Monday, April 27, 2009
This post lacks a witty title.
If you're keeping up with this, you'll probably noticed I skipped a few days. I've done the shorter days in Turkey first for the sake of having something written. Be sure to check back later and scroll down, because eventually everything will be posted in chronological order. And if you scroll down a lot more, I finally posted about Avignon. There are no photos up in the posts themselves as of yet, but there are or will be links to my photobucket for each post.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
I ran out of titles.
Saturday, 4.18.2009
We went out with Ahmet and his sister Nalan for some sightseeing in Ankara. First we went to Estergon Castle. It's a museum now but I think it used to be a castle?
It was kind of small for a castle though. It had all kinds of displays of cultural things. Then we played foozball. It was highly entertaining. Next we went to a restaurant right next to the castle. There was çay, of course, (I burned my tongue!) and lots of nuts. Which turned out to be rather embarrassing because I couldn't for the life of me peel the shells off the pistachios. Or any of the other nuts. So after I accidentally sent a few flying across the table, Nalan cracked a few and gave them to me. Oh yeah, I felt special. I forget what the things we ate were called, but then there was quasi-ice cream for dessert. It was like turkish delight, but cold. Very, very cold. It also melts very, very quickly.
From the castle we went across the city to Atakule Tower (I think?). It's a huge tower with an elevator that you can ride to the top for a 360-degree view of... everything. You could only take pictures from half of it (it's surrounded by glass and parts of the glass are blacked out) because parts of it look over government buildings and stuff they don't want you taking pictures of.
Carolyn, being awesome.
Way to fail at being creative, C.S. Lewis. :(
We went out with Ahmet and his sister Nalan for some sightseeing in Ankara. First we went to Estergon Castle. It's a museum now but I think it used to be a castle?
It was kind of small for a castle though. It had all kinds of displays of cultural things. Then we played foozball. It was highly entertaining. Next we went to a restaurant right next to the castle. There was çay, of course, (I burned my tongue!) and lots of nuts. Which turned out to be rather embarrassing because I couldn't for the life of me peel the shells off the pistachios. Or any of the other nuts. So after I accidentally sent a few flying across the table, Nalan cracked a few and gave them to me. Oh yeah, I felt special. I forget what the things we ate were called, but then there was quasi-ice cream for dessert. It was like turkish delight, but cold. Very, very cold. It also melts very, very quickly.From the castle we went across the city to Atakule Tower (I think?). It's a huge tower with an elevator that you can ride to the top for a 360-degree view of... everything. You could only take pictures from half of it (it's surrounded by glass and parts of the glass are blacked out) because parts of it look over government buildings and stuff they don't want you taking pictures of.
Carolyn, being awesome.From the tower, we headed off to... the zoo. Yes, I went to the zoo in Turkey. Nalan was wearing a shirt with an elephant on it. Either I didn't understand what the shirt said or I didn't recognize the elephant... somehow this became "I've never seen an elephant before." So we went to the zoo in search of an elephant, only to find out later that it had died two years ago. Hah, oops. Regardless, there was zoo. It was fun. But they had dogs there, which made me sad. :( There was also a hippo chilling in his own house thing with a pool. And he farted. And everyone promptly ran away. Hi-lar-i-ous.
Way to fail at being creative, C.S. Lewis. :(I think we spent the better part of two hours at the zoo. After that we went to a supermarket so Carolyn could buy food. =P Apparently they don't have Pringles and Lay's chips and a bunch of other things in Italy. Spent more time at Ahmet's house. Went to dinner with him and Nalan and their friend whose name I can't remember. Fail? And we had all kinds of Turkish things that I also can't remember. There was ayran, which is a drink of yogurt + salt + water. Emphasis on the salt. It counteracts the insane spices in food. The salt threw me off though. There was also köfte (meatballs); specifically, I think Içli köfte? I somehow lost the list Carolyn gave me, but wikipedia is helping me remember. We had stuffed eggplant (some kind of dolma?) as well. And lamb kebab something or other. It was all pretty good, but there were lots of crazy spices going on; it was pretty harsh compared to bland French food and all the spaghetti I've been eating.
After our ridiculous dinner, we headed straight to the bus station for a fantastic trip back to Istanbul and lame old Europe.
After our ridiculous dinner, we headed straight to the bus station for a fantastic trip back to Istanbul and lame old Europe.
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round
Friday, 4.17.2009
Not too much to say about this one. Got up, ate breakfast, almost missed the shuttle from the hostel thing back up to the top of the mountain. Played with a kitty who had just had kittens while we waited for the minibus back to Antalya. Got lunch at the bus station. I don't even know what I got. Doner kebab I think? Discovered that I'm not really a fan of Turkish yogurt. It's not bad, I just don't like it. (As opposed to European yogurt, which is just yucky.) Commence 8-hour bus ride from Antalya to Anakara. What movie did they play on the bus?
The Patriot.
Yeah. So we're on a bus full of Turks, watching a movie about the American Revolutionary War. Awesome. There was something wrong with it the first time, so they just gave up. They restarted it after our half hour stop and this time it worked. I think Carolyn and I were the only ones watching it. I don't even know if I count since it was dubbed in Turkish and I obviously had no clue what was going on. I'd never seen the movie before. Oh well. But yeah. Most of the bus was asleep while the movie was on. It was fun stuff.
We pulled into Ankara under the most threatening-looking clouds ever, but it didn't rain too hard at all. We stopped at a bakery to get a birthday cake for Carolyn's friend Ahmet, at whose house we were spending the night. The music in the bakery? "As Long As You Love Me." By the Backstreet Boys. I laughed. A lot. This song is 10 or 11 years old. I know this because I sang it in the talent show in 5th grade. (shudder) Moving on. Got to Ahmet's house. He spent some time studying at VCU. [I thought he and Carolyn went to the same uni in Ankara, but I was wrong. Surprise.] Everyone in his family spoke English except his dad. That made it just a little awkward for me, but hey. We ate some Turkish food with the family and it was good even though I have no idea what it was. Walked around the city for a little bit, hunting down some of Carolyn's friends. Went back to Ahmet's house and passed out. Fun stuff. For some reason, being on a bus for hours is really exhausting. =/
A few pics
Not too much to say about this one. Got up, ate breakfast, almost missed the shuttle from the hostel thing back up to the top of the mountain. Played with a kitty who had just had kittens while we waited for the minibus back to Antalya. Got lunch at the bus station. I don't even know what I got. Doner kebab I think? Discovered that I'm not really a fan of Turkish yogurt. It's not bad, I just don't like it. (As opposed to European yogurt, which is just yucky.) Commence 8-hour bus ride from Antalya to Anakara. What movie did they play on the bus?
The Patriot.
Yeah. So we're on a bus full of Turks, watching a movie about the American Revolutionary War. Awesome. There was something wrong with it the first time, so they just gave up. They restarted it after our half hour stop and this time it worked. I think Carolyn and I were the only ones watching it. I don't even know if I count since it was dubbed in Turkish and I obviously had no clue what was going on. I'd never seen the movie before. Oh well. But yeah. Most of the bus was asleep while the movie was on. It was fun stuff.
We pulled into Ankara under the most threatening-looking clouds ever, but it didn't rain too hard at all. We stopped at a bakery to get a birthday cake for Carolyn's friend Ahmet, at whose house we were spending the night. The music in the bakery? "As Long As You Love Me." By the Backstreet Boys. I laughed. A lot. This song is 10 or 11 years old. I know this because I sang it in the talent show in 5th grade. (shudder) Moving on. Got to Ahmet's house. He spent some time studying at VCU. [I thought he and Carolyn went to the same uni in Ankara, but I was wrong. Surprise.] Everyone in his family spoke English except his dad. That made it just a little awkward for me, but hey. We ate some Turkish food with the family and it was good even though I have no idea what it was. Walked around the city for a little bit, hunting down some of Carolyn's friends. Went back to Ahmet's house and passed out. Fun stuff. For some reason, being on a bus for hours is really exhausting. =/
A few pics
I am a nerd.
Thursday, 4.16.2009
First order of business: delicious breakfast. Bread, tomatoes, cheese. Yum. The fact that I hate eggs came back to bite me, though, because the main part of the meal was an omelette. Ooops. Oh well. Also, it goes without saying that çay is part of every meal we had, ever. Nom nom nom.
Hiked on the other side of the river today. I'm really glad we did it in this order, because today was definitely the harder part and yesterday we hadn't slept well or any of that. So yeah. Oh god, it was epic though.
City wall
Carolyn, conquerer of ancient cities.
Mosaics! *-*
This was EPIC. It's the portal to a Roman temple. But it's pretty much the only part left. But it was HUGE. Incredible. Absolutely... wow.
One day, I will learn Greek. I know the alphabet, but that doesn't help very much.
We spent part of the climb trying to remember what acropolis meant. It was pretty lame in the best of geeky ways.
First order of business: delicious breakfast. Bread, tomatoes, cheese. Yum. The fact that I hate eggs came back to bite me, though, because the main part of the meal was an omelette. Ooops. Oh well. Also, it goes without saying that çay is part of every meal we had, ever. Nom nom nom.
Hiked on the other side of the river today. I'm really glad we did it in this order, because today was definitely the harder part and yesterday we hadn't slept well or any of that. So yeah. Oh god, it was epic though.
City wall
Carolyn, conquerer of ancient cities.
Mosaics! *-*
This was EPIC. It's the portal to a Roman temple. But it's pretty much the only part left. But it was HUGE. Incredible. Absolutely... wow.
One day, I will learn Greek. I know the alphabet, but that doesn't help very much.
We spent part of the climb trying to remember what acropolis meant. It was pretty lame in the best of geeky ways.When we got up to the acropolis there was a family there trying to set the timer on their camera to take a group photo. Carolyn took it instead. And we found out that, of all the place in the world, they were from Virginia. I forget where, but they said halfway between Richmond and Fredricksburg. For real? We go all the way to Turkey and we meet Virginians? Give me a break. We talked with them for a little while, took our own pictures, and scrambled down to the bottom again. We lay on the beach but it was too cold to go in, really.
This picture makes me so happy. It's currently my desktop picture. It's just so pretty. It was gorgeous. Just sitting up there and looking out at the sea and listening to it and looking around at the mountains and the ruins... it was so peaceful and amazing.
That light rectangle in the middle? That's the portal to the temple. That's how epic it was.
On the way back to the hostel thing, we stopped and got potato gözleme. Delicious. We also found a store that took credit cards. Yay! We hadn't known on the way down that the hostel only took cash for payment, so that cut into our resources. We also had to make sure we had enough cash for the bus rides back to Antalya. And of course there were no ATMs to speak of at the bottom of the mountain. We lucked out, simply put. But then to find a place that takes credit cards? Eee! We walked back with cookies, snacks, soda, and ice cream. Oh yeah.
Dinner was pretty much the same thing. Instead of hanging out outside, we went back to our room and both tried to get some reading done. Stoopid homework.
This picture makes me so happy. It's currently my desktop picture. It's just so pretty. It was gorgeous. Just sitting up there and looking out at the sea and listening to it and looking around at the mountains and the ruins... it was so peaceful and amazing.
That light rectangle in the middle? That's the portal to the temple. That's how epic it was.
On the way back to the hostel thing, we stopped and got potato gözleme. Delicious. We also found a store that took credit cards. Yay! We hadn't known on the way down that the hostel only took cash for payment, so that cut into our resources. We also had to make sure we had enough cash for the bus rides back to Antalya. And of course there were no ATMs to speak of at the bottom of the mountain. We lucked out, simply put. But then to find a place that takes credit cards? Eee! We walked back with cookies, snacks, soda, and ice cream. Oh yeah.
Dinner was pretty much the same thing. Instead of hanging out outside, we went back to our room and both tried to get some reading done. Stoopid homework.
Home, sweet... wait, no.
Sunday, 4.19.2009
Not a whole lot to be said about this one. Overnight bus from Anakara to Istanbul. Got to the airport around 4. We had to go through security to even get into the airport. Then we checked in and chilled for almost two hours before our 6:40 flight. Wound up watching NASCAR, of all things, in the food court for a while. Got on our flight and we both passed out for the 2 and a half hours til Munich. When we got there, Carolyn got on her flight to Milan almost immediately. I, however, was fortunate enough to have to wait until 3:10 for my flight to Lyon. And it was only 8:30ish. Awesome sauce.
So really, there's not a whole lot to do in the Munich airport. I liked Frankfort a lot better. Munich had a bunch of overpriced sit-down restaurants, but that was it. No fast food. No sandwiches under 7 Euro. Free coffee courtesy of Lufthansa though, which I definitely indulged in. I lounged, listened to music, read part of a French book I'm supposed to be writing a paper on this week, stared off into space, and fought off sleep. Flight to Lyon was full and landed late, surprise. I spent the entire flight and the wait for my bag worrying about missing my train back to Chambéry. I had more than enough time though. On the train, we were ready to go and the doors had shut... unfortunately there was an old guy on the train who wasn't supposed to be on it still. His grandson (I assume) was traveling alone, I guess, and the guy was helping his find his seat and stow his bag and whatever. He went back to the door just after it had shut and then he flipped out when he couldn't open it. He kept banging on it and yelling "I have to get off! I have to get off! Let me off!" Then he pulled the emergency lever. Some TGV guys came down and were definitely not pleased. So then the train left late. And I spent the hour long ride sitting across the aisle from an Italian family on their way to Milan from Paris (7 hours, yeesh!); the youngest girl was probably 6 and kept crying. Fun stuff.
I finally got back to good ol' Chambéry around 630. Dropped off my stuff. Went back out to get dinner because I really didn't feel like cooking. Where did I go? To a Turkish kebab place. Wound up getting a cheeseburger though. Yeah, I'm lame. Came back. Talked to Lee in the kitchen for a while. Checked my email. And then promptly passed out. That was a good night. (And then I had class at 8am the next day. Whee!)
All in all? Epic spring break was epic. Forget Miami and Cancun and whatever. Turkey ftw!
Pictures of Munich from the plane.
Not a whole lot to be said about this one. Overnight bus from Anakara to Istanbul. Got to the airport around 4. We had to go through security to even get into the airport. Then we checked in and chilled for almost two hours before our 6:40 flight. Wound up watching NASCAR, of all things, in the food court for a while. Got on our flight and we both passed out for the 2 and a half hours til Munich. When we got there, Carolyn got on her flight to Milan almost immediately. I, however, was fortunate enough to have to wait until 3:10 for my flight to Lyon. And it was only 8:30ish. Awesome sauce.
So really, there's not a whole lot to do in the Munich airport. I liked Frankfort a lot better. Munich had a bunch of overpriced sit-down restaurants, but that was it. No fast food. No sandwiches under 7 Euro. Free coffee courtesy of Lufthansa though, which I definitely indulged in. I lounged, listened to music, read part of a French book I'm supposed to be writing a paper on this week, stared off into space, and fought off sleep. Flight to Lyon was full and landed late, surprise. I spent the entire flight and the wait for my bag worrying about missing my train back to Chambéry. I had more than enough time though. On the train, we were ready to go and the doors had shut... unfortunately there was an old guy on the train who wasn't supposed to be on it still. His grandson (I assume) was traveling alone, I guess, and the guy was helping his find his seat and stow his bag and whatever. He went back to the door just after it had shut and then he flipped out when he couldn't open it. He kept banging on it and yelling "I have to get off! I have to get off! Let me off!" Then he pulled the emergency lever. Some TGV guys came down and were definitely not pleased. So then the train left late. And I spent the hour long ride sitting across the aisle from an Italian family on their way to Milan from Paris (7 hours, yeesh!); the youngest girl was probably 6 and kept crying. Fun stuff.
I finally got back to good ol' Chambéry around 630. Dropped off my stuff. Went back out to get dinner because I really didn't feel like cooking. Where did I go? To a Turkish kebab place. Wound up getting a cheeseburger though. Yeah, I'm lame. Came back. Talked to Lee in the kitchen for a while. Checked my email. And then promptly passed out. That was a good night. (And then I had class at 8am the next day. Whee!)
All in all? Epic spring break was epic. Forget Miami and Cancun and whatever. Turkey ftw!
Pictures of Munich from the plane.
"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!!
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!!
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!!
Friday, April 24, 2009
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 BazaarWent 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!
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