Hop, Skip, and a Jump

Not really...needless to say that was the longest day or day and a half or...I don't even know anymore. Let's see, I started by taking the Megabus to Chicago yesterday at noon. I got into Chicago an hour late after sitting in traffic :( I took the metro to O'hare. Flew from O'hare to Frankfurt, Germany, which was an 8 hour flight, arriving at 2pm today and I didn't sleep a wink...whoops. Then I had a three hour flight to Istanbul. When I got into Istanbul I took the metro, the tram, and then dragged my luggage up a hill that had stairs for sidewalks to my hostel. It was tiresome, but I guess I could use the exercise after sitting down for like 30 hours straight. Anyways, I'm here now. The orange haziness that I've seen in so many pictures and read about in Orhan Pamuk's books greeted us on arrival and that is probably when it hit me that I'M IN ISTANBUL. It started to get dark, but the sunshine held out long enough for me to see the ruined walls of Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia as I rode the metro right past them. At first I was a little upset I didn't have my camera out, but then I realized I have 2 months to take as many pictures of these places as I like. And trust me, there will be plenty. I'm meeting up with a few people tomorrow to check out apartments, so I hope that goes well. The hostel isn't a dump, but it's a hostel, so I'm not exactly looking to stay here more than a couple of days. So stoked to sightsee and walk around tomorrow!