Turkey

My husband has the travel bug as bad as I have it, but sometimes he plays hard to get and makes me beg to go visit certain countries. Turkey was one of those places, he insisted that he didn’t think it was a safe place to visit and he was just very stubborn about skipping it. Someone please get this man a social media account! I had to sit him down for two hours and hold his eyelids open while showing him gorgeous pictures of hot air balloons until he finally gave in. I will not be stopped on my quest to see 50 countries by year 2028! I was also lucky that airfare decreased dramatically in 2021 and we were able to book flights with very few miles with United and Turkish Airlines. I got myself an overpriced red dress and I was ready for the adventure!

Travel Day

Our first flight was from Phoenix to Chicago, and it was about three hours long; easy like Sunday morning. However, our layover was rather short, and we had to switch terminals via bus. We were power walking through Chicago O’Hare like it was go time on Black Friday, huffing and puffing and sweating through our Lululemons. Miraculously, we made our connection. We had no delays, and we actually made that tight connection. Could the traveling gods have really aligned so perfectly for us? Stay tuned…

Istanbul – Day One

The Turkish Airlines flight from Chicago to Istanbul was approximately ten hours and the plane had several open seats. I thought it was great, but my freakishly tall husband disagreed. There wasn’t much room for his flamingo legs, even though the middle seat was open, he struggled. What do I know about his struggles? I’m 5’5” on a good day.

We arrived in Istanbul and made our way to Customs, and I was ready to explain that I wasn’t trying to enter the country in possession of an exotic bird, that it was just my long-legged husband, but luckily, they didn’t ask any questions. The line for Customs was about fifteen minutes, thank you again travel gods. I was starting to get suspicious.

We walked to baggage claim all excited to get our suitcases and we saw bag, after bag, after bag, and no sight of our shit anywhere. This is the part where the suspicion became a full on fucked up reality. Our bags didn’t make it to Turkey. Fuck my lifeeeeeeeee, bro. Every single piece of clothing we packed was five thousand miles away. As soon as I was able to breathe, we walked to the Turkish Airlines counter to find a solution. We were told that our bags would be in Turkey the next day, I knew that Chicago layover was a joke. We walked away with our heads down, our spirits destroyed and one outfit that already smelled of cheap airplane wine and bad deodorant.

As we walked outside to find our ride to the hotel, I really considered asking the driver to stop at a mosque so I could pray that my overpriced red dress would make it to Turkey in time for my inner Gigi Hadid to come out. We only had three days in Istanbul and I was not feeling too hopeful.

The driver we had booked in advance was already waiting for us, which was not shocking considering the fact that we waited on our bags for what felt like ten hours. He had a very comfortable van; they are very common in Turkey and I suggest you hop on one of those instead of grabbing a taxi. There is no Uber in Turkey and even if you try the app and it lets you use it, beware of scams. The drivers will contact you and ask for a different rate than what is shown on there.

The drive to our hotel was nice, we booked the Hilton because we like getting points for our stays and because we have status, which also gives us free breakfast and access to the executive lounge. By the time we were checked in, it was already nighttime and we needed to get some clothes to survive. There was a shopping area that was walking distance from our hotel, so we headed over there. The stores were about to close so I bought a few random things from Zara and prayed yet again that they would work. This was already turning out to be such a spiritual trip, lots of praying.

We headed back to the hotel and went to the executive lounge which had a lot of options for beverages including wine, beer and hard liquor. They had a great amount of food too, and I can’t believe I am saying this but the best baklava of the entire trip!

We filled our glasses of wine all the way to the rim and took them to go. We sat out on our room’s balcony wearing our robes, with our free wine and listening to an outdoor concert that we could hear from our room. Not a bad way to end the first night, I was starting to see the glass half full, we could wear robes the next day! Fuck it. This particular glass was half full with wine!

Istanbul – Day Two

My husband has a friend in Istanbul that we were planning on visiting during our stay and he told us that there was going to be a Formula One race in Turkey during our stay. Say no more, tickets were bought and plans for Sunday funday were made. We took a private shuttle to the race, and it took about two hours to arrive. It was an amazing day for loud cars and testing our COVID vaccine. This place was packed, and that is the understatement of the decade. It was a blast, though. The choices for food were very limited and there were no alcoholic beverages in sight, and still, it was awesome sauce.

The drive back was a little longer because of traffic, it took us about three and a half hours to get back. We were dropped off by Taksim square and had dinner at Hatay Medeniyetler, a touristy, tacky place. I didn’t think it was special, but my husband really liked it and he is the meat eater in this family. They have a whole chicken that is cooked inside a giant block of salt, and they bring it to the table inside that block and it is set ablaze. That chicken was on fire, literally. If you like cool videos of food, knock yourself out.

Istanbul – Day Three

On this day we were still dealing with jetlag, so we decided to sleep in. The first thing I checked when we woke up was if our bags were magically left in our room while we slept, kind of like a Turkish Airlines tooth fairy. That was not the case. Alright, time to brighten up my mood, let’s go take pictures so I can brag about being in Turkey even though I didn’t even have a fresh pair of underwear. I told my husband I wanted to take pictures in an authentic Turkish rooftop.

I had seen online that a lot of people went to Taht Istanbul for pictures, and I knew that place is just a photo studio with a backdrop, it’s not an actual rooftop. I wanted to avoid that type of place. I found the perfect place for what I wanted: Santiye Café. We grabbed a cab there and my mood was exponentially better. The place is a restaurant, but you don’t have to stay and eat if you don’t want to. The rooftop is a separate area upstairs and you just pay a small fee to have access to it. You can take your own pictures or pay to have them take your pictures with their camera. I don’t know, but these pictures scream Turkey to me, you be the judge!

After doing my favorite thing to do, we walked around to find a place for my second favorite thing to do, EAT. We stopped at Mimar Sinan Café for lunch and the food was not bad, but definitely go for the VIEW.

It was now time to walk and explore some more. We wanted to go to the mosque and as we were walking, Hater got attacked by a feisty feline. This time, not a woman, and actual kitty just came out of nowhere and scratched the shit out of his leg. Cats have a good radar. Once we arrived at the Blue Mosque, we took off our shoes and walked inside. Umm, question. Is this it? The place was beyond anticlimactic. No disrespect, but it seemed to be a very small area where you can walk around. It must’ve been under construction when we visited. That must’ve taken us ten minutes, including taking off our shoes and putting them back on. Moving on!

The Grand Bazaar is a must and we checked that box right away. Freshly squeezed juice everywhere, my favorite! Plenty of souvenirs, jewelry, and not my cup of tea, but a LOT of designer bag replicas. NOT for me, dog; but I am passing along the information for those who like that type of stuff.

After that, we headed over to Hagia Sophia, now we’re talking! This is a beautiful mosque; it is a decent size, and it has gorgeous ceilings. We had trouble finding a cab here so we ended up walking quite a bit and made it to Sirkeci square. It was here where we finally found a cab.

Once we got back to our hotel, we decided to give the Indian restaurant at the Hilton a try. Well, why the fuck did we wait so long to visit this place? Listen to this bitch, do not walk to Dubb Indian Restaurant, but RUN there. OFF. THE. CHARTS. Wow, wow, wow. And as if this night couldn’t get any better, right before we went to bed someone knocked on our door and it was my bag! Oh, it was time to shine now.

Istanbul – Day Four

We had our fresh new clothes so it was time to clean our nasty bodies with a Turkish bath! There are multiple places to choose from, I decided to try Cukurcuma Hamami.

Hater wanted to add his two cents about his experience so here’s what he wrote on his online review:

As I began to type this review, these were my wife’s words “I smell so clean.”  This was a great experience. It’s a combo of a skin scrub, and a relaxing bubble foam bath intertwined with a massage. The cost was approximately $45 per person. We spent about an hour there and they provide some detoxifying beverages and a trail mix type snack. 

You start by changing into disposable bikini/shorts they provide, and you lock your belongings in a room upstairs.  After you change, you go downstairs and relax for a few minutes. You are then escorted into a washroom where you pour water on yourself for approximately 10 minutes. You then are taken into the main room where the staff scrubs away the dead skin, and have you lay down on the slab where you are covered in soap and massaged. After the massage you are rinsed off and taken back to the original relaxation room where you have time to melt into the soft beds. Our masseuses were Ibrahim and Sirin. It’s very common for guys to wash guys and women to wash women here, so don’t that let intimidate you if you are squeamish about that setup. 

It was absolute bliss. If they had Turkish baths near my house, I would go every week. After having ten pounds of dead skin scrubbed off, we walked 20 minutes to our hotel.

We enjoyed the executive lounge again before walking to the port to grab our sunset cruise. The cruise staff offered us fruit, nuts, lemonade, water and baklava. They also had wine and other booze for an additional cost. It was a 2-hour ride where you can see Turkey from the water and where you can actually see two continents at the same time: Europe and Asia! Pretty cool.

After that, we walked to the Swissotel Bosphorus Hotel for some drinks. The rooftop bar has beautiful views and tasty strawberry hurricane drinks. I would go as far as saying that it is a bar you should not miss when you go to Istanbul. Immediately after, we took a taxi to our hotel and we stopped at Dubb again for some Aperol spritz and appetizers. Don’t judge me, I couldn’t get enough of that place!

FYI – The Hilton Bosphorus Hotel offers breakfast from 7:30am to 11:00am and the executive lounge operates from 3:00pm to 5:00pm, and they are open again from 8:00pm until 11:00pm for drinks. 

Cappadocia – Day Five

We made arrangements beforehand to have transportation to the Istanbul Airport and our pickup was at 10:45am. Turkish Airlines has several flights from Istanbul to Cappadocia every day, the cost for our plane tickets was about $100 round trip per person. There was no line for checking in and no line for Customs. When we checked in at the airline counter, my bag was 20 kgs and my husband’s bag was 22 kgs but somehow, he was 10 kgs over. Maybe the airline employee meant it was combined weight, I don’t fucking know. Anyway, my husband starts pulling out toiletries and shoes and I’m standing there thinking: “Is he just going to hold that shit on his lap during the flight or what?” I asked how much the excess baggage fees would be and she says 120TL. Seriously, that’s $12! I told my hater to put all the shit back in the bag and pay the damn $12.

We were at our gate 1.5 hours before departure, it was definitely smooth and quick making it through the Istanbul Airport. We decided to fly to Nevsehir Airport because it was just a 40-minute drive to Goreme, Cappadocia; which is the town where you will want to stay at. There is a second option to Kayseri Airport, but the drive into town is 20 minutes longer. It’s nice to have a second option in case flights are sold out or if you are on a tight budget and want to save a few bucks.

 Once we boarded, we immediately noticed that the plane had absolutely no leg room, but an hour flight was doable, and they gave us sandwiches, salad and juice. Hey, give me free food to stuff my face with and I won’t mind tearing my meniscus. Knees are overrated anyway.

We landed in Nevsehir and it was a small airport, so baggage claim was very easy and very fast (Chicago O’Hare, take fucking notes!). We walked outside and grabbed a shuttle to our Cappadocia hotel for the insane amount of $8 per person. The drive was painless and the views as you approach Cappadocia are breathtaking. We were dropping off passenger after passenger and every hotel looked like a cave from Aladdin. “Whoooo disturbsss my sluuuumberrr?” Sorry, I had to.

We checked into the Zara Cave Hotel that afternoon; the nightly rate was 125 euros and it included breakfast. Our room was very comfortable and it had a balcony; you couldn’t beat that location. But I was disappointed that a Zara hotel didn’t have an actual Zara clothing store in it, posers! (Just joking, I am not that stupid).

It was close to various restaurants, shops and bars. The concierge, Emhre, was extremely friendly and helpful. He even contacted me via WhatsApp before we arrived to ask if we needed help with any excursions or recommendations. Class Act. He recommended Dibek for dinner and on our way we went. The restaurant has a very cool Cappadocia vibe. We sat down and ordered the hummus platter and the traditional pottery kebabs, which are these clay pots filled with meat, vegetables or chicken. The waitress brought our food and I thought “get the fuck out of here with your perfect food”. Hater got the chicken and I got the veggie pot, they break the clay pot with a tiny hammer and pour the contents on top of white rice. Holy fucking yum. I wouldn’t shut up about how good that food was.

After dinner, we walked to Fat Boys for drinks, really random name I must admit. We sat outside to enjoy that cool, crisp Cappadocia air. We ordered two beers and two glasses of wine and our check was $15. “Excuse me sir, do you franchise?”

Cappadocia – Day Six

Psycho me booked a photographer to take us to see the hot air balloons up close and personal and to take pictures of us living our best lives. He told us he would pick us up at 5:30am, so we had an early as shit 4:40am wake up call. Our cold, sleepy asses were at the lobby waiting right on time but there was no sight of our driver/photographer anywhere. I was starting to get anxious because everyone else was getting picked up except for us. I am definitely not a morning person, but I have this alter ego when I travel and her name is Planas and Planas needs to be the first one out the door, always. I started texting the guy, I sent him a DM on Instagram, I almost sent a raven with a note when he finally answered and I could tell that there was a miscommunication somewhere. He said the photographer would arrive soon but you could tell he called someone last minute to help him out. Either way, we had someone with a camera to drive us around and who knew exactly where to go. I was happy. Mustafa showed up at 6:15am and we were on our way. The drive to the area where the balloons take off from was about 10 minutes away. It was very exciting seeing everyone setting up while it was still dark as fuck outside.  Here’s the thing, even though you wake up at the crack of dawn, you don’t even know if the balloons will actually take off. Every morning, the pilots have to wait for a formal authorization to fly and that depends on the weather. If I remember correctly, wind can’t be anything over 8 miles per hour in order for the balloons to be cleared for takeoff. We anxiously waited for that little green light and all of a sudden, we hear people clapping and cheering. It was time to fly, bitches. Get your camera ready, Mustafa. A total of 150 balloons fly every morning and we followed them around for about two hours. It was everything I dreamed of and more.

Mustafa was friends with one of the most popular companies and he made sure to include us in the whole experience. We got free champagne, snacks and a medal! This was all meant for the people that rode a hot air balloon that morning but that’s how much of a badass our photographer was. After the balloons landed, we drove back to our hotel and sat at a cafe nearby where Mustafa transferred all the pictures to my phone. If you want the most fun, dedicated, friendly photographer, his email is cappadociapers@hotmail.com. The cost for his amazing service was $300, please keep in mind this was in October 2021 and rates have probably changed.

After this amazing morning, we walked back to our room to take a nap. Later, we walked to the air museum and explored a little bit there.

After that, we walked back to town and stopped at Haruna for drinks with a side of supersized sunset views. There is no bad wine in Cappadocia, so we ordered a bottle for $25 and some appetizers. Our waiter was amazing and he brought us some blankets when it started to get a little chilly. The place is bougie, but it is not expensive. Haruna has it all! Go, go right now!

We decided to continue trying new places so we walked to Red Red Wine House for some great service, smiling faces and horrible fucking wine. I spoke too soon when I said there was no bad wine in Cappadocia. I really wanted to like it because everyone was so nice, but I would be lying if I said that wine was drinkable. They did have complimentary Doritos, though! Our last stop of the night was Pumpkin for dinner. This is a very popular restaurant, and you can tell it’s a family-owned restaurant filled with pride and love. They brought us complimentary bread, salad and soup. We ordered a bottle of wine because we are who we are. Good luck waking up at 5:00am tomorrow. I had the penne pasta, which was delicioso, and Hater ordered the meat clay pot but said that, compared to the previous night, it was just meh. Once you have eaten at Dibek, it is easy to be disappointed by other clay pot dishes, so try and order something else at Pumpkin and you will be perfectly fine. I loved the fact that the owner’s dog roams around and that I discovered eating baklava with ice cream is a thing. Magnificent!

Epic day, guys. EPIC.

Cappadocia – Day Seven

Our amazing concierge arranged the hot air balloon ride for us and the pickup time was set for 5:40am. We drove about 15 minutes to the boarding location. Once again, the anxiety was at a 10 out of 10 waiting to be approved for takeoff. We were standing there cold and desperate and then it was ON. Permission granted. Let’s go! Take off was at 6:30am. At first, I was feeling like I had made a horrible decision and that I had paid $150 to die from a heart attack, but after a few minutes: magic. This is a once in a lifetime experience, one of those special things that you don’t even think was going to end up being in your list of things you recommend to everyone you meet from that point on. I can still see it very vividly, how we were floating, surrounded by balloons everywhere we looked, how the sun wasn’t out yet and you could see the fire in each balloon almost in unison, it was like LOOKING at a song.

Later that afternoon, we walked to the Sunset View Point for what else…sunset views. It was a bit of a hike up there, but it is a very popular spot for a reason. It is the place to be when that sun starts painting the sky in special shades of orange.

On our way back, we stopped at Organic Wine House for drinks and appetizers. If I haven’t emphasized this before, Turkey is very inexpensive. We paid $6.59 for tasty Turkish quesadillas and mushroom caps. The drinks had to be ordered separately, and that was $18 for two beers and 2 glasses of wine. My chatty Cathy husband ended up talking to the bartender for quite a bit and she was so sweet. Then again, she was from Australia and Aussies are probably the nicest people after the Irish. Do not skip this place!

Apparently, we had no end in Cappadocia so we decided to go to one more place before calling it a night. Ar Selten is located at the Sultan Cave Hotel and they have, in my not so humble opinion, the best rooftop in town. It is massive and it has views like Oprah has money. Lady luck must’ve been on our side because we arrived on a night where they had live music.  Did I mention that they let dogs come to almost every bar in Cappadocia? I could cry writing this right now, this is the world I want to live in. Places like this one just remind me that there is still good and love in the world. This one dog was just sleeping like a log on the couch, like a human! Can I go back in time and just get married here, with this same band, on this same night, with this same buzz and with this dog as my wedding officiant? We ordered a bottle of wine, drank, listened to music, petted a dog and had baklava with ice cream. What else could you want? Go ahead and take the leftover wine with you while you’re at it. They encourage it!

Istanbul – Day Eight

We had a 6:00 am wakeup call so we could do a quick photo session in the rooftop of our hotel. Listen, hot air balloons are very unpredictable because whether they fly or not, depends on the weather. We must have a horseshoe up our arses because we had gorgeous views of balloons every single morning during our stay, and I wasn’t about to waste that view! After a few pictures (and only a couple times of my husband rolling his eyes at me), we had a quick breakfast and sprinted to the entrance to wait for our ride.

Our hotel arranged the shuttle to the airport for 8:00 am and it was a quick ride. The short flight from Cappadocia to Istanbul was painless and quick. As always, we had a song for the trip, the Turkey song was “Shiver” by Ed Sheeran. So, when we hear that song now, all I can think of is hot air balloons and baklava! You know you make me shiverrrr, errr, errr.

Our last day in Istanbul was very mellow, we walked to a park near our hotel and had pizza, not much to report. Time to go home to our dogs!

Travel Day

Our final airport day of the trip has arrived! Tip: If you want to claim the taxes you paid during your shopping spree in Turkey at the airport, make sure you arrive very early because the lines are long, we skipped it because we don’t have a lot of patience that early in the morning. We walked away cussing them and with $50 in taxes that we would’ve received back. Grrrrr. We boarded that plane and did not look back, because we know we will 100% be back to Turkey in the future. Next stop: USA.

NOTE: Three months later we received a check from United Airlines to refund us for the clothes we had to buy because of our lost bags. This was after multiple phone calls and submitting receipts and forms more than once. The refund was less than what we spent; they did not pay for my makeup which I honestly consider to be a huge necessity. I am convinced that our claim was handled by a man because who in their right mind goes three days without makeup? Am I right, ladies? Am I right?