Istanbul, Turkey

I loved this place. I liked everything about it. The sights no doubt were wonderful, but the best thing I liked was the various cafes we visited. I think I enjoyed that more that the sights. I had the best teas (cay, as they call it in Tukey) and I even had a nargileh (hookah) once - The nargileh is very popular here, and almost all the cafes and restaurants had them. The food in Istanbul was awesome too. I don´t think I have eaten one bad meal here. Ok, so it is not all bout food and tea.. the Topkapi Palace, the AyaSofya and the Blue Mosque were amazing. Though there is one thing I did not like. Tourists!! They were everywhere. The Palace had such long lines for some of the exhibits, it really got aggravating after a while. It was almost as bad as Disneyworld. Really! I guess that is why I chose to do the non-touristy stuff and spend time with the locals at the cafes. On the last two days I took the ferry over to Besiktas and to Kadakoy. It was a very short ride, and an enjoyable experience.

On my last day in Tukey I went shopping to the infamous Grand Bazaar. Everything I had heard about it was true. That place is quite something else. I had walked in with barely any money and absolutely no intension or desire to buy anything. I walked out that afternoon $300 poorer but with a nice leather jacket and ummmm... ahem.. a Nargileh! Yes I know.. It will be a nightmare trying to haul that all over Europe for the next 8 months. But I succumbed to the very persuasive sales person. Seriously, one should take a lesson in sales and marketing from these people.. they are naturals!

Another highlight of my trip was the Turkish Bath! I had to try that. And what better day than on my last day in Istanbul, after shopping all day at the Grand Bazaar and before taking the midnight bus to go to the airport. (My flight was at 4am on Jan 5th from Istanbul to Stuttgart). The bath was quite an experince. Nothing like I ever imagined. It was awesome. I had a massage after that which was great too. I realised later how wonderful it was.. especially since I was going to be up all night because of all the traveling.. going to the airport, the wait there, the flight and the drive to Tübingen after that.. it was a looooong night!

At the Galata Bridge

Bucharest - Bulgaria - Istanbul

Jeff, my travelbuddy, is not too happy today. After having as much fun as we all did last night with Adrian, Anand, Alina, Andrea and the gang in Bucharest, he really wants to spend New Year´s eve in Bucharest with them. They are going to a party in town which sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Still, we have our tickets, so go we must. Adrian, Anand and Andrea met us at the apartment and drove us to the train station. Since we got there half hour early, we stopped and grabbed a bite to eat at the station. And boy am i glad we did! That was the only meal of the day for us. After we got on the train, we soon realized that this train did not have a dining car. So much for champagne at midnight, we had no food and just one bottle of water. The train did stop a few times, but they were only at the borders and by the time we got to them, there was nothing available to eat as all the stops were at very small stations which had no restaurants or stores. By evening I was so hungry. My only alternatives were to groan and complain about how hungry I am - but considering Jeff was in the same boat (ok train), - and that i made him miss his dream new years party with the hot Romanian girls to take this train, i figured he has more reason to complain. So I did the next best thing - Sleep. I thought I could sleep through my hunger. I remember hearing fireworks in my sleep (which Jeff told me later, he saw when we crossed some village, somewhere in Bulgaria at midnight). Of course I wasn´t too lucky with sleeping either.. I was woken up 7 times.. a couple of times before and after we crossed each border. They stopped once to check our passports and stamp them. Another time to check our tickets. Three borders - so three times, the same process! I was not too happy having to wake up at 1:30am and having to get out of the train in the cold and get a visa when we entered Turkey. Anyways, they say every dark cloud has a silver lining.. we had ours as well.... We had a reservation for 2 seats in a 6 sleeper cabin. When we got in we realized that there would be no way we could fit our luggage and accomodate 4 others in that cabin. Thankfully we did not need to. the train was practically empty. I think there were just 5 other people in the entire carriage that we were in. We got talking to a couple of our fellow travellers and they were so generous to us when we arrived Istanbul. We did not have local currency yet, and did not know how to get to our Hostel. One of them bought us a tram ticket and told us where we needed to get off. The other person actually carried my big, heavy suitcase all the way from the train to the tram and helped us load our luggage in. It was I guess a small gesture on their part, but it felt really nice to have help in an unfamiliar territory. We found our hostel after asking a few people for directions once we got off the tram. It wasn´t too easy since not one person we met spoke English and of course we do not speak Turkish. Still we managed to find our way. I did not realize this at the time of making reservations, but our hostel is within a 10 minute walking distance to the 3 most famous sights of Istanbul.. the Topkapi Palace, the AyaSofya and the Blue Mosque. Nice!