mmk well i'm in sofia now, and seeing that this computer is Windows 98 i'm getting a bad feeling....consequently i'm just going to update w/o pictures and hope i can find a computer from this century in the near future...also, i'm pretending i'm in veliko turnovo still... so our last day in istanbul consisted of us basically sitting and eating for 75% of the time we had . we sat on the water again because our skin wasn't already charred and i ended up getting my name in cool ottoman arabic caligraphy as well. one of the cafes we sat at was mad chill, with us taking our shoes off and sprawling out on this big couch thing with a table in the middle. after calling home since the phone card i bought did end up ... read more

before i go any further i must say that the unibrow situation here is quite unfortunate. perhaps post-retirement i can come here and make a living off of my eyebrow waxing tent... anyway, today we got up around 9:30 and headed up to yet another amazing rooftop breakfast. we could tell that the day would be a little bit warmer, but with the breeze coming off of the ocean all we'd have to show for it was a little bit of a sunburn. by the time we got our of the guesthouse it was almost noon, and at about 1:10 we had intended to sit outside the blue mosque and videotape the call to prayer, so we ended up just going there to chill for an hour while enjoying some ice cream, mine being pistachio flavored. ... read more

though the prevıous entry may have put you on edge about thıs cıty, i cannot even begin to describe how incredible this place is. everyone seriously needs to book a trip here. its worth the money. but back to getting here... so we arrived in the city at 3:30am. we were too tired to be angry/scared/upset and just figured we'd find some hotel somewhere, put in on the credit card, whatever. a cab pulled up and despite the fact that being ripped off was quite likely, we figured we'd at least go to our guesthouse and see if it would be possible to just get another night there. on the way there, basically a 5 minute ride, we passed the haya sofia and the blue mosque, the heart of old istanbul, which were about hmm...about a ... read more

the train ride to Brasov was uneventful, though we did talk to that Austin woman for half of the time. Being from Texas, her speech was painfully slow and sometimes we just wanted to smack her and tell her to get to the point. arriving at the train station, we were approached by this woman Maria who apparently worked at Rolling Stone hostel, a place we had read bad reviews about. she kept trying to tell us our hostel was booked and to take a flyer but we just said 'bye' and kept walking. about ten minutes later while waiting for the bus to the old town plaza she came up to us once again, telling us that people had come to her from our hostel, kismet dao, and that they had a reservation but were ... read more

Romanian computers and internet have up to this point proven to be a bit behind the times. this is my third computer and still the programs are too old to recognize my camera...as a result i can't upload pictures which pisses me off A LOT. nonetheless, i'll continue...and pretend i'm still in cluj...even though i'm still i'm not in sighisoara... after all of that frustration in budapest with travelblog, i did, indeed, go stuff my face with cake and ice cream. we headed to gertreaud, Budapest's supposedly finest cafe, having been operating since 1858. We got their signature multi-layer chocolate tort as well as this heavenly concoction with walnut, chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon ice cream topped with whipped cream, apricot syrup, liquer-soaked biscuits...all of that came in a chocolate drizzled home-made waffle cup. delicious to say ... read more