Travel Blog Posts
April 9th 2006
i must first start this blog by stating that one of my wishes came through on my amazing trips to the holy land of israel. i tasted the sweet sweet taste of dr. pepper once again. i found a couple of places in jerusalem that imported it from the states and i had my fill. i would have brought some back here to istanbul but i spent every single dime i took out of the atm and i didn't want to take anymore out. but i am satisfied until i return stateside in a couple of weeks. so just because of the dr. pepper the trip to israel was a success. besides the dp, i will just begin by saying that israel is fucking amazing, even for an atheistic jackass like myself. the place is full ... read more
April 5th 2006
since my return from croatia, life has been much the same as it was before i left. as little school as possible and as much fun as possible. i have been trying to see more and more of istanbul. we tend to spend mst of our time in the some of the same places so i have been trying to explore more of the city. i have still yet to make it to the asian sde of the city, but i did spend some time in a neet area named ortakoy. it is an area right on the water with plenty of little places to eat, drink, and smoke a little nargile. on sundays it has a little bazaar full of stalls of jewelry and other goodies, as well as plenty of food stalls with delicious ... read more
March 31st 2006
this blog says that i am in croatia but i am not actually in croatia right now. i was a couple of weekends ago and its taken me this long to write this. some friends and i took a last minute trip to croatia over last weekend, spending a day in zagreb, taking an overnight bus to dubrovnik, staying one night there, taking the overnight bus back to zagreb and flying back to istanbul sunday evening. it was a quick whirlwind trip with a lot of bus time (thankfully overnight) and as much sightseeing as possible squeezed into a short amount of time. we left istanbul thursday afternoon and arrived at zagreb international around 4 in the afternoon. zagreb international is about the smallest international airport i have ever seen, with the possible exception of harare, ... read more
March 9th 2006
over the weekend i went with a couple of friends to sultanumet, the old part of istnabul where byzantium was first located and then constantinopole after that. it is full of history and character, containing the blue mosque, haggia sophia, topkapi palace, the cistern, grand bazaar, spice bazaar, hippodrome, and many other historic mosques and such. it is quite an amazing place and we spent the whole day there walking around and seeing some of it. i skipped topkapi palace because it takes a whole day by itself so i will need to return for just that. i also skipped the cistern since my friends had already done it. it didn't matter though because what we saw was pretty impressive on its own. the blue mosque is one of the most impressive buildings i have ever ... read more
small elevators and a turkish beatles cover band
Published: March 9th 2006Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Istanbul
March 8th 2006
merhaba everyone. if you hadn't figured it out, merhaba means hello in turkish. its one of about 10 words that i have learned here. is it rude of me to think that they should speak english instead of me speaking turkish? i am not sure. maybe i am just being an obnoxious american. anyway, i am still here in istanbul as i haven't made it out of the city to do any traveling yet. there is continuous talk of a weekend trip to bulgaria but it never seams to materialize. hopefully it wil happen soon as i am keen to see some things and get on the road. i love this city and am enjoying it tremendously but i didn't just come here to see istanbul, i came here to study (ha) and see some of ... read more
February 28th 2006
Hello everyone, It has been awhile since i last updated you on my adventure. I have been both very busy doing a lot of not so interesting things so i didn't feel all that compelled to torture you wih the details. Also, my camera broke so there will not be any pictures for awhile. I am having a new battery sent from the states that will hopefull fix it but even if it does, it will not be here for a couple of weeks. Also because of this tragic turn of events, i am postponing a lot of my sightseeing until i get it fixed. I did manage to go to Dolmabahce Palace, the last great palace of the Ottoman Empire and where Ataturk spent his last years and died (I saw the bed he died ... read more
February 16th 2006
not a lot to really update on today as i have been spending most of the last couple of days trying to get over the jetlag. yesterday i laid down for a short nap around 130 and woke up some 7-8 hours later. i really enjoyed that. i found the mall today and it was something else. it would make our malls in okc look like flea markets. we are talking four floors of designer shops with security and doormen. i really felt like someone was going to come up to me and tell me i didn't belong because i wasn't wearing gucci or diesel. i also toured around the campus a bit, trying to get a feel for the place and see what it had to offer. some parts of it are really quite pretty ... read more
February 14th 2006
day two is much like day one, quite an adventure. after almost no sleep because of jetlag, mosque prayer calls, roosters, and atleast 2 snoring roomates in the hostel, adam and i began our journey from sultunamet uptown to the university. if i thought getting from the airport to the hostel was hard, i was wrong. we decided it wouldn't be that hard to catch the tram and bus so we ruled out a taxi and began the trek to the tram station. it wasn't that far in real terms but carrying 100 pounds of luggage each uphill makes it seem a lot farther. we easily caught the tram and got off a few stops later to catch the bus which would take us to our school. we were like the guys in trains, plains, and ... read more
February 14th 2006
I arrived to Istanbul after a long and treacherous journey across an ocean and a continent. My flights to Paris were just fine. I arrived in Paris an hour early because of a strong tailwind over the north atlantic. A good thing too because it took me an hour to reach m gate for my flight to Istanbul and I would never have made it if we had gotten there when we were supposed to. Charles de Gaule airport is a fucking nightmare. The bus from my plane to the terminal took a half an hour on its own, then I had to change terminals and go through the slowest fucking security checkpoint on the planet. The French have no concept of what it is like to be in a hurry. Then we sat at the ... read more
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