Istanbul: Day 5 (10/28/19)

I went out for a nice long walk today, basically turned left instead of right towards the Hagia Sofia. I noticed that the major pedestrian streets here generally consist of cobbled roads, regular trees, and similar architecture to historic western Europe. Where buildings will have historic facades but modern interiors. While, unlike anywhere else I’ve been, most of the streets are super steep and will happily curve back on themselves or intersect at weird angles in a chaotic mess.

A couple hours into my wandering I took a seat in a neat statue park to eat and check out what warranted all the metalwork. Poets apparently, I assume that’s the case at least since it was called the Sufa Poets Park I think. After lunch I made a line back home that would let me pick up some much needed groceries on the way. (There were League of Legends gift cards for sale at the front which threw me right back to a Walgreens checkout.) It turned out to be a pain navigating the area on foot since I didn’t want to backtrack and the only way back was via large roads so I took a detour through the Macka Democracy Park, which was full of people hanging out or passing through after work - great people watching! I threw together some bell pepper fajitas and talked with Mustafa and Ebru for a bit about our plans for tomorrow.