Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 442

Having had a sweet taste of Rome, I was drawn by the ancient spirits to that other ancient Roman capital, Constantinople. The ancients apparently like to dramatize their power on even the feeblest among mankind. As with Rome, I was made to wait at the airport for hours, as if to say these holy places cannot be reached without first learning a lesson in patience and humility. The ancients, though, have underestimated the ability of the ultra-modern Americans to blame all travesties on the lack of good service in Europe. And if you have spent any amount of time in Europe, you painfully know just how this stereotype is true. I went to Istanbul with two of the other exchange students at the Rotterdam School of Management. Carolina is doing her MBA at the Darden School ... read more

First time I went to Bursa - 2 hours and a half from my city - it was in October..somewhere in the middle of the first religious holiday. Together with 3 other Romanian girls we decided to travel and meet another Romanian..a boy, an old friend who was with AIESEC there. What I knew before about this city: lots of mosques, history and a mountain. That definitely draw my attention. In my short visit I could see the "Green Tomb" where is burried Osman Gazi ("Ottoman Empire" was named after him...he was the mighty force that created that), Ulu Camii (=mosque), Yeşil Camii (Green Mosque) and Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb)..and Zafer Plaza (zafer=victory) center where I heard people meet. On top of one of Ulu mosque was a funny figure..I heard it's called "Karagöz" and ... read more

İstanbul - The Crossroads Where Europe meets Asia, East meets West, Islam meets Christianity, the Black Sea meets the Mediterannean, and cliche meets cliche. At once this place is beautıful and ugly, peaceful and noisy and just about everythıng else you can think of. It is more European than most would ımagıne - includıng myself. Shops are full of western goods at western prıces agaın whıch ıs a bıt starnge after so long ın central Europe. This place is huge. İstanbul the biggest city I have ever been in and everyday the numbers of people here grow. Istanbul is beautıful though, once you get over the hectic nature fo the place. Everywhere there are market stalls selling cheap tee shirts and shoes, carpets and kebabs galore. After a week or so of relaxıng and recuperatıng from ... read more

Came back from Olympos the day before yesterday on the night bus. Olympos is a great place. Highly reccomend it. We stayed in a little bungalow in this valley right near the sea. Beautiful. We really did not do a whole lot. Ate a lot of amazing food at Sabans where we stayed. The food was the best that I have had so far. Stuffed peppers, fresh trout, lots of eggplant, so tasty. And you got a free breakfast and dinner with stay. Awesome. Went for a hike and nearly died, well not really but we thought it was a leisurely saunter up some hill but it was a 5 hour trek up a big mountain. We did not have any food or water and I was dehydrated from the 3 liters of beer the night ... read more

After nearly a week in Istanbul, I opted to take a four day detour to see some other parts of Turkey. My first stop was the town of Goreme, in Turkey's central region of Capadoccia. Capadoccia is famed for its bizarre landscape, which I thought looked like a strange combination of the American West, the moon, and a Dr. Seuss book. The dominant feature is the "fairy chimney," a structure that forms when lava is eroded from around conical towers of volcanic ash. The Turks, not being quite so silly as whatever English-speaker came up with the name for these formations, call them kalelar (castles). The main draw in Goreme, apart from the landscape, is the Open Air Museum. Basically, the site consists of a grouping of churches and dwellings carved into the fairy chimneys like ... read more