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Published: July 28th 2009
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Day 378
After a half day work we got our flight from Birmingham to Istanbul on KLM arriving just after 1am. Our Fanatics pick up was there but didn't have our names on his list and spoke very little English. After a confusing phone call and quick check of the name of our hostel on the net our driver agreed to take us to the hostel. We snuck into our dorm trying not to disturb our roomys.
Day 379
With the noise of the bakery opposite our room, some Aussies arriving back to the Hostel singing Your the voice (secretly we were just jealous it wasn´t us). We struggled to get a few hours sleep. After breaky we arranged to met Kara (Carly's aussie college from Birmingham). We headed to the Grand Bazaar, reported to be the largest covered bazaar in the world. Past the leather, jewelery and souvenier shops. We stopped from some local cuisine... kebabs for lunch at the closest cafe to get out of the unrelenting rain. As the rain eased up we wandered down to the Bosphorus river which divides Istanbul into European and Asian halves. With an icy wind roaring we took some quick snaps
then headed back just in time for it to begin bucketing rain. Sopping wet we stopped at a cafe for a hot drink Carly regretfully tried a Turkish coffee (once was enough). With the rain set in we decided to make a break for it arriving back at our hostel drenched from head to toe. A hot shower and a change of clothes we headed back to the bar for a local beer The Esfes. With had a short stop to the freezing roof top bar for the Fanatics meeting and BBQ dinner. Back in the warmth of downstairs we enjoyed a few more drinks with Kara before calling it a night.
Day 380
Istanbul City Tour, we headed off with our Fanatics tour leader Ben and Turkish tour guide Yoda complete with light saber. First stop was the Hippodrome and stolen Egyptian Oblesisk. Then to Blue Mosque with six minarets made from millions of blue tiles. Next stop was the Aya Sophia where we became so enthralled in the ancient mosiacs that we were left behind from our tour but fortunately made our to the Topaki Palace and met up with the others.
Our final stop was
the Turkish carpet shop but starving we snuck out for a kebab not realising we were supposed to eat at the palace and snuck back into the rest of the carpet show in time for some local spirits and carpet spinning. Not quite in our budget or taste we declined all offers to purchase any. Then we were on the road to a small town who's name escapes us... but it was a surprisingly nice Three star motel and three course dinner. Without a single bar in town so we stayed in and had a couple drinks with our crew.
Day 381
After a traditional Turkish breakfast of boiled egg, fresh tomato cucumber, cheese, olives and turkish bed we set off for Anzac cove. Our enthusiatic Turkish leader had high expectations of securing the pole position and number one bus ticket, much to her disappointment we ended up bus 36 (which we all thought was pretty good). From here we headed to Lone Pine, now empty bar a few bright yellow Fanatics jumpers, then wandered up past some authentic trenches then up to the Nec where soon came to realise how little chance the Aussie's had. We made our
way back down to the cove past the picturesque shoreside cementary of Simpson (the man with the Donkey) then to the enterance to wait for the opening. We stood edging out the Fez tour group, through the security check in to mark our position on the front lawn area until the other 6 coaches of Fanatics arrived! We wandered down to the shore until we were stopped by a Turkish secuity officer and even with only one English term in his vocalulary 'NO' we quickly realised we weren't supposed to be there. We dined on our picnic dinner (biscuits with tuna and pate), took some photo's of sunset and waited for the ceremony to begin. We huddled up in our multiple layers of thermals, tops, socks, jeans, jumper, jackets and sleeping bags on our shower curtains (genious idea!!). We managed to get a few hours sleep in a 30person long spoon waking for Kevin Rudd's speach, the army band and the many touching tributes to the soldiers. At 4am the official ceremoney began, and by six we we joined the other 7500 Aussies and Kiwi' up the mountain to the Lone Pine ceremony. Words don´t do justice to how amazing
experience it was.
Exhausted we dragged ourselves to the bus, crashed and made our way back to Gallipoli. Thanks to our diligent guide we had were third in the bus cue of 500 and made it back to Gallipoli by 7pm. We showered and headed back to the roof top bar for some celebratory drinks and game of two up!
We left the party for dinner and a walk past the beautiful monuments at night before returning to the party til 3am for our transfer to the airport. We made it on the plane and were both asleep before take off!
After a quick stop over at Amstadam we arrived back in Birmingham and thought we were in luck as the train was only minutes away until an annoucement explained a man had been kidnapped and strapped to the train tracks with explosive needless to say we caught a taxi home and had a desperately needed sleep in a bed ready for returning to work Monday.
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