ISTANBUL

Backgammon in smoke-filled cafes. A Turkish bath (featuring a large, hairy Turkish dude). Fresh fish sandwiches straight off the boat. Tasty home-cooked Turkish ravioli. Incredible art museums. These and many other attractions put Istanbul at or near the top of my list of places visited in the past six months.

It was hard not to feel like I'd entered a different world when hearing prayer calls from mosques all about, but in many ways, Istanbul felt more modern then many European cities I'd been too. Istiklal Avenue (above) is a long pedestrian avenue, complete with Christmas (winter?) lights, designer stores, and art galleries. A relatively easy-to-use public transportation network allowed me to get home easily after a long day of walking around the city. Everything (in the central neighborhoods, at least) felt clean, well-run, and pleasant. Now, highlights:

Beautiful mosques

Byzantine Cistern, stored water under the city

Balik Ekmek...

You could walk right up to this boat (actually there are three identical ones in a row) and buy a fish sandwich for $2.50. Absolutely delicious and incredibly fresh-tasting. The most impressive part of the whole deal is these guys are cooking and assembling while this boat is being tossed around, despite being tied to the dock.

(image from National Geographic)

I took a bath in the Çemberlitaş Hamamı, a historic bath pictured above. A Turkish bath is like hot yoga, except instead of having a slender cutie request politely that you hold the stretch for a few extra seconds, a large, fat, hairy Turkish masseuse bends and beats your body while soaping you down. I may have limped out of the bath, but I was cleaner than I had been in 6+ months.

Ataturk Monument, Taksim Square

I stayed in a hostel, but I hung out with a couple locals thanks to CouchSurfing. I went and played backgammon (twice) with one dude (he won), and I also spent one lovely afternoon with a local medical student (why so many med students?) who also had me and a couple other CSers over for dinner with her and her family. And yes, her mom does cook a tasty ravioli and borek.

Next up, a report on being home and a little summary of the trip.

Hanging out with anarchist medical students in Thessaloniki

Some of said students: very intimidating

Last Friday through Tuesday, I had my first couch surfing experience in Thessaloniki, Greece, and it was great. I stayed with Seamos (far right of above picture) and (yes) slept on his couch. My biggest takeaway from all of it was experiencing a bit of the Greek counterculture, the people so vehement in their protests against the Greek government.

In Greece, medicine is a six-year major, not a separate school that you go to after finishing college, and all of these folks were actually younger than me. They definitely had an energy about them -- two of the four nights when I was there, they met in their unauthorized squat on campus to draft up a document about the state of medical education in Greece. One nice guy noticed that I wasn't exactly following their   discussion in Greek, so he handed me some twenty-year-old anarchist punk rock magazines from San Francisco.

We had a good time going out at night. One night, we went to a dubstep concert playing at a squat near the university (they love their squats). Another, to a punk rock show in the engineering building on campus. Allegedly, the police aren't allowed on university campuses, which kind of blew my mind.

Seamos was a great host, making sure I met all his friends and had fun with them. He's a pretty interesting guy, too, friendly, and never afraid to speak his mind. I'll definitely be couchsurfing again.