Hey! I've been there!

For those of you who watched The Amazing Race last night, you probably noticed that they went to Istanbul. For those of you who didn't watch it, they went to Istanbul. It all looked very familiar to me. The walk between the airport and the metro, the metro ride itself (although they did edit-out a transfer where you have to cross a street without a stoplight), and a lot of their setup "here's Istanbul" shots.

I didn't go out to that island (had never heard of it) and I didn't see it in any of my photos of the Bosporus, so it must be a ways away from the heart of town.

But their next stop, the Galata Tower, I did visit. I didn't see a cluebox out front (-; so I went up to the top. Here's a shot of the elevator panel that Gretchen had so much trouble with. Count the buttons.



Somehow she didn't realize that the way to get to the top of the tower was to press the top button. You know, the one circled in red?

But actually, the elevator doesn't go to the top. You have to climb an irregularly-shaped spiral staircase the last bit. And just to prove that I have a thing for staircases...



There's a great view of the city from up top, from a very narrow balcony. I was surprised by how fast Ron&Kelly went by the other people up there. If I was one of the other visitors, I'd be afraid that they'd knock me over the edge with those huge backpacks! My little one was plenty of trouble on that balcony.

Here's somewhere that none of the teams probably visited. The restroom atop the Galata Tower:



Next, one of their options was to go Yeni Cami's square to weigh people. Yeni Cami (which translates as "New Mosque" -- it's only 400 years old) is easily visible from the top of the tower, and vice versa.



I walked from Yeni Cami to Galata Tower and back, and it surely seemed a short distance compared to all the other walking I did that day. Between the two is the Galata Bridge. The top level is a major street with fishermen on the sidewalks and the bottom level is a bunch of restaurants and shops that no one was going to. There's a public restroom (50 cents) at either end.

This shot is from the middle of the bridge:



The square is a big open area of lots of concrete, full of people hurrying and pigeons milling. There were also plenty of people trying to sell things. The road off the bridge cuts the square in half (there's a pedestrian underpass), which might help explain why Gretchen and Meredith had so much trouble finding the guy with the scales. But perhaps I'm being too generous, since they were searching the market instead of the square... While I was there, no one tried to weigh me.