Istanbul, We Have Arrived

Hello Friends,

 

After a short 3 hr. and 20 minute flight we arrived in Istanbul , Turkey at the Ataturk airport.  We are now in two places at once, being both in Asia and Europe.  I am super excited to get this adventure started.  Unfortunately, we are having a hard time finding our way around because all the signs are in Turkish.  Thank Goodness we brought our trusty translator.  We took the metro to the Akrasay stop.  Then we took the tram from Aksaray/Yusufpaşa station towards the  Kabatas direction and got off at Sultanahmet stop, at which point we followed the map to our hostel.  They had a really nice metro system that was recently finished in 2009.  It wasn't that crowded at 10:15 on a Tuesday night either, which was nice.  We were able to get our student metro and tram fares at about .54 usd/person/trip, giving us a grand total of  $7.56 spent on transportation to our hostel.  We were relieved to arrive at the Sultan hostel with all our luggage and sanity intact. : )

 

Here are some pics of the subway.

And here is a pic. of the tram system.  Awesome and intricate public transportation system here.  
http://www.subways.net/turkey/istanbul.htm

~Krista