Blogs from Middle East - page 1216

I feel live, I feel in love. I wake up too early in the morning; I can hardly fall asleep at night. If my brain had a temperature gauge it will be on the red… I do too much thinking & planning! This is my third blog but the first one that is not about traveling. I hope I'll enjoy it as I did writing the other two. I really like to get feedbacks so feel free to send me what ever you think I got back from my 2004 world tour month and a half ago a different man then the one that started the tour. I want to believe that I'm a better human being now but that will be too simple. I came back to Israel with a list of 12 things that ... read more

Hey kıds, So, thıs may seem somewhat random to many of you, but we're in Turkey now -- we realized that we neglected to inform most of you about thıs, so...surprise! After spendıng a horrible night at the Barcelona bus station, where we were kicked out at 1 a.m. and forced to sit on cold metal benches outside, we took a bus to the aırport at 4 ın the mornıng and somehow -- I'm stıll not quıte sure how -- made ıt on to our plane to the Netherlands. So, we get off the plane in Eindhoven, and realize that there is no possible way we can go to Amsterdam; we were just so run-down and Liz was getting sıck, plus we realized it was Easter weekend and the museums we wanted to see would most ... read more

Hey everyone, well we made it! After over 28 hours of flying we're finally in the UK. The flight from Auckland to Dubai was a pretty huge trip, and by the time we flopped down in bed in some hotel room in the middle east we were shattered. We arrived in Dubai airport at 5:30am on the 15th March, in no time we were in our room, looking out to this strange city, with the we're not in Kansas anymore feeling. I had probably the best shower and breakfast I've ever had, due to the relief of finally making it, after that we crashed then that arvo hopped in a taxi to Burjuman mall, and checked out the flash shops. Next day we did a city tour in the morning, this was a great idea as ... read more

First off, a bit of history. Cyprus was a Brittish colony up through the mid sixties, when it became independent. Of course, the island has loads of history, but modern day Cyprus is basically ethnically split between the Greeks and the Turks, with the turks mostly in the North of the island, and the Greeks mostly in the South. I don't know all of the details, but apparently in 1974 the Greeks did something that the Turks didn't like so much. The Turkish government sent in the troops, and basically took over half the island. The troops are still there today. The Turks now call it the "Operation for Peace", while the Greeks call it an unlawful "invasion". You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. Some of this might have been handy to know before arriving there. ... read more

So I met up with the (in)famous Erik Pugner in a dorm room of a hostel in Istanbul. After having not seen each other for almost a year, his greeting was a simple "hey", followed by a "hey" in response. That's what I love about guy friends - no matter how long you are appart, you can just instantaneously resume. I loved Istanbul from the get-go. It is a beautiful city, with water everywhere. It is big. Very big, but it doesn't feel like the teeming capital cities that I have visited in the past. Not mentioning cities by name or anything, but it feels nothing liek Cairo, for example. We stayed in a toursity area of Istanbul called SultanAhmet, which contains such landmarks as the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Safia. Both of which are ... read more