After a great day sightseeing we had a final night with Leena and Teuvo. Leena had been to Estonia and returned with Estonian liquer and sweet Estonian bubbly. Finns are extremely heavily taxed on alcohol and there is only one controlled outlet where you can buy it. So the combination of monopoly enterprise and high tax means that many people buy alcohol elsewhere and Estonia is just a ferry ride away. They can bring in 120 litres of wine for personal use without question, but easy to bring in more. Just need to say you’re having a party or whatever to convince them that it isn’t for re-sale.
So… we drank, ate, drank more, danced, drank more, told stories, drank more till we realised that our flight was in 5 hours and we hadn’t packed or slept.
Consequently the two flights to Turkey (we had to go via Frankfurt) were a little tougher than they needed to be. Fortunately we had great seats with room to lie down and sleep on the first leg, the hotel was there to meet us when we got to Istanbul, and our room was ready with a big plate of cold melon slices to welcome us.
After a nap and a freshen up we headed out to get our bearings and find some dinner. We found a fantastic place really close by and on a Saturday night for two people for starters and main followed by apple tea and baklava it was 35 YTL (Turkish lira is roughly approx to NZD). And that was not a scummy place. Even had live musicians and dancing.
The appertiser we chose was flat breads stuffed with whatever you wanted and cooked by this fantastic Turkish woman. After a hard night on the Estonian bubbly we opted for a sour yogurt drink served in silver tankards rather than more alcohol.
Oh and by the way….what do you think of Ali Pasha? (as he shall be known for the remainder of our time in Turkey)
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