Istanbul day 11

My first full day alone in the city. Time to start adjusting back to a solitary lifestyle. The freedom of choosing for one and the isolation that comes with it.

Breakfast comes with the hotel. It’s the usual Turkish spread of mezze and tea. A good combo. I head out to the spice bazaar to run an errand for my mother. She’s asked me to take some saffron back to the US for her and of course, I’m happy to help. A fun adventure and by the nature of the spice, it’s lightweight. The bazaar is half tourist trap and half working spice market. I pick a dealer and haggle out a price. We shake hands and he vacuum seals some flower for my journey home. When I get back to my hotel to put the goods in the safe I realize he entered a different number into the credit card terminal. Not high enough to fuss about but not cool. Cost of doing business.

How Bazaar

Next I hit the grand bazaar to investigate the rug buying process. I’d like to end this trip with one but not from Istanbul, ideally it will come from Uzbekistan. However, the rug merchants of The Grand Bazaar are notorious and I cooks go for a practice round with some learning. I walk up to a merchant and say I’d like to buy a rug. He brings out two of a certain size and lays them down. I know a thing or two about sewing and notice that these are machine made rugs, probably from China. As I inspect the binding, the giveaway, he tells me they are machine made and asks me if I want handmade. Omission is not a lie here, got it. The handmade rugs come out, all beautiful. We settle on a pick, a flat woven rug with lovely geometric patterns and thick fibers. His opening price was $1200 to ship it to my house. After a smidge of complaining on my part the price got down to $800. He came down another $50 once I offered to pay in cash. We shook hands and tea appeared out of nowhere. There was only one problem, I wasn’t planning on buying the rug. I had to back out of the deal and he was going to make that hard for me. I told him I wasn’t walking around with enough cheese in my pocket to be called a calzone so I was going to have to pull cash. He asked for a deposit, I declined. To “help me find his stall” he offered to send his friend with me back to my hotel to assist. Naturally, I was unable to refuse this kind offer of assistance. I lead this stranger back to my place of lodging and managed to leave him at the door. After a breather in my room, I came downstairs and told him that I was backing out. That everything was moving too fast. That I felt like I was going crazy. Naturally, he continued to haggle. He called his boss and pushed the phone in my face insisting that I had to talk to his boss about backing out. He followed me inside the lobby of my hotel and luckily, stopped at the elevator. Good to know that I cools have pushed the price lower.

Bosphorfishing

After a much needed nap I set out for a much needed snack. Turkey has been a delight but I have not tried Turkish delight yet. A shop on the north end of the golden horn that claimed to be the originator of the treat (suspect) was the destination. Fantastic mastic, an itch scratched. After an ice cream break in Taksim. It was time for another nap.

Arriving on time

For dinner I was itching to try doner. This is a dish available everywhere and Istanbul has the original style. Thin bread and no sauce. Not my favorite preparation but the quality was great. After dinner, I was hoping to scratch another itch. Have a good cocktail and shoot pool. A bar not far seemed to have both. The drink was fine, sweet and weak. This is typical of cocktails here, Istanbul doesn’t do spirit forward. Maybe this is down to taste, maybe this is because of the heavy excise taxes on alcohol, maybe both. Regardless, there was nowhere to sit, nowhere to stand, and a line for the pool table. I finished my drink and left. I did manage to find a pool hall next but they didn’t have any straight pool tables available, only carom. This is not the American way. Naturally, I moved on. One more try for a cocktail and a cozy place to read. To be safe I asked for a gin Ricky. It came out of a shaker with oxidized lime juice. The bar was dim and had those cute rechargeable table lights to see with. I managed to kill four of them while reading before giving up and chugging my drink. Luckily crushing a gin ricky here is easy, there’s hardly any gin in them. To hell with new experiences tonight, I returned to the same nightcap bar as last night. Plenty of light and a decent beer selection. I was lucky enough to find a Chilean English teacher next to me. Someone easy to talk to after an evening that was more difficult than it should have been.

Today’s surgery recovery count. 3 hair transplants, 2 nose jobs.