Every year the city of Istanbul holds a marathon. This is very exciting because it's the only time of year that they allow foot traffic on the bridges, making it possible to walk from Asia into Europe. When told about the marathon my first question was, "Do you actually have to RUN the marathon?" as I am not much of a runner. Seriously, I hope I am never faced in a situation where the options are run or die... I will die. Getting a hasty, "No." entitled me to sign up for the "Fun Run" without any guilt.
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| Crowds before the marathon started. |
Unfortunately for us, the weather was not on our side this day. It had been raining all week and Mother Nature did not decide to be kind to us, but being determined (i.e. stupid and stubborn) we decided to wake up early and walk the marathon anyways.
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| Lots of balloons! |
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| Our little group of "runners." |
We got there around 8 a.m., thinking that the marathon started at 9 a.m. but we were informed that the fun run actually started at 9:30... which meant a lot of standing around in the cold and whining (mostly from me). The fun run started around a kilometer back from the real marathon but since we were cold and lazy we decided to just wait up with the real marathon runners... and then start walking about 15 minutes early. We're cheaters.
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| Sam & Katie on the bridge |
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| Foggy view of the Bosphorus. |
While walking, Tercel's boyfriend Memet pointed out a Turkish television show that's supposedly famous around this part. I was like, "Neat!" and kept walking... until he decided to interview me.
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| Before I was ambushed. |
The interview can be found
here if you would like to watch it, but I refuse to since I am slightly embarrassed. It's one of my life goals to not make a jackass out of myself on national television. My only consolation is that it is not my own nation and I have no idea what he's saying (also: please don't tell me).
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| Katie pretending she's having fun, even though she's cold and wet. |
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| Welcome to Europe! |
Most of us didn't actually make it to the end of the marathon. We got to Beşiktaş/Ortaköy/I have no idea where we were and saw a Starbucks where we decided to sit, dry off and have a cup of warm coffee instead of finishing.
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| About where we checked out of the race. Fun decorations! |
Our friend Ben actually ended up running about half of the marathon and getting a metal and a t-shirt which makes me kind of wish we would have made it to the end... but that coffee was DAMN good.
