so this past weekend i met up with my roommate from school in istanbul!
i left on thursday and ariel and i met up around midnight at our hostel when her flight got in! i got in around 6, so i basically just hung out at the hostel on the rooftop terrace with people in the hostel that night. the hostel was pretty sweet. the owner was SO nice. on thursday i was trying to decide what i wanted to do for dinner, since i didn't really want to go out by myself, and the owner was like, i'm cooking, you want to eat some? i thought that was very nice of him! and that night ariel and i had the room to ourselves! it was nice catching up!
anyways.
friday. we wake up early to begin our day of sightseeing. we first decide we need to go to the tourism office because we have no map. so we take the guidebook that they have at the hostel with its tiny little map and set off in search of the touroism office. we never find it. but we do meet lots of nice people willing to give us directions! eventually we just give up and go to the blue mosque. the blue mosque is the only mosque in the world (beside mecca, which has since added a 7th) to have 6 minarets. its very impressive from the outside, and pretty on the inside too, but very tourist-y.
after the blue mosque we went to ayasofia (hagia sophia or st sophia for us english speakers) which was right across the square. this is a very impressive old building. it was built by constantine in the early 300 AD as a church. it was then converted to a mosque...i can't remember when, and then into a museum in the 1900s. so in the building there are all of these old christian mosiacs of jesus and mary and st john the baptist, alongside these huge wooden discs with arabic script of prophets names etc. it was an interesting juxtaposition.
anyways, after the ayasofia we walked up to the topkapi palace, and i'm sad to say we weren't really sure what all we were seeing here. i think for this you should spring for a guide. it was really pretty, and had gorgeous views, but like i said, not really sure what we were seeing.
anyways, after the palace we went and had lunch at this cute little restaurant where we got to sit on couches on the floor. we tried traditional turkish dishes like dry yoghurt with mint and something else, speical rice wrapped in wine leaves, and filo pastry with feta cheese. and then dessert! baklava! it was delish! and our waiter was super nice. we asked her how to say thank you, and its hard to say thank you in turkish! she said it..and we sort of looked at her..and then she wrote it down for us... and kept saying it over and over for us. we eventually got it (sort of...) but it was kind of like the them of our trip..how to say thank you. lol
after lunch we decided we were going to go see the bascilica cistern, but on the way we got distracted by some souvenir shops, and one of the shops had this really nice guy who offered us some apple tea, a local speciality. and we read in our guidebook that its really rude to refuse, so we were like..ok. whatever. so we sat down with this guy in his shop, and we talk for a bit... he's been to georgetown, life is good..and then he starts trying to sell us a carpet! mom i tried calling you to see if you wanted anything..but my phone wouldn't work. he did however have wonderful selling skills,c ause he convinced ariel and i to buy a couch cover and pillowcases. he gave us a great deal though.. don't judge us. we're very excited for our apartment that we have yet to rent... if anyone needs a carpet though, we have his cards.
after that rather expensive apple tea break, we made it to the bascilica cistern, which is this underground area that holds water. i believe it was built my emperor justinian (i think he was early ADs... can't remember the exact date) here again it would have been nice to have a guide.
after that we decided we had had a long day and needed a nap because we hadn't slept well the night before (the prayer call at 4:30 in the morning does tend to wake one up...). so we go back to the hostel and do that.
after our nap we go to the rooftop terrace where we hang out for a bit before going to dinner, where we have more traditional turkish food: lentil soup (very good) and humus(also very good) and then turkish coffee (i enjoyed it!)
that night the hostel owner offered to take us out to fun turkish places, so we went out to this bar that had a turkish singer and band, and it was a lot of fun! the singer was a great entertainer, she had the whole bar up and dancing at one point! ariel said it reminded her of a bar mitzvah. we went to some other places too and had a lot of fun.
the next morning ariel and i woke up early again and went to the grand bazaar which was overwhelming and crowded and expensive. so we wanedered only a little bit and then gave up and went to the egyptian or spice bazaar. i liked this one much better. it had fun food shops selling colorful spices and turksih delight and other sweets and dried fruits and nuts. i bought some pistachios (i wanted to bring some home for you dad..but i don't think they would have held up great) and some honey and pistachio sweets. very good.
after that we were tired cause we stayed up late the night before and woke up early, so we went back to the hostel and napped. after our nap we went to the hostel across the street from ours to have a late lunch and it had gorgeous views of the water and ayasofia! then we went and tried to take a ferry boat ride on the bosphorous, but of course, we get there around 5 or 6, which is rush hour and basically all 16 million residents of istanbul were there...so...we gave that idea up. we admired the water for a bit, and then went back to the hostel and chilled on the rooftop terrace before going to dinner. we had lentil soup and humus again. we had finally figured out how to say thank you and the guys at the restaurant loved it. they gave us some free appetizers!
we basically wanted to call it an early night since we had to get up at 4 the next morning to catch our taxi to the airport since i had a flight at 640... but somehow didn't get to sleep until around 1:30...
overall it was a great weekend! turkey was more expensive than i expected (in fact..it could give paris a run for its money...)but i think its just cause we were in such a touristy area. i would go back to turkey in a second!
anyways: here are some funny phrases that were said at us on the streets:
"how can i steal your money today?"
"talk is free!"
"come buy things you don't need!"
"can i steal 2 minutes of your time? don't call the cops on me!"
"i love you. but you already knew that"
and i'm too lazy to post photos: but most of you have facebook anyways and can see them there. or when i come home in 2 weeks.
eek.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
south of france
so this past weekend was a long weekend here in france so i went to the south of france with 3 of my friends!
on thursday night i took a night train to nice where we arrived on the holiday friday...so nothing was open or running basically. we were instructed to call our hostel upon arrival, which we did, and they told us they would be sending a shuttle to come pick us up and take us to the hostel, since its basically way far away from the city center. just one of the amazing things our hostel did for us. when we got there we knew it would be too early to check in but they were like, have you eaten breakfast yet? and showed us to the free breakfast! and while we were eating two different people came up and asked what we were going to do that day and then gave us suggestions...one of which was to go to the villefranche beach instead of the nice beach. GREAT suggestion. it was SO pretty. it was about a 10 minute train ride from nice, and the beach was just off the train station. here is a picture of the beach:
so we lounged on the beach basically all day, and then decided we should go see nice, so we trained back and walked over to old town nice, where we decided we needed to eat, and then walked up about halfway up the hill and got gorgeous views of the city:
then we went back to our hostel and just hung out for the rest of the night!
the next day we had decided we were going to go canyoning! we saw something for it in our hostel and signed up for it! it was basically an all day thing, and this guy came and picked us up at our hostel, drove us for about an hour into italy (you know...no big deal) and then gave us wetsuits and we hiked about 40 min to the start of the canyon. then we had lunch (which..btw, was DISGUSTING. it was ham and beet and pickle sandwhiches. and it was like.. a full beet cut up on every persons sandwhich. it was so gross. and bananas. so naturally i ate very little...) but anyways. the canyoning was SO MUCH FUN. we made our way down this river by sliding, walking, and jumping off of rocks! it was great! it was cold though, and exhasuting. ialso hit my knee on a rock so have a rather large bruise on my right knee... but it was so much fun! sadly i don't have anypictures:( it was SO gorgeous too.
so then after getting back to our hostel after our day of canyoning we went to the train station and went to marseilles. we were staying in this hotel in marseilles that i found and booked because it was the only cheap one...and it was SO SKETCHY. we walked up and the front was all closed, and i saw a little alley with a sign saying "entree" so i went there and saw a sign that said "reception open from 8 am to noon, if you arrive after call this number" which was this guys cell... and when i called he said this is your roomm, doors unlocked, keys are in the room. and the room was really crappy. but you know, you get what you pay for.
anways, we were so tired after our day of canyoning that we found food and basically passed out (on the most uncomfortable beds ever...).
the next morning we went to the beach! it was glorious. spent most of the day there, and ten decided we should see old town marseilles, so we walked in and saw the harbor, but we were all very exahsuted so this turned into us walking and sitting down on a bench, and then debating about how soon we wanted to move to go get our dinner...and then finding another place to sit down.
here are some pictures of the beach at marseilles:
the harbor:
the group in front of the harbor:
all in all i'm glad i went to marseilles cause otherwise i would have been disappointed with myself, but i wouldn't go back.
anyways,
the next day we went to aix-en-provence which was SO pretty.
we basically just walked around all day..its a VERY small city. did some shopping, sat in some gardens, sat in a square, sat at a cafe, just had an enjoyable afternoon. except for the pollen. lots of sneezing by all of us!
by this time my camera had basically run out of battery so here is one of the only pics i have:
all in all it was a wonderful weekend, much more of a vacation than a trip if you understand what i mean by that. we basically had no schedules, just that we had a train to catch on monday night and that we were supposed to be in nice friday night, and marseilles sat and sun night. it was glorious!
anways, i'll have more interesting posts next week: this weekend i'm off to istanbul!
on thursday night i took a night train to nice where we arrived on the holiday friday...so nothing was open or running basically. we were instructed to call our hostel upon arrival, which we did, and they told us they would be sending a shuttle to come pick us up and take us to the hostel, since its basically way far away from the city center. just one of the amazing things our hostel did for us. when we got there we knew it would be too early to check in but they were like, have you eaten breakfast yet? and showed us to the free breakfast! and while we were eating two different people came up and asked what we were going to do that day and then gave us suggestions...one of which was to go to the villefranche beach instead of the nice beach. GREAT suggestion. it was SO pretty. it was about a 10 minute train ride from nice, and the beach was just off the train station. here is a picture of the beach:
so we lounged on the beach basically all day, and then decided we should go see nice, so we trained back and walked over to old town nice, where we decided we needed to eat, and then walked up about halfway up the hill and got gorgeous views of the city:
then we went back to our hostel and just hung out for the rest of the night!the next day we had decided we were going to go canyoning! we saw something for it in our hostel and signed up for it! it was basically an all day thing, and this guy came and picked us up at our hostel, drove us for about an hour into italy (you know...no big deal) and then gave us wetsuits and we hiked about 40 min to the start of the canyon. then we had lunch (which..btw, was DISGUSTING. it was ham and beet and pickle sandwhiches. and it was like.. a full beet cut up on every persons sandwhich. it was so gross. and bananas. so naturally i ate very little...) but anyways. the canyoning was SO MUCH FUN. we made our way down this river by sliding, walking, and jumping off of rocks! it was great! it was cold though, and exhasuting. ialso hit my knee on a rock so have a rather large bruise on my right knee... but it was so much fun! sadly i don't have anypictures:( it was SO gorgeous too.
so then after getting back to our hostel after our day of canyoning we went to the train station and went to marseilles. we were staying in this hotel in marseilles that i found and booked because it was the only cheap one...and it was SO SKETCHY. we walked up and the front was all closed, and i saw a little alley with a sign saying "entree" so i went there and saw a sign that said "reception open from 8 am to noon, if you arrive after call this number" which was this guys cell... and when i called he said this is your roomm, doors unlocked, keys are in the room. and the room was really crappy. but you know, you get what you pay for.
anways, we were so tired after our day of canyoning that we found food and basically passed out (on the most uncomfortable beds ever...).
the next morning we went to the beach! it was glorious. spent most of the day there, and ten decided we should see old town marseilles, so we walked in and saw the harbor, but we were all very exahsuted so this turned into us walking and sitting down on a bench, and then debating about how soon we wanted to move to go get our dinner...and then finding another place to sit down.
here are some pictures of the beach at marseilles:
the harbor:
the group in front of the harbor:
all in all i'm glad i went to marseilles cause otherwise i would have been disappointed with myself, but i wouldn't go back.anyways,
the next day we went to aix-en-provence which was SO pretty.
we basically just walked around all day..its a VERY small city. did some shopping, sat in some gardens, sat in a square, sat at a cafe, just had an enjoyable afternoon. except for the pollen. lots of sneezing by all of us!
by this time my camera had basically run out of battery so here is one of the only pics i have:
all in all it was a wonderful weekend, much more of a vacation than a trip if you understand what i mean by that. we basically had no schedules, just that we had a train to catch on monday night and that we were supposed to be in nice friday night, and marseilles sat and sun night. it was glorious!anways, i'll have more interesting posts next week: this weekend i'm off to istanbul!
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