October 13, 2001
First Impressions
My first impressions on my first few hours in Istanbul as I sit at the Sultan Pub near a beautiful (and large) mosque. I'd reference the mosque's name, but I'm not sure what it is since I just headed off from the hotel on a bit of a trek for food and a place to write this journal entry.
- Impression One: The Turks could possibly be the best sales people ever. I've been hit up by two or three people trying to persuade me into their restaurants and a kid no more than 15 trying to get me to buy a carpet. I'll tell you, it doesn't seem like much of sales pitch, you feel like just handing over the money... Nice, nice, nice...
- Impression Two: I'm the only American in town. The first question out of everyone's mouth is "Where are you from?". My response (so far) has been "I'm from the U.S., America". The gentleman that so pleasantly sold me dinner responded "That's funny, all the Americans tell me they're from Canada. What are you? A journalist?". As you might expect, everyone is very sad about the September 11th thing, but I'm not sure yet what's really on people's minds...
- Impression Three: Men are in charge here.
- Impression Four: The mosque outside the pub must have been one of those very near the protests yesterday. Three buses with police in riot gear tipped me off. Don't worry, I think it's safe for now...
I guess that's enough for now. It feels good to be here. Tomorrow I think I'll check out the covered market, maybe spend some of this worthless Turkish Lira... The exchange rate today is $1 = 1,600,000 TL. I'm basically carrying around around 200 million in cash.
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