Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 362

Today we took the boat over to Turkey and shopped, ate and smoked a hookah. We did not buy any hash, did not get thrown into a prison where our feet got beaten and did not have to escape. The only similarity to the movie is that we were in the same country. Nonetheless, we had a great time and met some very nice people.... read more

In fall, before they put the animals into the stables they sacrifice the bulls, they have been eating well and are fat enough to provide meat. For the people of Barhal the bulls are like their pets but they need the meat for the winter. They cook it in a special way call kavurma so they can keep it in the ambar for months. There is a butcher in every mahalle who does that job. This Bull belong to Ahmet, one day all the men met to help them, is not an easy work, later they share the meat and gave us a lunch. Sonbaharda hayvanlar ahırda saklıyorlar, ondan once boğalar kezerler, bütun sonbaharda iyi yemisler ve kilolu olur. Ködekiler hayvanlar çok sever ama kış için et lazim. Genelikle her mahalede bir kazab var. Et ile ... read more

Hello all, Arriving in Istanbul and realizing what a tight schedule we were on if we wanted to see all the sights we were reading about and listing off, John and I made the immense error of opting for a tour. Well, having said that, it was not all bad.... We took an overnight bus from Istanbul to Cappadocia, a method of travel that is slowly working it's way to the top of my never-do-again list, and we found ourselves in the most fantastic world. Thousands upon thousands of years ago, there were monks that lived in the hills and their method of survival was to carve out a space to live in the rock formations that dotted the horizon. So, all of the caves that can be found date back to the 6th century and ... read more

Winter in Barhal... read more

Istambul!!!....it has some magic in its name...with its fair share of disasters, from conquests to eartquakes it emerges as an enticingly vibrant city...Having arrived at the airport, being overcharged for a visa fee, we embarked on a hectic taxi ride into the heart of Sultanhamet ( the place where we were staying me,Deanna,Maria,Justina and Rafal)Welcome to Turkey!!! The taxi ride took about 30 min...the car pulled very quickly,speeded up and even overtook an ambulance with the blue lights on!!!???... Is it how you drive in Turkey, we thought???...well even an extra person in the car did not seem to bother our driver,who later turned out to be extremly friendly, chatty and funny even though he could not speak a word in English...we soon exchanged few words...''tesekkurederim''-meaning ''thank you very much''...oh i dont even remember how many ... read more