Istanbul

We ended up staying in the house of the taxi driver that gave us a ride the last little bit into the center of town. He offered to give us a tour of the town and marketplace and to take us to the Mosque. We took him up on his offer. His house was very nice. It had the walls covered in the little blue mosaic tiles with a complex design of offsetting white details. The floors too were covered in a geometric pattern of floor tiles. The bed in our room was a four poster one that I really liked. We quickly tried it out.

The next morning his wife made us Turkish coffee and breads for breakfast then we headed out to the market. I could not believe the size of the market. It must have been several miles in all directions. There was a maze of pathways through it that were all covered with the goods available in that section. It was divided up like a department store. We wandered aimlessly for the entire day. We didn't buy much just a couple of trinkets here and there. Then we came to the tailor made clothing area. Bingo! We had a bunch of clothes made for us, some shirts, pants, dresses and I bought a full leather suit just for the fun of it. We also bought some sheepskin coats to keep us warm and some sheepskin boots too. We had to go back the next day to pick them up and I would have never found the tailor again without our guide.

We pigged out on food. There was a food market that had all kinds of foods. I ate a bunch of different kinds of curry with rice. The roasted chicken was to die for. But my favorite food was a roasted eggplant sandwich on a flatbread with a soup and salad on the side. We also stopped and had quite a few cups of tea with various shopkeepers all of which wanted to trade me half their store for Kirsten. I respectfully declined their offers. I was tempted when the jeweler offered half of his gold and diamonds but in the end, I did not trade.

We went to the Mosque the next morning. We started out in Hagia Sophia, a massive one that was now a museum. The byzantine architecture was impressive for its size if nothing else. All the geometric patterned tile work everyplace made me feel like I was in a different world. Then we went to some other active mosques and watched people pray. It seemed to me like almost everybody was very serious about their religion. I have no idea what would happen to somebody here that rejected the religion. All the worship is so public that you would not be able to hide that you did not worship too. I asked our guide and he just said everybody knows how important religion is in their lives. Ok whatever that means.

I really wanted to smoke some hash here. Istanbul was the end point for the Orient Express Train. All travelers and stoners know about the Orient Express, Paris to Istanbul train ride. This town is famous for its hash I had been told. I quietly hinted to our guide what I wanted to do and he caught on right away and said sure it is not a problem here. He led us down through the market to a man that sold hash and opium right out in the open. I told him I wanted to try it before I bought it and he quickly closed a curtain and lit up a bowlful. I did not buy any because I did not want to go to jail for crossing a border with drugs. Turkish prisons have a bad reputation. I paid the guy for my little samples even though he told me I didn't have to pay him anything. We spent the rest of that day on a tour outside of town looking at some old ruins and at the waterfront which was interesting due to all the activity going on. I am sure there was some smuggling going on right in front of our eyes out there on those docks.

We ended our stay in Istanbul and packed up to hitchhike back to Athens and then on to Italy. I really enjoyed my stay in Turkey. The people were all friendly and hardworking. Nobody tried to rip us off or cheat us. I know there are problems there sometimes just like in all large cities of the world but we did not have a single bad experience in Turkey. The next morning our taxi driver friend took us out to the edge of town so we could catch a ride. We caught one before he even left.

Greece

From Asmara Ethiopia we arrived in Athens at the main airport not the military base. We went through customs without a problem and got a taxi to take us downtown. I had already forgotten since my ride to the Red Sea how unaccustomed I was to going fast in a car now. The taxi drove like a crazy idiot as fast as he could go. They use the rule of bumper in Greece. This means that if you are in front of another car you can cut them off and if they hit you it is their fault. They abuse this rule of thumb method of driving. I constantly thought we were going to hit another taxi or one was going to hit us. when I questioned the driver and asked him to slow down he told me it would be too dangerous to drive any other way because this type of driving is what all the other drivers expect and if you drive any other way then you will have an accident. I couldn't take it anymore and asked him to let us out of the car. He told us it was still ten kilometers to our destination but I didn't care. I would rather walk the six miles than ride one more second in the crazy traffic of Athens. We got out and walked the rest of the way.

Even walking was difficult because we had to cross the wide streets and that was scary as hell for us too. I could see that it would take us a while to readjust to being in modern fast paced cities again. We found a nice little hotel and we retreated to our room to get cleaned up and kick back for a while. We stayed in the room and studied our maps of Greece to plan out what we wanted to do while we were there. We had to hit the Acropolis. There were other Roman ruins we wanted to see like the Roman baths and Mount Olympus. We wanted to go out to the Greek islands for a while too. We made our rough plans and then took the night off after we found some simple good Greek food near our hotel.

The next day we walked to the Acropolis. It was a nice walk from our hotel. We hiked around and took a short tour to bone up on the history of the place. Then Kirsten came up with the idea of hiding out on the hill when they close it and spending the night up there by ourselves. I went along with her plan. We found some food to eat and pack with us, bought some wine and bread and went back up the hill later in the afternoon and waited. When they started to kick people out we hid in some bushes and waited until everybody was gone. There was a fence around the hill to keep people like us our but they apparently didn't consider that we might hide inside and not have to go over a guarded high fence to get in.

When it was dark we ate our little picnic lunch then started to wander around the site. All of a sudden lights came on and we thought we were busted. We hid for a few minutes and then realized that the lights were all just automatic lights that changed colors to illuminate the entire hillside for people to see it at night from all around the area. We again started to walk around without incidents with any security. After a few hours of looking around we rested on a stone table we found near statues of crazy looking women. We did the wild thing there. It was very exciting out in public like this. The hard stone table was a a bit tough on the knees and back but we got pretty wild anyway. We went back to the bushes to sleep and hide until the gates were opened again in the morning. Then we just walked out and went back to our hotel.

We were kind of tired from our late night antics the night before so we hung out napping in the hotel for most of the day. That night we went out on the town. There was a disco that other travelers had told us was the spot to go for night life so we headed there. We danced and partied hardy for a few hours then left the club. When we walked outside there was a guy there that came up to talk to us. He offered to give us a ride on a big private yacht out to some Greek islands the next day. We thought it sounded like a scam of some sort but after talking to him for a while we took a chance and went on the ride with him. Turned out to be a good deal. He had offered the same thing to several other couples. The next day we were out cruising the mediterranean sea. It was a nice cruise and we stopped at an island for a few days of skinny dipping, swimming and parties. We were dropped back off at the marina in Athens when we were finished. I was glad we took the chance but I admit it was dangerous for us to just take off with strangers like that. We could have ended up as slaves somewhere. It happens.

We decided to head over to Turkey now that we had spent some time in Athens and werre getting used to being back in the developed world again. We hitch hiked all the way to Istanbul without any problems. The drivers that gave us rides were all hitting on Kirsten. A couple of them hit on me too. They all offered us Ouzo and Retsina in copious amounts and gave us lots of food treats. the Greeks certainly like their food and drink. We had fun. When we arrived in Istanbul the change to a more Eastern culture was evident right away.