Turkey Day 1&2

Jason dropped us off at LAX and after a sad goodbye, we were whisked right through check in and the security gates!  The travel agency that we booked through had spelled my moms name wrong so we were worried that it would cause a problem...which it didn't thank goodness.

We took Turkish Airlines out of LAX

 They had an amazing in seat entertainment system!  TV shows, movies galore, lots of music...I was mostly stoked at the USB jack so I could charge my iPhone!

 

I slept for about 6 hours on the plane and when we woke up we only had 1.5 hours left! Not bad! It was 12 hours total.  We landed in Istanbul around 5pm and got through customs with no issue.  We took some cash out and found the Metro.  It was pretty simple getting to the area of town we were staying in (Sultanahmet) but once we got off the trolley, we got lost.  We had walking directions but they just weren't detailed enough.  A seemingly nice cabbie approached us and was trying to help.   We couldn't figure it out so we decided to have him drive us.  Well the shady jerk took us way out of the way and rigged the meter so we ended up having to pay him $30!  Turns out it would have been a 5 min walk (he lied and said it would take us 20 mins to walk and we had no reason to not believe him). Oh well you live and learn. 

We got to the hotel and checked in to our room.  Its fine, I'm staying in a bunk bed. haha  After grabbin some beer and lamb kebabs at the hotel roof restaurant, we decided to walk around the neighborhood. 

These lanterns are in shops everywhere and are so gorgeous!!

 At a cafe near the local Bazaar - a whirling dervish!

There are gorgeous tulips all over the city!

We came home and crashed after that...so far i'm pretty adjusted to the time here!