Pulling myself out of my 1960s Mad Men fog to continue our Turkey story. Who knew that there was all this bed hopping, smoking, and drinking back then? It makes life in this millennium look practically puritanical.
After the Spice Market we walked across the Galata bridge in search of dinner. There was a beautiful warm breeze, ships cruising up and down the Golden Horn, and tons of people out enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon.
There were hundreds of people fishing off the side of the bridge, mostly catching tiny anchovies. Carter wanted to stop and fish, but he settled for checking out this guy’s catch instead.
While they were admiring his haul, one of the fish jumped out of the container in a last ditch effort to gain freedom. Josh tried to catch it, but it was so slippery he couldn’t get a hold of it and it continued to flop around on the ground. The fisherman grabbed a terrycloth towel that he used for fish handling and was able to get a grip on him that way and plopped him back in the bucket.
It took about 10 minutes to walk across the bridge. On the other side there was a guy selling freshly caught grilled fish from a wooden cart. We ordered two sandwiches (4 TL each, $4.50 total) and the guy split open rolls, picked some fish off the grill, added lettuce and tomatoes and wrapped them in paper. We found a park bench on the water and sat back to enjoy the sunset (and the sandwiches).
After dinner we headed for the train station to head back to the hotel. The kids were happy to finally get their ride.
As we were exiting the train at our stop we saw this guy riding around on his motorcycle with his dog in sunglasses. He’s holding up his hand telling me he wants 1 TL for taking his picture. Sorry, sucker. If you don’t want to attract attention, don’t dress up your dog.