Istanbul, Part 1: "Problem! Obama!"

Janell and I and another friend from here in Athens, Britt, went to Istanbul for a couple days. Britt and I needed the 90 day EU stamp in our passports and Janell needed another country to cross off her list. We had the standard list of things to see, and did a pretty good job of it. Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern, and Janell and I went to a Turkish bath. I went to one out in a village several years ago when I was in Turkey, but I thought Janell needed the experience as well. :)

We arrived Tuesday afternoon and I gave the taxi driver directions to our hotel. "Problem!" he shouted immediately. "Where you from?" "We're American," we replied, to which he exclaimed, "Obama!"

I get this a lot, actually. Living overseas, when someone finds out you're American, sometimes that's the only thing they can think of to identify with. So they'll give a huge thumbs up and shout "Obama!" and then your conversation is over.

It took us about 20 minutes of blocked roads, police everywhere, and detours to figure out that the problem actually was Obama. We could get nowhere near the historic district of Sultanahmet, where our hotel was, because our president was there, shutting down the entire city for his tour of the Blue Mosque.

He finally had to drop us off near the huge bazaar and let us try to find our way to our hotel on foot. Ha. We gave ourselves quite a tour of the area, unfortunately only through the dingy backstreets, before we asked the 12th person for directions and found the place. By the time we left today, of course, we knew exactly where we were, but no such luck upon first landing in the city.

Here is a door.

(It's from the Blue Mosque. I am obsessed with doors.)