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Blogs from Middle East - page 870
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April 23rd 2006
23rd April. Said bye to Rachel and joined my ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) Tour. On the way out of Istanbul I saw dolphins again in the Bosphorus while the tour leader gave us some interesting facts like 3% of Turkey is European, leaving 97% Asian, The population is 70million and 14million live in Istanbul (Holland population!), and There are 35,000 historical sites in the country. For those of you who are not Aussie or Kiwi and don’t know anything about ANZAC day or Gallipoli here is some background: "Anzac day is held in both Australia and New Zealand on the anniversary of the first major offensive to use ANZAC troops on the shores of Gallipoli in Turkey in 1915. When World War I began nine months earlier, 4th August 1914, Australia committed 20,000 ... read more
April 23rd 2006
Arrived into Dubai last night about 1am. They had a little trouble with our (Jen's bag), we waited over an hour for it to arrive. It was the last article of luggage off of the plane. Oh well, the flight over was amazing. It lasted a little over 6 hours. We got to drink whatever and whenever we wanted. He had a four course meal. We chose what movies that we wanted to watch from our own personal TV sets (or Sports events, or World News, or TV, or Video games) imbedded in the seats infront of us. We each watched two movies and read the rest of the way. The flight only felt like one or two hours, it went by so fast. We arrived, hopped on a bus and went straight to the hotel. ... read more
April 23rd 2006
Salam aleikom! It's been a while since I posted my last travelblog. I hope everybody is doing well and is having lots of fun wherever he or she is. Right now I prepare myself for the upcoming semester in Munich. But before that I had a 5 week trip to my family in Iran. The last time I was there was in 2001 and I couldn't do any sightseeing. Besides, I didn't have a camera with me and there was no travelblog. But this time I took one with me to share some of my experiences there with you. My first destination was Teheran. I stayed only few days and I was hanging around with my cousin Ali. Then I flew to Mashad where most of my family is still living. From there we went by ... read more
April 23rd 2006
Back to reality, been back in England for just over a week now and my tan is peeling.. Sigh... Planning next trip abroad already! Dubai really was an eye opener.. It started with stepping off the plane and instantly feeling the intense heat of Dubai hit your face! It was like nothing I'd ever seen before.. So many buildings and sky scrapers, cars and traffic all in a desert backdrop! Seriously the motorway on the way to The Green Community (where we stayed for 10 days) was built directly on the desert. It seemed to stretch on uninterupted for miles. The sand was travelling in the wind over the road beneath the car and it was very dusty! WOW!! I was in the desert! The villas over at the Green Community were so spacious and beautiful ... read more
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April 23rd 2006
I have arrived at the very edge of Europe, the heart of the old Ottoman Empire, Istanbul... From my hostel I have views across the Bosporus to Asia and if I look the other way a fantastic view of the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque! The people are friendly the atmosphere fun and the weather consistently good... And I am surrounded by Australians... Because Anzac day is coming up (for those of you who are not Australian or from New Zealand, ANZAC day is when the Commonwealth forces attacked at Gallipoli in the First World War and died in their thousands) so I was almost the only non-Australian around.. Although two Brazilians I had met in Sofia were also at the hostel and they had their flag with them compensating for the overload of Aussie ... read more
April 23rd 2006
Walking tour of Istanbul with the full Tour Group. Visited the Cistern, Bascillica, Hippodrome and Topkapi Palace. We were told that legend has it that the Medusa heads in the Cistern are upside down because a worker got the shits with his boss and laid them incorrectly as pay back. You really come to appreciate the history of this place when you wonder around Topkapi Palace and see how worn the granite steps are - you can only imagine how long they’ve been around to be so worn down. Highlight of the day was a decision to go and watch the ANZAC Fanatics play a local soccer team in their annual ANZAC game. The tour guide wasn’t keen to go, but as the tour had technically finished I offered to take a group with me - ... read more
April 22nd 2006
Blog 73432 repeated Doh! deleted blog by accident- hi everybody! have some time to kill before an interview so heres wat i been up to, was fine on the plane, was deaf in 1 ear for a while though, first plane didnt have t.vs in seats though and nat was pretty gutted, 2nd 1 did and she let out an entirely inappriate F*** YEAH! with fist pump action. but she spoke to soon coz the hostess asked up to move from our mint seats at the front of aisle to shitty back one for a girl who had been freakin out on the last flight and our tvs didnt work and we had low riders in front of us.stink. We arrived in Dubai after 20+ hours of travel to find that our dodgy as hotel had ... read more
April 22nd 2006
Early in the morning today I went back to routine. Classes are up and running. It might be a bit difficult to adjust back to school after a wonderful Passover vacation. For the first few days of break, I had a seminar with the Carmel group in Jerusalem that focused on tensions, or clashes, that are woven into and throughout this country. The goal was to visit places that represented challenges in Israel and to experience those challenges head-on. Our first stop was at a village called Neveh Shalom in Hebrew, Wahat AlSalaam in Arabic, or Oasis of Peace in English. It was established jointly by Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship and engages in a bilingual lifestyle of education and work towards peace, equality, and understanding between the two peoples. From there we visited ... read more
Day 17-21: Turkey, my Anzac experience, and my birthday!
Published: September 10th 2007Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Istanbul
April 22nd 2006
Day 17: April 22 - ENGLAND - London, TURKEY - Istanbul Accommodation: Hotel Eris, Istanbul After my short stay in London and seeing nothing but the hostel and whatever I could from my Tube ride, I was back to Heathrow for a third visit already, and all set for my flight to Turkey. This was a strange flight as I was travelling for 4 hours but going over 2 time zones and ultimately losing 2 hours in the process, but staying in Europe. Istanbul airport was an interesting experience. Seeing this was the Anzac period, there were Aussies and Kiwis arriving from everywhere and all at the same time. All of us had to line up to pay for our visa on arrival which meant hundreds of us were lining up at only three open service ... read more
