rocked by rakı

Ok so I fail at updating consistently. Sorry! But I do have a good excuse - Dani came to visit! Dani is a BC student studying in Paris right now and due to the volcano, her spring break plans got severely changed... as in a week of them got canceled :( so she came here for a few days instead! It was so great having someone come visit and the timing couldn't have been more perfect - I finished my paper last week, finished my exam Wed morning and she came Wed night. The weather was amazing - sun and warmth without any rain - and the length was just right too - wed night to friday afternoon. We saw basically all of downtown Stras on Thursday, went up to the top of the cathedral, had a picnic lunch of bread, cheese and wine along the river, saw my school, and then came home and napped/read in my little yard. Then today we saw the European Institutions, walked through l'Orangerie (the park) and stumbled onto the zoo :) basically, she was my guinea pig for when my family comes! and it went really well! It was also so fun to have someone to show off "my" city to.

anyways, back to my trip to Istanbul.

Tuesday 4/6

We woke up late again and Erin had class so Caitlin and I had instructions to amuse ourselves with the Palaces: Dolma Baçhe and Topkapı. We went to the Dolma Baçhe, which we found out was the president's house and where Atatürk died, and Caitlin promptly made friends with a turkish guy around our age (I think) while waiting in line for tickets. He found out we were studying France and that we speak french and brought his cousin over. His cousin was actually pretty cool - he was a little bit older (around 30) and actually wasn't interested in us, it was so nice lol. He and I talked while Caitlin tried to avoid giving out any personal information to her new Turkish boyfriend. The cousin turned out to live in Metz, which is about am hour north-west of Strasbourg, so it was really fun talking to him. We got into the Palace (using a very sneaky ID handoff for a 9 YTL discount!) and evaded our new bfs, took a guided tour through the palace and then wandered around the grounds a bit. The Palace was really cool, with lots of beautiful paintings by mostly Italian painters, but it felt like we breezed through it and didnt really get to see a lot of them. Although, I guess the tour was supposed to be about the palace and not the paintings... but oh well.

After that we walked to Taksim, which is the main shopping/bar/restaurant area in Istanbul and we walked the main street there because Caitlin wanted to find Top Shop and I wanted to shop. Neither of us ended up getting anything but the street was cool anyways. From there we walked to a bus stop, got on a bus to go back to Erin's. We also stopped along the way and got breakfast supplies (since we just about killed her yogurt and cereal) and hummus. Oh my gosh the hummus was sooo good. I haven't had any since December I think, but it was amazing. We got home and obviously dug into the hummus with bread and veggies. Then we decided we wanted a more substantial meal, so we ordered in and got 2 chicken dishes and 2 salads for the 3 of us. It also came with bread and the chicken was delightfully spicy :) then it was time to get ready to go out! So we were all getting ready and Erin and her roommates "graciously" gave us the last of their rakı, which is the turkish liquor. It's mixed with water and it turns from a clear liquor into a milky white drink that tastes like black licorice with the burn of liquor. Delicious, let me tell you... (feel the sarcasm). So we had that before heading out. We went out in Taksim, stopping at a bar for some cheap drinks, then going somewhere else for better, more expensive drinks, and then finally going to Ritim Roof for some dancing.

The next day, Wednesday, we got up late again and Caitlin and I decided to go to a Turkish Bathhouse for a traditional turkish bath. What an experience. We went to Cagaloglu, the 300 year old historical hamam and got kind of ripped off (somehow the prices doubled from what we saw somewhere else... oh well), but we paid and got shown to our changing room. From there two LARGE turkish women took us to the hot room, where there were little alcoves all around with faucets of hot and cold water and basins. Oh, and LOTS of naked women. Like I said, experience. We're not used to that. But anyways, we sat by one of the faucets and basins and basically splashed ourselves for awhile, all the while getting more and more dehydrated. Eventually the LTW (Large Turkish Women) came back in and took us to the middle of the room, where there was a big marble slab. We laid down and they scrubbed all the dead skin off of us, then soaped us up and gave us a massage. It was kind of funny to be rolling around on the marble slab while these LTW soaped and suds us up lol, then took us to an alcove and rinsed us off, washed our hair and gave us "face massages" I'm not actually sure what my face massage was, but I think it was her wiping water off my face. Anyways, after that the LTW wrapped us in fluffy towels and took us back to our changing room. They gave us each a free gift of soap, a comb and Q-tips, and then sat outside the room while we changed. When we left, they were still sitting there and we thought they might've been waiting for a tip, but I honestly had no more money left and even if i did, I'm not sure the bath was worth the price, let alone an extra tip. But oh well, they were nice and we said thank you and left.

After that we walked to the Hagia Sofia, where we would've had to pay 20 YTL for a 30 min tour of the museum. No thanks. So instead, we went to a hotel cafe and got a snack :) Although, I'm pretty sure the hotel was probably a front operation for the turkish mafia. While we were there, a bunch of older turkish men in black suits walked into the hotel, said something the manager and walked down the stairs through a partially hidden door. Mafia, I'm telling you. lol

So after the once-in-a-lifetime (literally, never paying that much to be scrubbed and soaped by LTW ever again) and our snack in the Mafia hotel, Cait and I went to meet Erin and Beria at Kabataş and got on the ferry to go to Asia! So we cross the Bosphorus river, got coffee and baklava in a cafe, and then went back, but I have now officially been to 3 continents! Only have to get 4 more... lol

From there we went to a really neat part of Istanbul called Ortaköy. It's along the river and is a LOT less touristy than most of the places we'd seen. They had some street vendors selling jewelry and scarves, but nothing on the scale of the Grand Bazaar and it was just a lot calmer than the rest of the city. I really enjoyed it, it was probably my favorite part of Istanbul that I saw. We got dinner in a restaurant there too, I tried the mantı, which was good, but it was like ravioli and it had ground beef :( so I ended up disecting my meal... :/ because the sauce was a good yogurt sauce and the pasta was good. Erin got pieces of ham and fries (very healthy lol), Caitlin got chicken with veggies and Beria got Kumpir, which is a baked potato with tons of stuff in it. It was really good, she got it with corn, pasta salad, cheese, ketchup, carrots and pasta salad I think. After dinner, we asked to smoke Nargile and play Tavla again, but the restaurant didn't have tavla, so we moved over to a different place and set up there. The nargile was stronger than Monday night when we smoked it (either that or my lungs hadn't quite recovered) because I had to stop smoking pretty quickly - it went straight to my head lol

After that, we went home and Caitlin packed because she was leaving the next day for Madrid! I just hung out with Erin since I wasn't leaving till Friday.

Thursday morning I woke up with the bed to myself since Cait went to catch her flight and Erin didn't have class till 2, so we had a nice lazy morning. We left together at 1:30 so she could get to class and I could meet Beria, who was going to be my tour guide for the day. She and I walked to Rumeli Castle, which was really cool and right on the Bosphorus river. It's one of the oldest castles in Turkey and you can go in and clamber (literally) all over the walls, which is a great workout - my calves were sore the next day! I loved it, the views were amazing and it was just really neat how you could wander all over the stairs and walls of this ancient castle. Some parts were a little questionable, though, because some of the staircases were narrow and of course there weren't guardrails, so you could be a few stories up with nothing but air between you and the ground (at times like this I realize I'm really my father's daughter. He wouldn't have liked that and I didn't either). Besides that, though, it was a really cool place, very quiet with beautiful views and scenery with green lawns, blooming flowers and green trees.

Then we walked along the river to Bebek, which is just another area of Istanbul, walked through a park, played on some "exercise" equipment in the park (think elliptical type things, but without any resistance) and then caught a bus to meet Erin at home. We all chilled for a little bit, ate some more hummus and then I cooked dinner :) I made pasta tossed with olive oil, sautéed garlic, tomatoes and a little bit of pesto sauce and we had veggies dipped in olive oil and balsamic or hummus and then chocolate for dessert. It was really good if I do say so myself. After dinner we chilled more and made some plans for Greece, it was basically a really nice, needed chill day.

Friday was my last day in Istanbul, so I wanted to go make sure I got in everything important I needed to see. First of all we woke up and worked on cleaning out Erin's fridge, so we had eggs and toast and then I went to go get the train tickets to Thessaloniki. After that I walked to Sultanahmet to go to the Hagia Sofia, determined to get in free using Erin's friend's student museum card (you get into museums for free or cheap with it) but the guard asked me for back up! Obviously I didn't have any, so they kicked me out and kept the card. I still kind of can't believe I got caught with a fake ID and all I was trying to do was go into a museum lol oh well. After that I fled to the Grand Bazaar to pick up some things: a Ronaldo jersey for a friend, and a new fake designer bag because mine was breaking :( I ended up getting a scarf, some ceramic pottery, two pairs of earrings, postcards a new bag and the jersey. oops? or good job? haha I don't know. Either way, from there I made my way back to Wonderland to meet Erin and Beria for lunch. Then E and I went back her appt to pack up for our weekend in Greece! We got to the train station early and got in our car and got excited about the prospect of a night car. That lasted about an hour of the 12 hour ride... lol The ride itself wasn't that bad (except the thermostat kept trying to sweat us to death - I swear that thing was possessed, we tried to put it on 20 degrees C (around 70 F) but it wanted to be at 30 C (~90 F). Whenever it was cool it was actually fairly comfortable, I was on the top bunk and she was on the bottom. The other not so fun part were the passport checks - we were woken up 4 times for passport checks. Twice leaving Turkey (once to take our passports, once to give them back an hour later), and twice entering Greece (again, once to take our PP and once to give them back).

We finally got to Thess around 11 on Saturday, a few hours later than we were supposed to get in, so we booked it to the hotel, dropped our things, changed and headed out in search of COFFEE. and food, but mostly coffee. We found a Starbucks and each got a frappe. I don't think I've ever tasted a more heavenly taste like ice cold smooth, creamy coffee after a 12+ hour train ride. From there we went in search of food, and found it without too much trouble. We got fried zucchini and tzatziki for an appetizer and I got chicken and fries (I didn't actually want fries, for some reason I thought they were going to be baked potatoes or something) and it was all reaallly good. Then we walked along the boardwalk to the White Tower to take pictures, which was cool, there was a good view. From there we walked through a park to a museum, but it turned out to be closed. so instead, we got coffee again, walked along the boardwalk again and then sat in the sun for a bit to wait for dinner time. While sitting, we got hit on by a 30something Nigerian man - that was fun - and I'm pretty sure my face got some color :) We decided we were hungry so we tried to find a taverna, because we heard you can bargain with them, but we didn't find any where we could bargain. So we just went to a restaurant and got dinner. I got a cucumber and tomato salad and then chicken souvlaki and fries. Once again, I didn't actually want the fries, but they came with it so I guess I had to take them lol. So from there we went back to the hotel and crashed.

Ok, well I'm almost caught up. I only have one more day of vaca to blog about and then I am all caught up!! However, I do have to get ready to go to dinner, so the grand finale shall have to wait. But I hope you enjoyed the novel (props if you read all the way thru!) peace out! :)