last minute souvenirs, and found the small buffet restaurant that our host had recommended. We would never have found it without him telling us about it and we still managed to walk right by

without even seeing it. The name was Hayvore and they served tasty food from the Black Sea area, so a bit more like Eastern European than Mediterranean. We filled up on a “mixed plate” of home cooked food and then walked back to our apartment to pack.

It was already 10 pm and we had an 8 am flight, so we knew we wouldn’t be getting much sleep. By midnight we were all packed and the apartment looked more or less like when we had arrived, so we got into bed and started looking into getting to the airport. We discovered from looking at the airport web site that our 8 am flight had been cancelled, even though Turkish Airlines hadn’t emailed us to let us know! They had simply taken the liberty of booking us on the same flight on Friday, even though the rest of our flights for Wednesday were not changed. We knew we needed to call Aeroplan, since our other flights would also need to be rebooked, but our Turkish cell phones can’t call outside of Turkey, which we had discovered earlier in the trip while trying to do banking. We tried both FaceTime and Google Chat but nothing worked. I had to download another app (complicated of course by forgetting my iCloud password), subscribe to a voip number, and finally I was able to get through to Aeroplan. We both felt such relief as soon as we heard a friendly Canadian voice again! She was very sympathetic (and impressed that we had noticed the error before getting to the airport) and was able to rebook us on new flights fairly easily, but it meant leaving at 6:20 instead of 8 am.

The next bit of excitement was trying to figure out which airport we needed to go to. It just happens that this is the week that all passenger flights from Istanbul are switching from the former IST (Ataturk Airport, which is where we thought we had to go) to the newly built airport a half hour outside of town, which they have helpfully decided to also code as IST (formerly ISL). Of course most English web sites haven’t updated their information, so it took us a while to confirm that the IST on our tickets did mean the new airport. Again we hadn’t received any notification of the change in airports, we had just stumbled across an English news article while trying to check on the status of our flight! I guess it’s a good thing that we’ve been burned enough by airlines in the past to always do our online check-in the night before.

It took a while to fall asleep after all of that, but I think I managed to get about half a sleep cycle in before the alarm went off this morning at 3:30. It was hard to rouse the boys but we managed to get them awake enough to get dressed, put their shoes on and say goodbye to the cats. I was so busy making sure they had their stuff that I didn’t realize until we were locked outside the building (with the keys inside as instructed, and the Uber arriving) that my purse (with all of our passports) was still in the apartment! It was 4 am but we had no choice but to ring the buzzer of our host, who lives in the apartment next door. No answer. We started to panic thinking maybe he was away. I messaged him through Airbnb then found a phone number in the Airbnb listing and tried it. Luckily he was home and he kindly came down to let me into the building. I think he was only half awake as he said something inaudible and then went back into his apartment, I assumed to get the key. Instead he shut the door and I heard him turn the lock...I had to knock on his door to get him to open our apartment! Topher and I both breathed a sigh of relief as we finally got in the Uber and drove to the airport, feeling 95 percent sure it was the right one.

The new airport is beautiful and, we discovered, now the biggest in the world. You would think that luggage carts would not be hard to come by in such a modern new building, but they keep them very well hidden. The airport was so big, there were about 20 zones just for checking in. Even though we had arrived two and a half hours before our departure and we had no delays getting through security, etc, we barely made it to our gate and were one of

the last ones on the plane! Topher was trying to buy pastries for breakfast (naively thinking 40 minutes after security was plenty of time to walk to our gate!) and had to sprint to get to the gate on time. Nothing like an exciting end to our adventure! Hopefully that will be it for this trip.