Istanbul at night?

I will find myself in Istanbul at night. There is a free hotel? I want to explore though. Any advice beyond pay for the exit visa? How is the train or taxi? How is the bazaar? I have like 15 hours but i land at 4pm so the mosques are closed :(

Comments

  • MelodieMelodie Port Saint Lucie, Florida
    Didn't they just have a terrorist attack like a day or two ago?!

    You're crazy man, I would have cancelled those plans so quick.

    Please stay safe. :(
    And I love too                                                                          Be still, my indelible friend
    That love soon might end                                                         You are unbreaking
    And be known in its aching                                                      Though quaking
    Shown in this shaking                                                             Though crazy
    Lately of my wasteland, baby                                                 That's just wasteland, baby
  • Melodie said:
    Didn't they just have a terrorist attack like a day or two ago?!

    You're crazy man, I would have cancelled those plans so quick.

    Please stay safe. :(
    I am regrowing my beard to blend in, but I need more colourful clothes and dashikis.
  • Lolol.

    Im assuming you havent been before. My friend there recently went on a trip or I could have asked him to help you out.

    Firstly, you dont need to buy any special clothing. Whatever you wore in america or whatever is considered the norm. Westernized is real.

    For foods, I'd suggest asking what something is made of before ordering, else you may be surprised. If you're ever ordering Kibeh, ask if it is the raw or cooked variety.

    Argileh (or hubble-bubble) is a very common sight. Best get used to it from now.

    If you're meeting anyone, except a lot of dinners and general outings with a lot of food. A common alcoholic drink there is called aaret (best way i could spell it) which is a white liquid served in small glasses usually. Tastes like liquorice.

    As for cabs, try your best not to seem like an ignorant tourist, they may try to take advantage and make you pay extra. Do you know the language? If not I'd ask at the airport if you can get a cab to the hotel you're looking for, otherwise try to memorize the name of the places and the currency names.
  • Oh and you know the kahwe in achaea? Yeah that is the basic coffee there and is served like all the time along with tea. If.you're ever invited to a house, except them. You can naturally find nescafe and other such things of course.

    Oh and don't be discouraged by not speaking the language. You'll generally find quite the amount of English speakers

  • Whatever you do, don't wear this (it's printed on) - 

    [spoiler][/spoiler]

    [ SnB PvP Guide | Link ]

    [ Runewarden Sparring Videos | Link ]
  • edited January 2017
    Rispok said:
    Melodie said:
    Didn't they just have a terrorist attack like a day or two ago?!

    You're crazy man, I would have cancelled those plans so quick.

    Please stay safe. :(
    I am regrowing my beard to blend in, but I need more colourful clothes and dashikis.
    I wish I have seen this topic before. :D I hope you didn't do that. If I saw you with dashikis and blended beards, I could really think that you are a terrorist. You can also encourage thieves to rob you if you walk on streets with such clothes.

    Suggestions for the future: We don't walk around with blended beards and we don't wear colorful clothes and we don't wear dashikis. We don't also ride camels here and there is no desert here at all. Actually we are not Arabs at all nor African. Terrorists don't care if you look like muslim or christian or European/American or something else. Turkey is multi cultural area. You will see many people who looks like western people with western dresses there . I wouldn't prefer taxis because nowadays taxi drivers are only working for tourists in Istanbul and they want x10 cash more than normal price. Metro is safest and cheapest. If you ask for help from a young one, he/she will be volunteer to help you gladly and I am sure they won't even ask one single penny for the help. I wouldn't ask help someone old ages. They don't know English. Turkey gives the visa at entrance of the airport and they ask $30 for 30 days. The price may be changed. However I wouldn't visit to Turkey with tourist groups and tours nowadays since Turkey has trouble with the 5 different terrorist (religious and ethnic) groups and they targeting tourist groups at times. Tourism is one of the most important income branch of the country. Especially religious terrorism has increased in the country after many Arab immigrants has came to country and after Turkey has started to fight ISIS in Syria. .

     You should be careful about the bazaar. If you go to Grand Bazaar, you will need to pay 100 times more for the stuffs which you can actually buy 2-3 dollars.  You can visit there to see the oldest bazaar of the world and see interesting handmade stuffs. However don't hurry to buy things.

     You can visit many historical palaces, pavilions, mosques monasteries and churches which has been built at middle-age. Don't forget to go to a restaurant near of Bosphorus.

    If you ever plan to visit Istanbul again, please message me. I can give you more details and help you. 


  • Touman said:
    Rispok said:
    Melodie said:
    Didn't they just have a terrorist attack like a day or two ago?!

    You're crazy man, I would have cancelled those plans so quick.

    Please stay safe. :(
    I am regrowing my beard to blend in, but I need more colourful clothes and dashikis.
    I wish I have seen this topic before. :D I hope you didn't do that. If I saw you with dashikis and blended beards, I could really think that you are a terrorist. You can also encourage thieves to rob you if you walk on streets with such clothes.

    Suggestions for the future: We don't walk around with blended beards and we don't wear colorful clothes and we don't wear dashikis. We don't also ride camels here and there is no desert here at all. Actually we are not Arabs at all nor African. Terrorists don't care if you look like muslim or christian or European/American or something else. Turkey is multi cultural area. You will see many people who looks like western people with western dresses there . I wouldn't prefer taxis because nowadays taxi drivers are only working for tourists in Istanbul and they want x10 cash more than normal price. Metro is safest and cheapest. If you ask for help from a young one, he/she will be volunteer to help you gladly and I am sure they won't even ask one single penny for the help. I wouldn't ask help someone old ages. They don't know English. Turkey gives the visa at entrance of the airport and they ask $30 for 30 days. The price may be changed. However I wouldn't visit to Turkey with tourist groups and tours nowadays since Turkey has trouble with the 5 different terrorist (religious and ethnic) groups and they targeting tourist groups at times. Tourism is one of the most important income branch of the country. Especially religious terrorism has increased in the country after many Arab immigrants has came to country and after Turkey has started to fight ISIS in Syria. .

     You should be careful about the bazaar. If you go to Grand Bazaar, you will need to pay 100 times more for the stuffs which you can actually buy 2-3 dollars.  You can visit there to see the oldest bazaar of the world and see interesting handmade stuffs. However don't hurry to buy things.

     You can visit many historical palaces, pavilions, mosques monasteries and churches which has been built at middle-age. Don't forget to go to a restaurant near of Bosphorus.

    If you ever plan to visit Istanbul again, please message me. I can give you more details and help you. 


    I was only there for a few hours. Took a taxi from textile district (free hotel from Turkish Airlines was there) to the bazaar. Bazaar was closed, grabbed some food, went back to the hotel via taxi. Looked like a beautiful city, with so many cool looking mosques. I'd love to go back for a real visit!
  • You went to Istanbul? Not Constantinople?

  • Oddly enough, the name Istanbul is Greek for "into the city" εις την πολιν
  • Related. I'm sure everyone's heard it, but who cares? It's great.
    (They Might Be Giants have a great version too, but what can beat the original?)


  • edited January 2017
    Rispok said:
    Oddly enough, the name Istanbul is Greek for "into the city" εις την πολιν
    I am very surprised to see that. Even most of Turks thinks that Istanbul's name original Turkish but it is not... The name of Istanbul is already coming from the Greek language as you have told above. It is just a deformed version of "stinpolis". It means "through to the city". Not exactly "into the city". The place where has been called "Constantinople" was the area surrounded with ramparts which has been built by Byzantines ages ago. People were calling areas as "stinpolis" where are located out of ramparts. However these places (Stinpolis) get more crowded than Constantinople by time.

    Turkish language is a little bit different and it has lots of rules. It forces foreign words to change with time (a kind of linguistic assimilation about words. Forces words to adapt turkish phonetic rules). Turkish phonetics and phonology forces words to change at some situations. If the word starts with two consonant letters, the word changes with the time.  Especially words which start with "sc", "st", "sk" takes "i" vowel at the beginning of the word. Eg: We took Scala word from Italians for ages ago (Means "pier" in English). We started to call it skala first but it changed by time: "Scala-->Skala --> Iskala -->İskele. So stinpolis started to call by people as Istinpolis by time ---> some time later it changed to Istanpolis and final change was Istanbul.  (Hehe. It won't change again. The word is in the best form for Turkish phonetic at the moment.) There are many  reasonable and linguistic explanations of all these changes but it is very hard for me to tell them all in English. All these changes happened by time. So actually there were no change of the city name.

    Resource: Me (a  philologist) and my prof at university
  • Just tell them you're there to help the PKK.  I'm sure you'll be treated to their finest accomodations.

  • edited February 2017
    Caelan said:
    Just tell them you're there to help the PKK.  I'm sure you'll be treated to their finest accomodations.
    Yeah, very wise suggestion and  it will help you to make 30 days-lifetime free holiday since they will think you are an agent. :lol: 
Sign In or Register to comment.