8/19/05 This morning had cleared up a little so I decided to get on the road and head towards Istanbul.   It didn’t take me long to make it to Bulgaria and after an easy border crossing I was in Bulgaria.   The first city I came to was Sofia which seemed fairly large and from what I had heard on the road was that it was very mafia controlled.    If it was later in the day I would have probably enjoyed staying the night here as it looked like a fairly lively city but since it was early I got back on the road.   Since the scenery Bulgaria didn’t seem to interesting and I really wanted to get closer to Istanbul I got on the freeway and opened up the throttle on my fat german girl.    All through Bulgaria there were police using radar on the roads, they must have got me on radar several times speeding but never gave me a second look.   I am not sure, maybe I was clearly a tourist and they didn’t want to bother, who knows. I stopped about 5:00 in a town called Khaskovo to start looking for a place to stay for the evening.    The town didn’t look to exciting but I thought a coca-cola would be good before getting back on the road.    Well little did I know I would find the meca for hot looking moms,  very few times have I felt like such a creep checking out these kids moms.   I found a café next to a park and I swear every mom was a model it was quite amazing. So once back on the road I really couldn’t find anyplace interesting and before I knew it I was sitting at the border for Turkey. The border crossing is right next to a swamp so as I was sitting there it was one of the most putrid smells ever, the good thing was that it was almost sunset so it wasn’t too  hot but the bad thing is the mosquitos were out in full force.  I found it easier to leave my helmet and coat on to keep them off me.    I sat in the line for about 30 minutes sweating and smelling the swamp and occasionally trying to kill the mosquito that had gotten in my helmet. So by 9:00 I made it to the front of the line and as I was answering the usualy questions about 5 other motorcyclists pull up next to me, they were much smarter than me, they just cut the line.  Well all the other people behind us were not to happy so after much yelling between them and the group of cars behind me the border lady let them through.  Well as I quickly learned that was just the 1st checkpoint or crossing of 6.  I had to stop and show all the documents  several times, I am not sure what is the purpose of all these but it was all very official looking.  Well over the next two hours of making my way through the border I came to know the other motorcyclists very well.  They were all from Kosovo and were going to Istanbul to watch the F1 race on Sunday, what F1 race on Sunday sounds like fun.  Well they had a hotel all lined up and said they could get me a room no problem.    Turns out they had clothing shops in Kosovo so they come to the markets in Istanbul all the time so they had everything dialed in, turns out I was quite lucky to meet these guys. So after two hours of border crossings it was now dark and almost 11:00pm ,the plan was to drive the 150 miles to Istanbul and check into the hotel. As I left the border crossing I had one of the most amazing moments in my life.  There was a full moon almost orange in color was just above the horizon and as we crested the hill after the border crossing the first thing that came into view was a large mosque with its round dome and four large pillars surrronding it.  There was nothing else around, no city lights just this mosque and the moon,  it was quite amazing.   I had no doubts that I was somewhere completely different. By 2:30 we made it to the hotel in downtown Istanbul.  For those who don’t know Istanbul is a huge city, well over 11million people, which half the city is on the Asian continent and the other half on the European continent.     At 2:30 the centers of the streets were filled with garbage, at the end of the day the residents and shop owners appear to just put all the garbage in the middle of the street and during the night trucks come around and pick it up and hose the streets down.  With that said I was impressed over the next couple days how clean the city is for being so big. Today’s Specs Weather:  70 F-90F,  cloudy to sunny Distance: 500 miles somewhere in Serbia to Istanbul       8/20/05 This morning after waking up before my Kosovan friends I headed out to explore the area around the hotel.  Our hotel was in the middle of the textile area of Istanbul, which makes sense since my friends are shop owners.     The streets were filled with people buying and selling everything from Dolce and Gabanna to stuff that looked well almost like it for fraction of the price.   After exploring a little I headed back to the hotel to meet up with Becko and Argoran who were heading out to wash their motorcycles and do a little shopping.   So we set out and surprising driving around Istanbul wasn’t too crazy.    You definitely have to pay attention and well defensive driving is out the window you have to purely be an offensive driver even on a motorcycle.   There arent too many motorcycles or scooters here so people somewhat pay attention to you unlike cities that are filled with scooters and people learn to ignore them. So after they washed there Yamaha R1’s (nice little sport bikes) and I insisted they not splash any of that clean water on my bike, not wanting to tarnish the road warren look I have accomplished,  we set out for a market.   Once we got there we parked the bike on the sidewalk and left them,  they insisted that it is completely safe here and since their shiny bikes would be stolen before mine I went along.    The market we went to was a more modern market, not one of the old bazaars, but everything was for sale here from motorcycle helmets(which is why we came) to cameras to underwear.   Shopping here is interesting, and my friends were definitely professionals, gone were the nice faces that they talked to me in and out came the devil.   The walked in straight faced and yelled at the shop owner that his prices were too high and the shop owner yelled back that they should go somewhere else, (keep in mind this is all in Turkish so it is all very exciting) well this goes on for a few minutes then we leave the shop and come back a while later to start over and after a while they come to a price and all is happy they once again start smiling. Once we were done shopping we headed back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the group. At 9:00 we all got on our bikes to go find some excitement.  As we crossed the bridge from Europe to Asia the still full moon hovered over several large mosques which were along the river, once again a reminder that I was someplace amazing,  I thought about stopping and getting a picture but the thought of getting ran over by many Turkish drivers kept me moving.   I think all 11 million people go out on Saturday night because even on a motorcycle it takes forever to get anywhere since the streets are narrow and filled with cars and taxis.    I have traveled to allot of cities around the world in my life but very few have the energy that I have found here, the city feels like it is alive.   We tried getting into two different clubs, but I guess the clubs are the same the world over, 9 dudes 0 chicks, means you aint getting in.  So we settled for a couple nice cafes along the water before calling it a night about 2:30. Today’s Specs Weather:  70 F-90F,  rainy to sunny Distance: 30 miles driving around Istanbul       8/21/05 Well today is the race day and well 7:00 am came way to early.   So after rubbing my eyes and grumpily getting up we finally made it to the race track (which is about 50 miles outside of downtown) by 10:00. After buying my ticket we made it the section of the track that my friends had scouted out and decided was the best place to watch the race.    This is the first race ever to be held here since the track was brand new, and I will say they did an amazing job building this track.   I was literally salivating imaging my little Honda driving around on this track.  So after some smaller cars did their races at the 3:00 F1 started.  Now I am not really and F1 fan but I do appreciate going fast and loud shiny cars, so I definitely wasn’t disappointed when I heard the thunder of the 1000hp F1 cars coming around the corners.  It was almost deafening.   Since I do not follow F1 I quickly lost track of who was leading due to pitstops and slower cars getting lapped but for an hour and a half it was all quite exciting.  Once the race was over it was a mad dash to get out of the track parking lot.  Well even on motorcycles it took us half as long as a car but still took well over an hour. By the time we got back to the hotel and had dinner it was 9:00 and I was beat, definitely an early night. Today’s Specs Weather:  70 F-90F,  rainy to sunny Distance: 100 miles Istanbul to racetrack and back