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I missed breakfast this morning, what kind of hour is 09:30 to suspend it? Facists.

Though I love the roof garden, another thing I don’t like about this hostel is that they don’t allow you to bring your own beer in but neither do they subsidise the price of their own (it’s around £2.50 a pint). Bad hostelling that. There is a lot that’s right about the gaff as well though.

Istanbul is going to be a relatively expensive few days I think as prices are a lot closer to what it would be at home (and sometimes well beyond). But I’ll be back in the Balkans in a few days so it’ll be back in the cheap scene then.

Today the Topkapi Palace is on the agenda and I might even have a Turkish bath once I’ve priced it up. There was a lad from Shrewsbury who said he fancied trying it last night, though I will probably have missed him now with not making it up for brekkie.

I also need to sit down in front of a PC and plan the next week or so beyond Istanbul. I think it’s likely to involve more night buses, boo.

By the time I got out it was time for lunch rather than breakfast, finding some where cheap is not easy round here though. I has this rice and meatball combo and a couple of baklava and it was well over a tenner.

Food in the belly, I trundled around Gulhane Park just outside Topkapi Palace, it’s a lovely little place. Then it was on into the Palace itself, entry was a little steep at 20 Turkish Lira but there’s not really much point coming here if you don’t see stuff like that.

The Palace was nice, I wasn’t overly interested in the Ottoman artefacts on display but the grounds and the interiors of the buildings are definetely worth a butchers.

I bumped into the lad (Dave) from Shrewsbury by chance while I was there so afterwards we tool the Galata Bridge over the Bosphorus into the Galata region of the city (I presume Galatasaray have something to do with this area).

There were loads of locals fishing off the brıdge and I thınk you can hire the gear and have a go yourself, that may be somethıng I do tomorrow if I have tıme.

Across the bridge you can go up the Galata Tower for 10 Turkish Lira. It offers great views of the city and was well worth the dosh.

I had to buy some more Zovirax earlier, that was another tenner (Sterling) more or less, what a sneak!

Tonight’s agenda will pretty much mirror last night’s I reckon. More Vole and hookah pipes are likely.