İstanbul..Week One..Settling In
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| Galata Kulesi - İstanbul, Türkiye |
When we land in a new country we always give ourselves a few days to get our bearings, get to know the neighborhood, make sure we made the right choice, stock up on groceries and start feeling a bit at home. A new place comes with challenges, but everything finds a way of working itself out.
We found our go-to spots for groceries, fruits/vegetables and cosmetics. There are 3 large grocery chains in İstanbul; Migros, Şok and BIM. We have each of these stores minutes from our doorstep! Migros allows us to get the advertised sale prices by scanning our Istanbul Public Transit Card. Also, we have a wonderful fresh fruit and vegetable market just done the street. Gratis, a local chain store, is great for cosmetic supplies and I found a way to get the store discounts there too. We found that most store offer pretty drastic discounts, but only if you have the store card. Typically, they all require a Turkish phone number in order to sign up for their cards.
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| $67 worth of groceries in İstanbul from Migros - End of August 2024 |
Pilates seems to be a popular way of working out here, there are many gyms that offer pilates only and even weightlifting gyms have multiple pilates tables. We settled on a neighborhood gym, which is normal for us. Big chain gyms aren't usually traveler friendly. They are typically more expensive and most of the time they are looking for annual memberships and automatic billing. Overall, expect to pay $60 to $80 per month for a decent gym in Istanbul (as of September 2024). This is more than double what we paid in Poland (our gym in Krakow was amazing) and double the USA going rate for gyms of this caliber. But, this is very important to us, so be it. We are saving in other places and this isn't where we want or need to cut costs.
August 30th is Victory Day in Türkiye. On August 30, 1922 Türkiye defeated Greece in the Battle of Dumlupınar. There are Turkish Flags everywhere right now. It's wonderful to see the pride and unity. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is considered the founding father of the Republic of Türkiye.
Overall, after one week, we feel really comfortable and safe in İstanbul. We've used public transportation multiple times, even to get from the airport to our Airbnb, the main airport (IST) is 54 kilometers from Istanbul. That system is excellent by the way. We have walked around a few different neighborhoods. We have dealt with multiple shop and store vendors. We don't speak Turkish so Google Translate is our best friend, but we are starting to get more comfortable with how everything works here.
We are here for nearly 2 months, so over the next few weeks we'll start venturing out more and hitting those must do things. Also, it seems that we have met new friends. We saw someone walking two French Bulldogs in a nearby park. We miss our little man Bentley, so our hearts melt when we see a Frenchie and we just have to meet them. We approached the gentleman and talked for about 15 minutes as we play with and petted his sweet dogs. We exchanged information and we have plans meet for dinner. We're excited to have met someone so soon! Something similar happened to us in Krakow.
Our plans...
We are staying on the European side of İstanbul, we will definitely make it over to the Asian side a few times. Kadıköy and Moda are must visit neighborhoods, as is Üsküdar; so they are all on the list along with many other neighborhoods and their historical sites. Public transportation is affordable and readily available which makes it very easy to get to any neighborhood. Our metrocard (İstanbulkart) works for trams, metro, bus, and boats; so that is extremely handy. The transportation infrastructure is excellent. We will take the boat across the Bosphorus to get to the Asian side. I'm hoping to catch a few sunsets on or near the water.
We definitely want a Turkish bath experience (Hamam). We're excited to visit more mosques, they are interesting and gorgeous. I've seen so many Turkish barber videos and reels online, I'd like to experience a haircut and treatment like that. Of course we will continue to try the different delicious cuisines here. We'll check out the major bazaars, we travel light so we don't typically buy anything unless we really need it. I'll get a tattoo while we're here, there's an artist who I've been in contact with, so that's exciting for me. There is so much to do and see in this huge city of 15+ million people, I know our time here will fly by and we'll feel like we have barely scratched the surface.
Being slow travelers, we have to find a balance between being tourists and living in each location. We know we can't see and do everything, it's not feasible, or affordable to do everything. We're not here for a few days trying to pack things in. We've done that type of travel, it is exhausting! Were here for nearly 2 months, so we have plenty of time to take small bites and really enjoy our time here. We like to settle into the flow of life, take our time sipping coffee or in this case tea (it is definitely a tea culture). Talk to locals. Take our time enjoying a restaurant with a view, get lost wandering up and down narrow cobblestone streets, etc. Places like this are major hubs, especially İstanbul since it connects the east and west. We know we'll be back here many times in our travels as we make our way from east to west. This time we are transiting from Europe to Asia to escape the chilly European winter. We are really excited to continue exploring İstanbul!
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