"Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia!"

Title = epic quote from "The Princess Bride." There were no wars in the creating of this vacation. There was, however, some Asia. We actually crossed into Asia Tuesday night (the Bosphorous is the divider, meaning part of Istanbul is European and part is Asian). But hey, now I've been to three continents. Wahoo!

Wednesday, 4.15.2009

Got off at the bus station in Antalya. Got breakfast. I had some kind of bread with cheese in it. Of course I have no idea what it was. Sorry. Took a mini-bus for an hour, maybe hour and a half-long ride to Olimpos. Chilled for a while, then took a shuttle thing down to the... I don't know what to call it. The bottom, haha. We were on a mountain and the shuttle took us down to sea level, I guess. Checked into our hostel thing. The big thing down there is tree houses. We stayed in a bungalow instead of a tree house though, because the bungalows had running water. Oh yeah.

Headed out to the beach. I just have to say, Olimpos is absolutely the most epic place I have ever, ever been. You have to walk (or hike) through ancient ruins to get to the beach. I'm not even kidding.

So we scrambled through a necropolis, a Roman theatre, a Roman bath, past someone's sarcophagus, and through a bunch of former walls and columns and roads and such. It was amazing. You have no idea. I was grinning like an idiot the entire time because, really, ancient ruins? When in your life do you get to do that? It was all still in the wilderness too, which gave it more of an epic and ancient feel. Like this stuff was just chilling there. So it was different from running through castles and stuff in Ireland, and even seeing the Roman leftovers in Arles and Nîmes, because that stuff was obviously kept up. This was just... gah. Gah, I say.


So the road finally leads out to the beach. There's a river separating the ruins into two areas, really. We did one side today and the other tomorrow. But oh hey, beach!

There are even ruins on the beach!!

Yes, I'm a geek. Yes, I loved it. Yes, I desperately want to go back. The Mediterranean was beautiful. And cold. But I went in anyway! Twice. But it was so blue. And so many shades of blue. Ahhh. And the surroundings of course were amazing. Mountains and ruins and green. I think I've only seen that much green in Ireland. Can you tell I'm in love? D:

After a few hours we hiked back, showered, and lounged around doing nothing until dinner. Dinner was very Turkish, I'm told. Salad and soup and bread and... well that's all I can name. There was other stuff and it was really good. We sat around outside for a few hours, around a fire they'd made. We mostly listened to other people talk. (There was a really obnoxious Canadian with a group of people... I don't know if he assembled the group or attached himself to it. But he was funny to listen to, in that "Are really hearing this?" kind of way.) Also tried to figure out the languages other people were speaking when we heard them. Geeks? Nah.

And then glorious sleep. It was glorious. There was a wannabe club thing over the dining hall and you could hear the music loud and clear, but it didn't keep us from passing out for nearly 12 hours. Mmmm.

Ancient Ruins!!

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

This little guy was just chilling in a window like, "Hey. I'm a doggy."
Sean, this is your souvenir from Turkey.

Tuesday, 4.14.2009

Day one, officially. The guy we stayed with drove us back to Taksim. We got breakfast at a place called Simit Sarayi. Simit is like... bagel-shaped bread with sesame seeds on it. [I'm going to suggest that from here on, if you don't know what something is, wiki it.] It was good. Wandered around some. We had all our stuff with us because we were catching a bus that night.

Here's the thing. Turks are huge on hospitality. So rather than dragging our bags all around Istanbul all day, we left them with Ahmet's mother's cousin (?), who had a store near where we were. It was the most ridiculous thing ever, but in a good way. I like Turkey. =D

We walked down a massive hill, crossed the Bosphorous. (People fish on the bridge. There were just buckets of fish chilling there.) Looked at a mosque and wandered around the courtyard of it. On our way out, Carolyn says,"This might be dangerous." Uhh? "You might get pooped on."

Oh.

Walked through the Egyptian Spice Market. The guys there speak a lot of languages. I was crazy jealous. One day I'll speak that many languages too.


Went to the Basilica Cistern. Very cool place. Very dark and wet, too. But I discovered that the night mode on my camera works and I like the pictures I took. =P


There were massive fish there too. I want to know how they got in. From there we went to the Ayasofya and promptly turned around because of the massive line. Wandered a bit, decided to hit the Grand Bazaar. It was a crazy, crazy place. Lots of scarves and clothes and evil eyes and such.

"Wait, I need to get a picture of this!"
"You're such a tourist."

Inside the Bazaar

Went to lunch. Everywhere we went people looked at Carolyn and were like, "You speak Turkish? o__O" This restaurant was no different. It was amusing even though I had no idea what was going on. I got some kind of pizza thing whose name escapes me at the moment. Sad face. It was pretty good though.

Moving on. We wandered through the Hippodrome and saw a big obelisk. Went to the Blue Mosque. Went to the Ayasofya. Carolyn had already been like three times, so I wandered around by myself... and she fell asleep. Epic. I'm not going to post any pictures here because I have a lot of them and it would just take forever. Click the link at the end of the post to go to my Photobucket and check them out.

Back on the train, back to Taksim. Got our bags. Went to McDonald's. Oh yeah. Got fries and ice cream. Healthy? No. Turkish? No. Delicious? Yes. From there we went to the bus station and waited for our bus to Antalya. Our 13-hour bus ride. 12, really, because the busses make half hour stops every few hours, so the bus wasn't actually going for 13. But still. I just have to say that these buses absolutely PWN Greyhound. They give you snacks and drinks. It was sweeeet. And they play movies. Not that I had any idea what was going on in this particular movie, but there was still a movie. I pretty much passed out once we got our snacks. Woke up when it stopped. Got food. Gözleme is pretty sweet. It's like a crêpe, but there's cheese inside it. Like goat cheese? Yeah. Different, but good. You can also get it with potatoes or something else inside.

Got back on the bus and passed out again. Magically arrived in Antalya when we woke up. Sleep is awesome.

Slideshow!

Turrrrkeyyyyy

Monday, 4.13.2009

Carolyn, my friend from VCU who's studying in Milan right now (and whom I spent my birthday with), spent the last academic year studying in Turkey. She was going back and we just happened to have the same spring break, so I jumped at the chance to go with. The original plan was that she would go to Turkey the week before (she had two weeks for break) and we would run around Italy last week, but that changed. So we went to Turkeyyyyy.

Best way to start your spring break? Spend the night in an airport. Yeah, it was special. Monday was Easter Monday, which is a holiday in France. And that meant that the buses and trains to the airport in Lyon were running on the weekend schedule and there was no way for me to get there in time for my 10:25 am flight. I did book a hotel for Sunday night, but that would have involved taking a train to a different station in Lyon, then taking a bus to the airport, then a taxi to the hotel, and then a taxi back in the morning. Too much hassle. That, and Lufthansa had an earlier flight that I hoped I could get on standby for. So I cancelled the hotel reservation and just spent the night at the airport in Lyon. Not a whole lot of fun. And when I asked about standby for the flight the girl straight up told me "Non." The end. Sad face. So I just went on my original flight. Had a short layover in Frankfurt. Got to Istanbul around 5. wooot.

So you just buy a visa at the airport. It's a sticker that they just put in your passport and then that the passport control dude stamps. I was stuck behind the stereotypical idiot American the entire way. The visa was $20, and somehow she heard "Two hundred." I don't see how she confused the two. But she stood there and just kept saying "What? Two hundred? What? What?" until I told her. To which she just said, "Oh." Sorry, but if someone wanted to charge me $200 for a visa, I'd get back on the plane and go home. On to the passport check. There are red lines on the floor; both the lines and the signs on the booth say to stay behind the line until the person in front of you is gone. Aaaand this woman is completely oblivious and is right behind the person at the window. Like on top of her. And talking super loudly on her iPhone the entire time. And then walks forward, puts down her phone and passport on the window while the other woman is there, and start rummaging through her bag. When it's her turn she's still on the phone while staring at the sign that says "No phones." And she just nods when the guy tells her to get off the phone. But doesn't get off the phone. I was embarrassed. It was fantastic.

Moving on. Grabbed my bag and found Carolyn. Went to Starbucks because it was a million degrees in the airport. The guy there didn't know what to do with "Cat" so my name became "Ms. Esra Ayşe Fatma," three very common Turkish names. It was funny. Carolyn got a new name too but I forget what it was. From there, three trains to the Taksim part of Istanbul. Met up with two of Carolyn's friends. Tried not to get run over by card or random people. There weren't too many cars on this street, but there were people everywhere. Went to this fancy restaurant for dinner. They didn't really have anything super Turkish on the menu, so I was lame and got chicken alfredo. It was good though. =P

We drove around with them for a while and went to get çay (pronounced chai), which is just tea. The Turks are really big on their çay. Went back to one of her friend's houses, where we spent the night. All in all not a super duper exciting action packed day, but still. I went to Turkey!!

Forget Cancun,

I went to TURKEY for spring break!!

And it was beyond epic. So awesome. SO. AWESOME. EEEEEE.

Right. So I have over 300 pictures to upload, I think. I also have a severe case of lack of sleep, and I have class in 8 hours. So you get to wait a while longer.

I WENT TO TURKEY.

Oh hay!

I know, I'm awful about updating. Prepare to wait even longer. I went to Avignon on March 28th and have an entry like half-finished, but I still have to add pictures and such, so it will probably take a while. Went out with a bunch of people to a restaurant for dinner last Sunday. Went to a karaoke bar on Tuesday. That was interesting. (I still can't sing.) This week is spring break and I'm leaving tomorrow to do some globetrotting. Should be pretty awesome. I'm getting back next Sunday night, so between then and Christmas, maybe, there will be details. Til then... er. Yeah. Watch a French movie or something.

Happy Easter!

Sur le pont d'Avignon

L'on y danse, l'on y danse...

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXkNSB9KlY
Words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_le_pont_d%27Avignon

SO. Y helo thar. Welcome back. Etc. On March 28 I went to Avignon with Tristan, Cori, and Juli. It was pretty sweet. And cold and rainy, but sweet all the same. It was two or three hours on the train each way, I think, and of course we left super early in the morning. [Excuse me if there are random typos here; I'm in the computer lab at school and French keyboards are set up differently.] We got in to the station around 11ish I think. Took a bus from the station to the city because we were pretty far out. The entire city is still surrounded by the medieval ramparts. It was awesome.

After a little bit of wandering we made our way to the Palais des Papes. Decided to get lunch first. Then got ice cream. Then Juli and Tristan bought paintings from people. Then we went back to the Palais des Papes. And I realized once we were inside that yes, it was a historical castle thing, but it was entirely empty. Because it would make sense to leave all the expensive stuff when the popes went back to Rome, right? Dur. So we walked through the entire thing and just looked at the empty rooms and the signs that said "This room used to be this and this kind of stuff used to be here." It was a little disappointing because I like seeing historical things, but whatever. It was still pretty cool to be all, "lol hay I'm in a castle where all kinds of cool stuff happened!"

From there we took a long detour around the castle in order to get away from an obnoxious group of eigth graders. Eventually we made it to the Pont Saint Benezet, otherwise known as the Pont d'Avignon. It was much fun, even though it was really raining by this time. The story behind the bridge is that God told a shephard to go build a bridge at this spot across the Rhône. He went and told the people in the city, who laughed at him and told him to pick up this huge boulder for the first stone. He did, and now there's a bridge there. Yay bridge.

There's not a whole lot else to do in Avignon, so we went to a café before going back to the train station. During our stopover in Lyon we got dinner at Subway. Quick, what are the French names of all their random veggie toppings? Yeah, that was amusing. All in all, it was a good day. Tiring, but good. We spent the train rides in the morning talking about books and majors and geeky things, and the ride from Avignon to Lyon talking about music and swapping earbuds. Geeks? Yeah, what of it?

Peek-churs.

Yeah, I'm still here.

But nothing interesting is going on in my life. Sorry to disappoint. The most interesting thing right now is that I really like cereal. Oh argh, I just realized I'm out of chocolate cereal and the store closed ten minutes ago. Fail.

Classes are... going. Not well, not badly, just going. I hate the classes, really, because all you do is sit there for 2 hours writing whatever the professor says. There're no textbooks, no quizzes, no homework. No attendance-taking. You just show up, takes notes, and hope you don't fail the exam at the end of the semester. Bah. One of the classes I and most of the other Americans have been wanting to take is a linguistics class. It hasn't met yet and we just thought it would meet the following week. Well today- 8 weeks into the semester, btw- they put up a sign saying "Well this guy's still on strike, sorry. We found someone to teach his grammar class, but not linguistics. Oh and that grammar class is going to meet for FOUR HOURS for each of the next four weeks." If they do that with linguistics I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to take it, which is made of fail. This school is awesome.

...haha, just kidding. >>