Istanbul....dream destination

We've been planning (well, more of dreaming) of going to Istanbul for quite a while. Everything we've heard, read and 'seen' of the city simply made us long for a visit there. Finally, now being in the UK, the opportunity came and we started our real planning since January this year for a week-long holidays during the Easter break. Our planning mainly was in the form of booking an accommodation for a week followed by booking of flights. We happened to book on British Airways and 2 days after we made our booking, the union representing the cabin crew of BA announced that they will strike during Easter. Alhamdulillah as it turned out, the strike ended on the 31st of March and our flight here was on the 2nd of April.

It was a 4 hours flight from London Heathrow to Istanbul's Attaturk Airport and despite leaving home at 8am, we arrived in the service apartment that will be our home in Istanbul at 7pm (5pm UK time due to the time zone difference). The trip was very much uneventful except for our transportation from the airport to Sultanahmet Suite was not around to meet us due to an accident and that partly contributed to the delay. We had been hoping to arrive by 6pm.

After performing solat Jamak Taakhir we rested for a while. Suddenly, a loud voice broke the silences with the call of Azan. Hearing the Azan aloud after months in the UK simply lifted our spirits and everyone was so happy to be in such an environment again. We decided to perform solat Maghrib and Isha' together before going out for a quick dinner.

Our 1st adventure in Istanbul ended up in this small 'very Turkish' restaurant with Turkish rugs covering nearly every single surface in it from the wall, tables, chairs, floors and part of the ceiling too.

Keen to just have something to last us until breakfast and getting back to the hotel, we ended up with a 'special deal' of set meals that turned out to be soup, chicken kebab and fruit juice for each of us at 20 Turkish Lira (TL) per person, which we turned to be our second most expensive meal during the trip. The most expensive was partly contributed by 30 TL just for desserts - the best baklava in the world, probably.