travel | dear solo goes to istanbul [part 1]

hello and welcome to the first instalment of my turkish travels! as you can tell by my aesthetically pleasing instagram page right now, i am currently in the land of the former ottoman empire, walking upwards of 8000 steps per day and enduring the freezing cold on my ankles (thank you tall-people-discrimatory-pants) in the market places.

because my turkish is almost as bad as my english at this stage (i’ve finished high school, therefore good grammar is basically nonexistent) i really don’t know where i’m going or where i’ve been (so my recommendations are limited). my mother, fashion buyer and HBIC extraordinaire, is my sister and my tour guide, so i merely follow her lead.

thus far, we’ve been to osmonbey, ayasofya, the grand bazaar, some other bazaar, and every other other shop in between. as a tourist, it’s so exciting – turkey has islamic roots, so the mosques are beautiful, the streets make incredible outfit photo locations, you can find almost everything you’ll ever need in one location and if you don’t like kebabs, falafels and shawarmas, you’ll learn. as a buyer, english is only a slightly troublesome barrier. so long as you know whether the price is ‘retail’ or ‘wholesale’, ‘1/1’ or ‘serie’ and you can bargain, you’ll be fine.

as a black person, don’t go to turkey with braids unless you’re prepared to encounter many people touching them and asking you to take pictures with them (i was just pretending that i actually was beyonce, seeing as they liked calling us that). i also loved the fact that despite my inability to find any south african boyfriends, i somehow have about 8 dates tonight with turkish men. swag.

enjoy my photo diary – i’ll post more pictures on Facebook and via instagram!