ISTANBUL - FAREWELL DINNER

We jump on the next ferry and admire the beauty....

Galata Kulesi:

We jump off the ferry to struggle finding a cab. Apparently the restaurant is very close to here. We finally manage to jump into a cab and be droven to the restaurant that is centred on top of a hill. We jump out of the cab to be greeted by the restaurant staff. However we refuse to enter sincing we are waiting for Seyda. The staff ask me if were going to be joining them tonight and I inform them that we will when the other person arrives.

Just then a cab pulls in. both Lucy and I grab our SLR cameras and start taking photos of Seyda inside the cab and as she’s coming out.

The restaurant staff panic thinking a celebrity has arrived.

Once Seyda jumps out of the cab we enter the restaurant with staff staring at us.

We walk in to discover a very posh modern Turkish restaurant over looking the Bosphours. The restaurant is called Nakkastepe - Et ve Balik Lokantasi. In English it translate to Bridge restaurant.

Inside the restuarant on arrival:

The amazing views from the restuarant:

It was stunning views. I love it. that’s one thing I love about Istanbul - amazing water views from everywhere. You can check out the website on http://www.bridgerestaurant.com/.

We order our meals and present the show bag to Seyda.

Our mezes arrive:

Above - Russian Salad, Below: Babagonoush

Followed by our mains: Shish Kebab

Before we leave we decide to walk onto the balcony for some night shots.

After several takes we decide to walk out of the restaurant as they called us a cab. Not before grabbing some lokma or honey puffs:

The plan is for us to catch the last ferry back to the Europe side but first were going to drop Seyda off at her apartment.

So Seyda jumps into the front seat of the cab while Lucy and I are in the back seats. We arrived to Seyda’s apartment where the cab driver stops. Seyda climbs out of the cab and heads to the back door. As she opens the back door the cab driver slams on the gas. Were in a moving cab while Seyda is holding onto the back cab door.

Next thing you know Lucy and I are screaming at the cab driver to stop as Seyda is about to be dragged under the cab. The cab driver realises that Seyda has the cab door open. The cab driver slams on the brakes. Next thing you know Seyda tells the Cab driver that she needs to say bye. We do our farewells and Seyda slams the door shut as the cab starts to drive off again.

Less than a minute later we both realise that a laughing fit is about to emerge. We avoid staring at each other because we know were going to burst out any minute. We realise that Seyda nearly got dragged under the cab because she wanted to say goodbye. Since she was going to say goodbye to Lucy its partly her fault if the poor girl got killed. The question is would Lucy slam the door shut to save herself or would she try and help Seyda and risk the fact of being dragged under the cab as well?

Well this caused a massive laughing fit in the back seat of the cab. Don’t ask me why. But was I glad when the cab pulled into the ferry port. I was ready to throw myself out of that cab. We cant even say goodbye to someone without causing a massive scene!

We just made it to the port in time. The last ferry leaves in less than one minute and we don’t have tickets. I run like crazy to the ticket office while Lucy waits. This stupid fuckwit in front takes a year to buy a ticket. The minute I get the tickets we run like crazy to jump onto the ferry.

We spend the next 20 minutes arguing on the ferry on where to leave Christine’s photo. Once the ferry pulls in we rush off back to Maestro for one last time. Lucy decides to leave a photo of Christine in the toilet again as we storm off back to the hotel.

We walked into the lobby to grab photos with the reception guy. Meanwhile we replanned that I would distract him while Lucy planted Christine’s photo into the postcard racks. Love her work.

Once we distributed all photos we storm back upstairs to finish my light packing:

Its going to be a long trip home tomorrow. We crash into bed to hear the neighbours having sex again!