Misty Istanbul

I really cannot say this enough: 4am is not a time of day I want to see from the wrong side. Waking up in the absolute stillness of the winter dark, too early for even the factory workers or buses to be stirring is just not a nice experience. As it is also too early for the trains to Lisboa to have started running, I have to catch a taxi to the airport - one blessing of being in Portugal is that the luxury of a comfy, heated taxi is completely affordable. And on the empty pre-dawn motorway, it takes just 20 minutes from my door to the check in desk. Lisboa Airport has been overhauled since I was last here 5 years ago - it's a pine-and-white IKEA dream now. The only two cafes open are Harrods, where I'm permitted to spend 3 times the real-life price for a stingy coffee and a cold pastel de nata.

I grumble, but then remember that my lovely sister and mystical Istanbul are waiting at the end of this journey...

Istanbul has been in the icy grip of some very nasty weather lately; from the plane, I even see snow on the fields of Greece. So it is that, after descending through miles and miles of fog and cloud, my first glimpse of Turkey is of a couple of metres of blue-green sea, a very damp runway, and mist. A lot of mist. Two thin minarets are visible nearby, but otherwise that's all there is - grey mist and damp runway. By the time I clear customs and find my ride to the centre centre, it's all dark anyway, and there's little to do in the shuttle but sleep... and then I meet my driver. He has different ideas. I'm the lone passenger, and he's a very friendly Istanbullu, who chats to me for a very short time, really, not long enough at all, before he says "Kurds. You know them? The Kurdish. Terrible people, we hate them, guns in hands when they little little." Now really, I don't know if this is just me, but I really feel you should get to know somebody a little before revealing your racist tendencies. Apart from his, ahem, antipathy towards his fellow countrymen, though, he's very amusing. Driving one-handed through heavy traffic and torrential rain, he whips out his mobile phone to show me pictures of him and his friends in macho poses in and around Istanbul. "And this is me at Black Sea!" "And me at beach!" "This one I go to Black Sea with friends!" "This one I show my muscle!" "This one when me and friends beat up those dirty Kurds!" and so on. Well, not the last one - but it was close. He drops me at the hotel with his facebook page, email address and phone number scribbled on a piece of paper, just in case.

Anyway, Robyn is waiting at the hostel, and so we go out for dinner and a long chat. We're in a very touristy but pretty area called Sultanahmet; the main street is lined with restaurants fronted with lovely cushiony porches, decorated richly with lamps and fabrics and shisha pipes. Mediterranean food is so delicious - we eat platters of vegetarian mezze and grilled haloumi and spinach with pinenuts and warm flatbread and and and... oh god, I'm about to put on a LOT of weight... :)