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Published: March 15th 2009
Hello from Mulhouse!
I’m down to my last 5 weeks of teaching! During our two week break from Feb 20-March 8, my friend Franzi and I traveled to Istanbul , Athens, Rome, and Venice. It was an awesome trip!
We began our adventure in Istanbul on Sunday February 22nd. My friend Cat, from Rosemont, was in Turkey so we were able to meet up with her during our stay. She studied for a year at the university in Istanbul so it was nice to have someone with us who knew the city, language, and good places to eat and drink! The weather wasn't so nice in Istanbul and it rained most of the time we were there, but I ended up buying a pair of rain boots to keep my feet dry! We visited the Blue Mosque and other places in the historic district of Istanbul and did some shopping in the Grand Bazaar, which is one of the largest covered markets in the world with more than 58 streets and over 1,200 shops. We had a great time in Istanbul!
Our next stop was Athens, Greece. This was definitely my favorite city of the trip. We spent
the longest amount of time here and visited all of the main sites including the Acropolis and other ancient ruins. The weather was very nice with some rain showers here and there but the sun popped out for a bit which made it more enjoyable! We met up with Marco (a friend of my brother's from college) Wednesday night and he took us out for some great Greek food and a drink. He ordered everything for us and I don't think there was anything I didn't like. We definitely tried a lot of different foods in each country. Our hostel had a walking tour through the city which was nice because the tour guide told a lot of history and stories of Athens.
Our next stop was Rome. We visited the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Cathedral Saturday morning, and what a difference it was from when I visited these two places in May of 2006. The line into the Vatican in May of 2006 was down the road and went on forever; this time we walked right in without any wait at all! We also visited the Colleseum, Pantheon, ancient roman ruins, Spanish steps, and threw a coin
into the Trevi Fountain (some of our leftover Turkish lira to be exact!) Friday night in Rome, we did a pub crawl. They picked us up from our hostel and we went to about 4 different bars before the night ended at a club. We only made it to three before leaving around 1AM and calling it a night so we'd be ready to do some sightseeing Saturday morning. It was fun and we met a lot of nice people. That's one thing I have enjoyed about staying in hostels; we've met a lot of fun and interesting people from all over the world.
Sunday March 1st, we flew to Venice and spent two nights there. I really enjoyed Venice, especially wandering around all the little roads and bridges. We did most of our shopping here and I bought some Venetian glass. We didn't ride in a gondola, mostly because it was cold and wouldn't have been very enjoyable, but as my mom says: "you always need a reason to come back." We met some Americans at our hostel and went out with them for a drink our last night.
As soon as I returned from our trip,
my mom and sister arrived that Wednesday. They spent about 24 hours in Mulhouse before we headed to Paris for the remainder of their stay! I took them around town and we did some shopping in the city center. We did some grocery shopping and made cheese fondue that night for dinner. Thursday we had lunch at my favorite little restaurant and had tarte flambée. In Paris we went to Disneyland for the day which was a lot of fun...but cold! Saturday we spent the day walking around in Paris and shopping at the Galeries Lafayette! It was a great trip and I'm so happy my mom and sister were able to make it over to France to see me!
Hope all is well!
Talk to you soon...
Kristen 😊
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Cathy Pfanders
non-member comment
Awesome!
Wow! Looks and sounds like a fabulous time. It's so nice that your mom and sister got to spend some time with you sightseeing together and doing fun things. Can't believe you'll soon be home. Good luck with the rest of your term. Looking forward to seeing you when you get back home!