Blogs from Middle East - page 1167

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

We all slept well that night….ready for another day. It was Children’s Day in Turkey on Sunday so all of Istanbul was out on the street. We even saw women out which was a first for the trip! We went to a fascinating church/museum called Kariye Muzesi. It had some magnificent mosaics of the Virgin Mary and dated back to the 12th Century. We jagged a great taxi driver who spoke great English and didn’t rip us off. He gave us a guided tour on our way back which was great. We were getting a little jaded by now..tried to get into the Blue Mosque but it had closed for prayer so we decided to call it quits for the day! Mark and I decided to do some exercise..I went the easy route of the gym ... read more

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

Geo: 41.0976, 28.6816Another late check-out of a hotel. Got a note from Steve to say we are going to meet that night for dinner. Most of the group were still going to be in Istanbul for a few days- it was a staggered breaking up.Met Jenny, Mike and Rachel in the lobby and we all walked to my next hotel a few blocks away. There was an issue and they told me to come back later on. So we went and got some greasy food and then did some sightseeing. We walked across Galata bridge and saw some mosques on the way- partly covered in scaffolding! (What's new, seems to follow us around). The bridge stank of fish. There were lots of men fishing from the bridge. Lots of ferries leave from here, I assume they ... read more

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