Intercontinental Wanderings

Istanbul is known as the "city of two continents," but there is actually only one day each year when a person can travel between them on foot.  Last Sunday was that day, so of course we had to take advantage of the opportunity to cross one of the two bridges connecting Asia to Europe.  The reason for the bridge being open was the Istanbul Intercontinental Marathon, which was advertised as being (not surprisingly, I guess) the only intercontinental marathon in the world.  We weren't able to officially register, but we decided to head over to Taksim Square at the ungodly hour of 6AM to try to get on one of the shuttles headed for the start line on the Asian side.  Luckily no one was checking numbers and we made it across the Bosphorus without any problems.  The starting area for the 8k Fun Run was absolutely crazy - someone was handing out free Turkish flags, a van was blasting Turkish pop music, and the crowd was the most diverse and enthusiastic I have ever seen at any kind of running event.  When the race actually started, we had to kind of shuffle along at first because of the size of the crowd and the fact that most people, it seemed, were concentrating more on the "fun" part and less on the "run."  There was one guy carrying an enormous deck umbrella (it was raining) and another selling Simit, a sort of Turkish bagel, in the middle of the course.  Like many things we've seen so far, we just had to laugh and say "only in Turkey!"

Adrienne and I halfway between Asia and Europe

Crossing from one continent to the other was kind of a surreal experience.  The bridge was very high and afforded great views of "our" side of the city; it was hard not to want to stop every few feet to take another picture.  At the finish line we got medals and t-shirts, which will be nice reminders of a very fun adventure.  Unlike in the US, where actually wearing a "fun run" medal as an adult seems a bit silly, everyone here (regardless of age) put theirs on immediately after finishing the race.  So we did, too, and wore them with pride: