I woke up this morning and went down for some French Toast and cheese for breakfast while I used the wifi for a bit, then went back upstairs. I packed up our bags, then when I was almost done, woke Darren up and we finished packing and went downstairs. We walked down to the fruit market for a couple of apples, then when we got back, Ady cooked some eggs up for Darren (even though it was after breakfast time!) We hung out for a while and I had a quick Skype with Lachie and mum, after failing to get a three way Skype with Lachie and Tiana, then we said our goodbyes to the amazing hostel staff and walked down to the city centre where the airport shuttle bus ran from. The bus to the airport was ridiculously hot, and Darren even changed into his shorts on the bus! When we arrived, we went to one of the tourist information desks, where they were nice enough to let us use the printer to print out our visas, which I had forgotten to do, then after trying (and failing) to find a sticker for the guitar, we sat down for a drink and a piece of cake. When it was time, we checked in, and said goodbye to Jill (my backpack. Darren's is Jack.) who was being checked underneath the plane for the first time then went through security and waited by the gate. And waited. And waited and waited and waited. We were early, but the plane was also late. I liked the part where we were eventually allowed to board and the screen still read 'on time'. But we got on the plane, and even got a spare seat in our row which made it an easy and comfortable flight to Istanbul, Turkey! We landed then went to line up in the ridiculous line for passport control, it extended halfway down the airport after a few more flights came in! Crazy! We waited about as long as the flight had taken us, with a few 'close-standers' who insisted on being close enough to continuously nudge into our bags, which was so annoying! We finally got through, grabbed my bag from the carousel then got the heck outta there! We stopped at an ATM for some cash, then went across the road to get the shuttle bus into the city. There was no one at the ticket desk, so we waited for a while, then jumped on the bus when someone came to inform everyone that they'd sell tickets on the bus. We found a seat, then had to wait ages again for the driver, who drove 20 metres up the road, made an announcement in Turkish that no one in our section of the bus understood, then jumped off the bus. After 10 minutes or so he came back with a guy who spoke English, who went up and down the bus collecting money, then after waiting for them to finish that, we finally headed off into the city. It took about 30-40 minutes to get into the city, which we spent joking with a group of young Russian guys who had a bunch of bottles from the duty free and were already into them. When we arrived we jumped off, and after talking to Kristy, an Aussie we'd been talking to, we all walked together to find the metro. Then when we found it, she still didn't know where to go, so we left again and tried to find a tram. (We were going off her directions, as she'd been here before!) We were pretty lost after walking for a while, and Kristy had heaps of big heavy bags of snowboarding gear that I was helping her to carry, so eventually we decided just to jump in a cab. We negotiated our fare, and the cab driver was a very funny man, making as many jokes as he could with us, without speaking a word of English! When he dropped us off, we walked with Kristy to her hostel, but they only had beds for one night, so we said goodbye after exchanging numbers then headed off to the Sultanahmet district, about one kilometre away that we had been recommended by a few different people to stay in. We walked up heaps of steep hills and along past some massive mosques and down a street where we checked out a couple of hostels which were both ok before booking and checking into Istanbul Hostel. We dropped off our bags and headed straight back out to get some food. We had planned to go back to Kristy's hostel to get some food with her, but by the time we'd got ourselves checked in, she'd messaged saying she was pretty tired (and so were we) so we said maybe tomorrow! Darren and I headed next door to a place called Palatium to get some food. The place was very cool, filled with bean bags to lounge on, and there was a whole section of glass floor, looking down into some excavated Roman ruins! Very cool! We got some absolutely delicious Dolma and Turkish bread to start with, and a cup of tea each. Darren's apple tea was such a winner he ended up getting three of them over the course of the meal! I got a veggie pide for mains and Darren got lamb cutlets. Everything was delicious. We chilled out there for a little while, and we were both pretty wrecked, (travel days really take it out of you!) so after a bit we went back to the hostel and went to bed.