Istanbul

The ride to Istanbul was a bit unbearable. We've decided the conductors on the train were running some sort of side game. We got onto our sleeper with a nice french speaking women. My broken french allowed me to deduce she was on some sort of important family matter. Either way it was only Zach, the woman, and myself on this particularly cold cabin. About an hour into the trip, the conductor informs us that there is a "heating" problem and that we can upgrade to a really nice sleeper in the next car for 25 Euros. Zach and I decided to tough it out. As the ride went on, he lowered the price and it did get unbearably cold. We eventually opted to get our own private car for a few more euros. It made the trip exponentially better except for the fact that there was no food car!

Unfortunately we did not think ahead of time to grab snacks so we had to ride on this train with no food and a small amount of water for 22 hours! Thus upon getting to Istanbul, I grabbed the first food I could find. The good ol McDonalds to the rescue. As awful as that sounds, it was probably the best Big Mac I've ever had.

Overall our time in Istanbul was fast but we did see some of the amazing mosques Istanbul has to offer. The Blue Mosque was very elegant both inside and out. Hagia Sofia was very nice however a bit more dilapidated than I was expecting.

We climbed to the tower that overlooks all of Istanbul and we realized how far we really had come on the first leg of our trip. Granted it is a marathon and not a sprint, standing upon the tower and seeing a panoramic view of Istanbul, it allowed us some time to reminisce and look to the future.