Istanbul

I've been wanting to visit Turkey for a really long time. Ok, well, I've been wanting to come here ever since I wrote three term papers on the country during my last quarter at the UW. Although I've been relegated to a dorm bed in Istanbul, it hasn't taken too much to realize I'm in a place steeped with history. Almost everybody and their mother has played a part in the history of the country--the Byzantines, the Ionians, Christians, Muslims, the Ottomans, and the list goes on and on. Nowhere is it more evident than Istanbul either. In its buildings, its streets, its people, its religion, its precarious positioning in Europe AND Asia, as well as its carpet shops. Ok, well not the carpet shops. At least that I know of... Anyway, you get the point. Turkey is an incredibly unique place.

So I made it to Turkey in one piece, but I'm afraid that I'm sicker than I've been on this trip so far. No, it's not the normal stomach woes that come with eating twelve hour old street vendor food. It's the classic chest cold. The "I can't sleep for more than one hour without waking up in the middle of the night and coughing my ass off" chest cold. The cool part, if there is such a thing, of being sick while traveling is that you have a lot more time to hang out, relax, and reflect on what exactly it is you're doing, have done, or will do. It's something that I've probably been needing to do for a while, so really the illness has been pretty well timed. Plus, all pressures to visit Istanbul's famous sites have been alleviated by my hostel's proximity to EVERYTHING, which has made it easy to roll out of bed and stumble to a museum or two during a day.

Oh, and why is it that you always want to go home when you're sick?