Wednesday morning, we got up for breakfast, listened to more strange 80s hits set to Bossa Nova, and I met a couple of Bill’s colleagues, who were also staying at the Hilton Istanbul Maslak. Other than the weird music, breakfast was unremarkable. Once again, I went back to bed afterwards.
When I woke up, I was determined to finish reading a book I’d been working on for awhile, so I could write a book review. That’s precisely what I did. It took up enough time that I didn’t need to visit the spa again. 😉 In the afternoon, I went down to the “lounge” and hung out, to give the housekeepers a chance to clean the room. I don’t usually have lunch when I accompany Bill on his business trips, because I don’t enjoy eating in restaurants alone. I wasn’t too keen on eating at the hotel’s restauant, Zaxi, nor did I want to wander alone around Maslak looking for a kebab.
The lounge is adjacent to the lobby bar and the lobby itself, so there was some activity there. A couple of groups were having what appeared to be business meetings. I busied myself by beginning a new book, playing computer games, and watching Bloomberg News in Turkish. After a couple of hours, I went back to the room, which wasn’t yet made up. I spent another hour in the room, and then went back to the lounge.
I sent Bill a private message on Facebook to let him know that was where I’d be. Soon enough, he finished work and found me there, staving off hunger by eating some of the mixed nuts I’d pilfered from the lobby bar the night previous. Let’s hear it for carrying a Ziploc bag in one’s purse. 😉 It spared me (and Bill) from grumpiness! Bill told me the room was, by then, serviced.
Bill said he wanted to see if we could find a “beer bar” that was supposedly near the hotel. I was okay with that, so we ventured out of the hotel and headed for the bar. I immediately noticed that the neighborhood we were in was very congested with people, hilly, and had roads that were not in very good condition. The sidewalks were crowded with people just getting off work and trying to get their cars out of parking lots that were “dolu” (full). It was pretty nervewracking. Bill kept saying that he thought Yerevan was busy, but Istanbul had it all over Yerevan!
As we started walking down a steep hill, it occurred to me that we would have to walk back up, and if we were going to be drinking beer, we wouldn’t be totally sober. And… it would be dark outside. My knees, hips, and thighs were already protesting the hill going down. I didn’t want to think about walking back up that hill in the dark, especially given all the potholes. Below are some photos from the area near the hotel.
I had noticed a restaurant that gave off a nice aroma as we passed it. I suggested that we go there. Bill said they probably wouldn’t have beer. I said, “so what”– there’s beer in the hotel. So we walked back the way we came, and went to the restaurant, which was called Kebapçı Kazım Maslak. A man who was sitting outside near the “patio” area warmly welcomed us to the nearly empty restaurant.
A waiter greeted us in English, and directed us to use our phones to access the menu. Unfortunately, the eSim I purchased for Turkey wasn’t working properly, and even when I did manage to get to the menu, the selections weren’t opening for me. It took us awhile to choose what we wanted, because we had to use Google to figure out what they had.
I ended up getting a grilled chicken kebab dish, while Bill had minced lamb. Both dishes came with a trip to the salad bar, and as Bill suspected, they only had soft drinks, juices, teas, coffee, and water. There was no booze. Fair enough. I had a Pepsi and Bill had iced tea.
I really enjoyed the grilled chicken kebab, which came with pita, a yogurt dip, and a mildly spicy red pepper sauce. Bill also really liked his lamb dish. While we were eating, the local mosque issued a call to prayer over a loudspeaker. We noticed they turned off the Turkish music in the restaurant, although the people in the restaurant didn’t seem to stop what they were doing. When the call to prayer was over, they turned the music back on, and things got back to normal. After we finished, the waiter brought out hot tea and two little cakes with a sweet sesame sauce. It was a nice way to end our first Turkish restaurant meal together. The tea and the cakes seemed to come with the meal, as they weren’t on the bill.
After we ate, we walked back to the hotel. Sure enough, it was dark outside, although the area was lit up by the lights from the skyscrapers and various businesses. There was a lot of light pollution to go with other pollution. I was really glad we hadn’t gone to the beer bar, as the kebab restaurant was a treat, and I didn’t risk breaking my ass trying to climb a hill on a busy street in unfamiliar surroundings. I kind of wish we’d left the hotel for dinner on Tuesday night, too.
We stopped by the hotel bar for a couple of beers. Bill tried his first Efes, which I used to drink a lot of in cans back in Armenia. Efes is Turkish beer, and back in the 90s, it reminded me a little of Milwaukee’s Best. Fortunately, besides Efes and Bomante (which I prefer over Efes), the hotel also had Czechvar (Czech Budweiser), which is NOT the same as American Budweiser. They served it in an American Budweiser glass, though. I noticed they also started decorating the hotel for Christmas!
While we were enjoying our nightcaps, we watched a man with a backpack being questioned by the police in the lobby. At one point, two young Turkish guys were escorted out of the Hilton, though they weren’t in handcuffs. The guy with the backpack had sat in a chair near us, when there were plenty of other places he could have been sitting.
Bill wondered if maybe he was collecting intel, as sometimes the business hotels in certain countries are rife with people from Russia or other countries, hanging around Americans, hoping to score some privileged information. But, if that guy was looking for intel from us, he was probably pretty disappointed. We didn’t talk about anything that would have interested a Russian (or Turkish) spy. 😉
We also saw a beautiful young Turkish woman in a sparkly wedding dress with an “entourage” of sorts. It looked like her man walked way ahead of her, while a couple of people helped her with her gorgeous dress. I think they’d come to the hotel for pictures. Imagine going to the Hilton Istanbul Maslak for that purpose! It is a lovely hotel, but I wouldn’t say it’s that grand! Downtown Istanbul has fancier hotels.
Speaking of which, Thursday was our big day in downtown Istanbul, so I’ll write about that in the next post. Stay tuned!
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