Blah Blah Blah Amsterdam

After Mom and Nana left, I crammed for and took my European Integration final, finished packing (I'm so on the ball), and headed to the airport with Vanessa to go to Holland! I'm starting to get used to European airports and the way they're run. You check your bags, then wait in a huge terminal until a half hour before your flight. After nearly an eternity, your departure gate number appears and you try to beat the mad rush to the gate (it never works). Then you stand in line to go through security and sit in a glass room with no exit until you can board your plane. It's nerve wracking for me, but at least I expect it now. Anyway, on to fun stories from Holland!

We arrived in Amsterdam late that night, stumbled around the train station trying to figure out how to get to our hostel, then decided to walk in the opposite direction. After about 5 minutes, we both got a little nervous, called a cab, and got to our hostel just in time to crash.

The next day, we woke up and walked around the city. Everything was already starting to be decorated for the Queen's Day festival the next day, but it wasn't that crowded yet. Needless to say, I was still glad that I'd been to Amsterdam before -- there was a carnival set up in the middle of Dam Square, which was great the next day but not so great for touristy sightseeing.

We decided to start the day off by purchasing matching orange cowboy hats and sunglasses for Queen's Day and then wandering around the canals (that's code for "getting lost").

But, hey! We saw some pretty fun things, like this camoflagued bike. No one's stealing that!

High on my list of things to do was to visit Anne Frank's House. I had missed out on it when I went to Amsterdam my Junior year of high school and it was probably my only regret from the trip. Being able to go inside the house was a really great experience. I know everyone says this, but it's true -- it was so small! The father decided not to replace the furniture inside the house after the Nazis found them and confiscated everything, which made it a bit eery... but in an appropriate way. The most interesting room to me was Anne's room, which still had the original decorations (mostly clippings from magazines of her favorite actors and actresses).

Next stop: the flower market! Vanessa and I walked past it, thinking it was a stall (we didn't look down the street... where it continued for 3 blocks), but finally found it. Hooray! It's the perfect place to go if you're interested in buying tulips or cannabis starter kits. I liked the tulips, haha. The flowers were all arranged well and the market itself was really colorful. There were also lovely souvenir shops. This was my favorite display:

Holland's version of "Pimp My Ride??"

After wandering around the flower market and getting lost again (neither of us are the best with directions... oops), we found our way to the Heineken Brewery!

Yummm. =) What a delicious experience. The Brewery was just like any other -- a tour of the brewing process with taste tests and interactive things but they really seemed to go above and beyond the norm. They had a bunch of displays up of different things made out of Heineken cozies, labels, and bottles and had a video room with commercials from ad campaigns over the decades. One of my favorite displays was the "world bottle," where Heineken designed a bottle that could be stacked on itself to build affordable housing in lesser developed countries. Personally, anyone who can drink a house worth of beer and then build a house with the leftover bottles has my respect.

The karaoke station was the best part of the Brewery by far. We thought it would be in English and were more than a little surprised when it turned out to be in Dutch...

I may regret putting this online, but it's almost too good not to share. The best we could do was, "blah blah blah Amsterdaaaam!" Seriously, Dutch is one crazy language.

After our trip to the Heineken Brewery, Vanessa and I bought tickets for a canal cruise and had a nice dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was as delicious as it was expensive (very), but at least it was kind of cool to go to an international Hard Rock. The night cruise was fun, and by the end of it both of us were wiped so we went straight back to the hostel and crashed.

The next day was Queen's Day! The two of us dressed in all orange and walked to the tram station by the hostel. When we got there we ran into a bunch of nice Dutch guys from Rotterdam. One of them was named Barney, so we decided to refer to them as Barney and Friends (haha). They showed us how to get to Central Station, but we lost them after a little while. It was hard to keep track of people when there were literally millions of people wearing orange wandering through the streets.


Vanessa and I spent much of the morning watching the constant stream of party boats in the Canals. They were insane -- tons of people packed onto tiny boats with huge speaker systems blasting music and lots and lots of alcohol. Lots.

After wandering around town for a while (we went to Meseumplein to see part of a concert and found the famed Bulldog coffee shop), we returned to the Canals with a six pack to try to bribe our way onto a boat. It nearly worked, but in the end we just decided to drink our beer and people watch. What a good decision! We met a bunch of nice people (mostly people with boat trouble) and even saw a live band perform on the water.


Our orange outfits were fabulous. We got compliments on the matching hats and glasses all day. ;)

After a while we decided to wander again and ate dinner at a cart in the middle of the street. I had an amazing hot pastrami sandwich with some sort of mustard on it... it was absolutely incredible so when I finished I insisted that we walk back so I could get another. ;) Next, we went to the carnival in Dam Square and rode a swing ride. It was a blast, plus it gave us a great view of the city! Our next stop: dessert in the form of warm waffles from a cart in the carnival. DELICIOUS!

Before we turned in for the day, we decided to take a walk through the Red Light District. It was definitely an interesting experience - much different from how I remembered it in high school, although I'm assuming that our tour wasn't very in depth.


Sexy. One of the best parts of the Red Light District was the tranny dressed like the Queen and his friend who traded Vanessa's hat for an orange boa and danced with her in front of another sex shop. It was hilarious!!

We left Amsterdam the next day and took a train to Rotterdam, home of crazy architecture. Rotterdam was pretty much demolished during WWII, so they used it as an opportunity to experiment with incredible architecture.


Vanessa and I visited these cube houses. They were just as crazy inside and it was surprising that people actually lived there.

After the cube houses, we walked through the city and to a park just beneath the Euromast. Rotterdam has really great parks, too. I think I prefer London's, but theirs was still absolutely beautiful. I wish we had had more time to explore it, but we wanted to get to the Euromast before it closed.

An obligatory tulip picture. There were thousands in all sorts of different colors - it was stunning!

Once we got to the top of the Euromast (basically a huge viewing tower), we were able to see the whole city beneath us. I really liked the Erasmus Bridge (the white asymmetrical bridge in the center of the picture) because it's different from any other bridge I've seen.


The viewing platform at the top also had these really cool signs facing North, South, East, and West. On each of the signs were pictures of famous monuments, architectural feats, and important sites all around the world that were that direction from Rotterdam. It was really fun finding the ones that I'd been to (especially the places I've just visited this semester and the Christo Redentor statue in Rio!).

Afterwards we had dinner at a DELICIOUS Chinese buffet, complete with a wok and a grill. We ended up staying there for at least 2 and a half hours, taking full advantage of the unlimited food and three free drinks. =)

The next day we took a train to The Hague to see the sights and visit Vanessa's grandmother's old apartment. The Hague is where all the foreign embassies and ambassador's houses are located in the Netherlands. It's also home to the Dutch Parliament. It was really cool to walk down the street with all the foreign embassies. Everything was fancy, the streets were lined with beautiful trees, and it all looked extremely well-kept. What a beautiful city!

Some very expensive housing near a bunch of embassies. We walked down this street for about a half hour, but it was so relaxing and the houses were so pretty that I'm really glad we didn't take a tram.

After we found Vanessa's grandmother's old apartment, we took a tram to Madurodam, a kind of theme park that had miniature models of famous Dutch architecture. It made me think of a more sophisticated Legoland, haha.

Look, it's a tiny version of St. John's Basilica! The detail on this was amazing. Also, please disregard the giant Elmo in the background...


This is the interior of the Dutch Parliament. The little soldiers and the tiny carriage were the most impressive part in my opinion.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Vanessa and I are adorable! =)

These fish were probably the most exciting thing about Madurodam. I was more fascinated by them than I think I should have been. But, I mean... they would come up to the surface with their huge mouths and stare at you!! What isn't exciting about that?!

Ok, so these wooden shoes are much heavier than they look. I was trying to lift one of them in this picture (with limited success).

Vanessa and I ended our day by finding our way to the real version of one of the most impressive miniature buildings in Madurodam: the Dutch Parliament! The International Relations major in me (or what's left of it after the IR office screwed me over -- but that's another story) geeked out. It was pretty in person, too!


We took a train back to Amsterdaam the next morning and flew back to London that afternoon. My time in Holland was a bit of a whirlwind experience, but it was definitely a ton of fun. Plus, having some one-on-one time with Vanessa was absolutely wonderful!

Family Time!!

This weekend, my Mom and Nana came to visit! They took a transatlantic cruise and it ended up dropping them off in London, so I was able to spend a few days with them before taking my last final and shipping off to Holland. =)

I met up with them at their hotel near Victoria station on Saturday morning. It was absolutely wonderful to see them again... skype has been great but it definitely can't compare to a real hug. We caught up a bit then headed off to the tube to begin our day. The tube itself was a bit of an adventure, I don't think either my Mom or my Nana were happy that it was my main form of transportation. It was too dirty and crowded for them. Not that I disagree -- but hey, it's the cheapest thing going (and it's not even that cheap!). Anyway, one ride on the tube was enough, we spent the rest of the time in taxis. ;)

Our first stop was my favorite walk in London. We got off at London Bridge station and had a quick lunch at a nice cafe in Hay's Galleria (a cute little shopping center that used to be a port on the Thames). After lunch we strolled by the Thames past City Hall and up toward Tower Bridge.


The weather was absolutely beautiful. I mean, just look at the clouds! I think this is the best picture I've taken of Tower Bridge by far. We walked across the bridge and spent the afternoon at the Tower of London.


This is the White Tower, one of the central towers at the Tower of London. Yes, there are many towers at the Tower of London. Misleading, I know.


We got a tour from a friendly "beefeater" (I still have no idea why they're called that and I'm really hoping that one of them is a vegetarian). The Tower of London itself was really interesting. It was interesting learning about all the history and mystery that took place there. We waited in line to see the Crown Jewels!!! They were impressive (as expected), but I think my favorite thing in that room was a huge punch bowl for a formal coronation dinner that we originally thought was a bath. A bath! It was able to hold over 200 bottles of wine -- now that's a party. My mom and I also looked around a room with armory from King Henry VIII's time. The best part of that was the enormous codpiece they put on his armor, haha. Intimidation tactic, perhaps?


It's kind of hard to see them in the picture, but the crows (in the center of the grass near the shadow) were absolutely HUGE. No wonder they stay there, I bet it would be pretty difficult for them to fly even if their wings weren't clipped.

That evening we saw The Mousetrap on West End. It's been running for 57 years and we saw the 23,508th show! It was a fun "whodunnit" kind of play, so I won't ruin the ending. We ate dinner at a cute little place by theatre called The Ivy right before the play. The food was delicious... it was nice being treated to a nice meal because my friends and I pretty much always eat at cheap places. ;)

I met my Mom and Nana at their hotel again the next morning and had breakfast with them. We took a train to Windsor to see Windsor Castle, the oldest royal castle in which the monarch still resides. Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family still goe there on holiday (in fact, the Queen was there the day we went!).

The Royal Band came to perform in a small parade for the Queen! I was so excited to see them... I seriously made Mom and Nana wait around an extra half hour so I could see the end of their performance. Their sound was so amazing!


It was a gorgeous day and walking around the castle grounds was wonderful. It had such lovely gardens! We were able to go into a bunch of the rooms within the castle, but there were no pictures allowed. Awww.

This is seriously one of my favorite pictures of them! So great!


This one makes me smile, too. =) It really was terrific to see them again.

We had dinner in Windsor at a nice little restaurant. I convinced Mom to try the Sunday roast -- what a good decision, it was absolutely delicious.

The next day I met them at the hotel again, but breakfast wasn't being served so we ate at a little divey place. Mom and Nana didn't like it, but I've gotten used to little hole in the wall places so I didn't really mind, haha. It was the first day that it rained while they were in town, which isn't all that bad. We had a cab pick us up and drive past Buckingham Palace on our way to Westminster Abbey.


Mom and Nana in front of Westminster Abbey -- another one of my favorites from the trip!

It was really interesting looking at all the famous tombs, but this one was my favorite. It was of a man trying to protect his sickly wife from death. It was pretty creepy, but very interesting and well done in my opinion. I had saved my visit to Westminster Abbey until Mom and Nana came so that we could see things together and not repeat them.

We even found David Livingstone's tomb! I'm distantly related to him through my Nana, so it was fun seeing that in person. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I ignored the rules. Shhh. ;)

After Westminster Abbey we went to Harrod's to shop a bit and have tea. The store itself was absolutely huge! I really liked the children's clothing section (awww!) and found it hard to believe how many clothes and accessories they sold for dogs. But the best part was definitely the tea. We were served unlimited tea, finger sandwiches, scones, and little desserts. It was absolutely delicious... I've never had such good finger sandwiches or scones in my life! Plus there was a live pianist performing for us! It was a ton of fun being girly with my Mom and Nana, so I'm really glad I got to go to tea with them but I'm definitely convincing someone else to join me so I can go again.

I returned to the hotel with them after tea and talked for a little while before I had to go back to my flat and study for a final (and pack for Holland! oops!). I would have loved to have spent more time with them, but the few days we had together in London were wonderful!

Hi London, Remember Me?

It had been a while since I’d done some touristy things in and around London, so after I had recovered from my trips (it's a hard life, I know) I used a few free days before my Mom and Nana’s visit to wander around London a bit and do some of the things I'd neglected to do.

The weather has been MUCH better lately (it’s gotten up to the 60s!!), so Vanessa, Emily, and I decided to take a walk through Hyde Park and the Lexington Gardens. Walking through lots of parks in Europe has made me a firm believer that the US just doesn’t know how to do parks the right way. Maybe I just haven’t been to the right parks back home, but the ones here are just beautiful!


I love spring time! Seeing such pretty flowers just makes me happy. =) I’ve said this before, but living in London has really made me appreciate good weather and the change in seasons.


The park even has a beautiful waterfall! Hyde Park > The Hills Park/all of the Vegas parks. Plain grass and cactus gardens just can’t compare.


Look, it’s Peter Pan! He was really tough to find, but it was worth it. There are lots of fairies on this statue, not just Tinkerbell. Peter Pan is going to be performed by the statue during May, but I'm not sure if I'll be travelling while it's happening... we'll see if I can make it.

A few days later, Caitlin and I took a day trip to Brighton to see the Royal Pavilion, the pier, and the beach. The Royal Pavilion was really cool – it was decorated in Chinoiserie and some of the rooms were just amazing. One of the most impressive rooms was the dining room. It had a huge chandelier held up by a bronze dragon. I wish I could have taken pictures, but at least I picked up a few postcards.


This is Brighton’s beach. They don’t have any sand, just tiny rocks. The water was freezing – I dipped my toes in. Also, the waves were nonexistent. England may know how to do parks, but they're not so great with beaches.


Being silly on a playground by the beach. That was even more difficult to get out of than it was to get in, hahaha.


Next stop, the pier! If you look carefully you can see a really tall ride at the very end of the pier. Riding that was the best decision ever. The pier was just like piers in the US and it was weird to see British flags flying everywhere instead of US ones. The rides were pretty fun and Caitlin and I messed around in the arcade for a bit before heading back to London.

That night we went to see Les Mis with the rest of the girls. Kevin had already seen it, so we had a fun girls night out. The musical was amazing and I’m going to steal the soundtrack from Kevin the next chance I get.


I LOVE this picture of Vanessa and me. =) The whole group went to see Oliver. After a few solid weeks of traveling in small groups, getting everyone together was really nice. Plus… two West End shows in 3 days? Talk about a great time. The show was pretty cute. I wish Rowan Atkinson had been playing Fagin (he was out having surgery for a hernia. What nerve!), but the kids were adorable, especially the Dodger!! Awww. I had just finished reading the book about a week earlier, so it made seeing the musical that much more fun. Side note – since when do I have time to read for fun? Since I decided to “study” abroad. I can’t believe I’m getting away with this.


A few days later, Kevin had a friend in town so I joined them on the London Eye. It was expensive, but worth it. What a great view of the city!


You can see St. Paul’s Cathedral (the blue dome towards the center of the picture) and the Gherkin (the pointed building on the right). I think it looks more like a bullet than a gherkin – that’s a pickle for those of you not so familiar with British slang. Anyway, I really feel like London is becoming my city now. I know I’ve only been there for 4 and a half months, but I really love it. It’s become a part of me and I’ll be very sad to leave when the time comes.

Pass the Turkey, Please

Alright, so I wasn’t terribly surprised… I thought I’d like Istanbul, but I didn’t know just how much I would love it! My trip to Turkey was simply incredible. I spent most of the time with Kevin, but Meghan was able to meet us in Istanbul for a few days. Hanging out with Meg always makes me happy, so that helped make the trip even more amazing.

Kevin and I got up early to catch our flight to Istanbul… I basically got in from Paris, did laundry, went to bed, woke up the next morning, and got on a plane to Istanbul. Surprisingly, I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be. I still wasn’t pleased when our plane had screaming children running wild in the aisles, but at least a funny story came out of it – one of the flight attendants came up to Kevin and me and said, “Excuse me, do you have a baby?” There was an awkward pause before I said, “um, no.” He looked confused and then said, “my colleague told me you had a baby.” We assured him that we didn’t and he went away mumbling about how he didn’t know what we would’ve done with a baby anyway. Just to mess with him I gave him a crazed look as he walked by to check that we had our seatbelts on and asked him if he had seen my baby. =) It was a fun way to start the trip. Kevin and I named our firstborn son Firenze, in case you were wondering.

When we got in to the airport, we had arranged for someone from our hostel to pick us up (posh, I know). We ended up figuring out that this sign was meant for us. McOvenn is not quite the same as McQueen, hahaha.

When we checked into the hostel, the guy working the desk told us that he gave us a free upgrade to a better room from the second night on and then said, “high five!!” Of course we gave him one and soon after that we decided to name him “Joey” because he looked like Joey Fatone from NSync – no lie!

This is our first room – Kevin’s touching both sides of the room. He’s tall, but still… also, the reason I cut off his foot is because I was as far in the corner of the room as I could get. So yeah… teeny, haha. We were glad for the upgrade on the second night. At least there was free wifi – huzzah!

After we checked into the hostel, we decided to explore the city a bit. It took about 5 minutes to walk into town – our hostel had prime real estate.

This is the Haggia Sophia. It’s over 1500 years old (!!) and has been used both as a Christian church and a Mosque, but now it’s a museum.

The Blue Mosque is just across the street from the Haggia Sophia. It was very impressive from the outside. I like Byzantine architecture. =)

That night, we dinner at a restaurant called Cozy Pub. We ordered a meal to share because it looked good and was presented really well.

What a good decision! It was a delicious chicken and lamb dinner, cooked in a clay pot (look, he’s lighting it on fire!), marinated with vegetables, peppers, and great spices. I don’t know how to describe how wonderful it was, but the important part was that it was YUMMY. After the whole fire display, they crack the clay pot open and serve your dinner.

See? YUM. After dinner, we found an amazing dessert place (it became our favorite one… we went there nearly every night… hehe) and had dessert in the park between the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

What a great view! We sat in the park, watched the fountains, listened to the call to prayer (which was really cool and actually very pretty in a mystical sort of way), and ate our dessert.

Afterwards, we wandered back to the hostel and went upstairs to the common room/dining room for a drink. There was music playing and Joey and a few of the other staff were parading around the room, one guy with traditional Turkish costume and a sword, one with cymbals, and others using a hookah or a broom for a baton. It confirmed our suspicions that we booked the best hostel EVER. (In case anyone else is traveling to Istanbul, you should definitely stay at the Orient Hostel… definitely the best choice as far as hostels go).

The next morning, Kevin and I went on the roof of the hostel to figure out our plan for the rest of the trip – plus the roof had a great view of both the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We wandered around the city center some more, had lunch, and went to the airport to pick Meghan up. I made a sign for Meghan that said “Rochesstraaaa,” just for fun and watched as she squinted among the pick up area for someone until she finally found me! Haha. It was great to see her again. I’m glad that we’ve been able to space out our visits really well so I didn’t have to go the majority of the semester without a Meghan fix. ;)

We spent much of the afternoon walking around the city and had dinner together. I had this great lamb-kebab stew (it’s the best way to describe it). Turkish food was wonderful, I never had a bad meal there! We also tried Turkish Delight for the first time (and it was delightful, of course). We didn’t do too much that day, just went to a bar and talked forever.

The room upgrade that night was great – our new room had nicer beds, plus a sitting area and its own bathroom! It was the best room I’ve ever had in a hostel. The next morning we found out that the shower only had cold water, but you can’t have everything in life. At least it was all ours. ;)

The following day, we went to the Grand Bazaar. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip… and the whole trip was so great, it’s really hard to narrow down.

This is the main entrance to the Bazaar. It’s a complete maze inside with stalls everywhere. Most shops sold lots of touristy things, but there were some specialty stalls that were nice. There were places that sold rugs, hand-painted ceramics, wooden backgammon and chess sets, crystals, scarves, decorated hookahs, beautiful lamps, and of course, cheap touristy junk. The atmosphere itself was the best part – very loud with shop owners standing at the front of their stalls trying to bargain with you, surrounded by all of the colorful shops. I bought a wooden backgammon set hand decorated with mother of pearl, a scarf, and a few trinkets.

I bought my scarf from this guy. One of the people working his stall quoted me 205 lira for it, but I laughed and negotiated two for 50 – one for me and one for Kevin. The owner knew we knew how it was done (all that at haggling Brick Lane helped!), so he let me borrow a hat and posed for a picture. =)

After the Grand Bazaar, the three of us grabbed a doner for lunch (think thinly sliced meat rolled up in a tortilla with peppers, onions, and a few other things – delicious! I’m glad they have those in London and will miss them once I get back to the states) and headed to the Spice Market. The Spice Market was great – as soon as you enter, you’re surrounded by hundreds of different spices, many in open bags piled on top of each other. The smell is wonderful and the whole market is incredibly colorful… it’s something that I feel like I could never begin to describe. Apart from spices, there are tons of different teas, many on display for you to smell as you walk by.

My favorites were the shops like this one that sold all sorts of different kinds of Turkish Delight. The bottom left of the picture is the kind of Turkish Delight that you normally see, but there are big columns of other kinds on the top left – most of which had pistachios. Yum! Meghan bought a kilo – yes, a whole kilo – of it for 12 lira! Best decision ever! We snacked at it for the rest of the trip and still didn’t finish. ;)

After the Spice Market, we went to visit our first Mosque. It was beautiful inside!! But more on mosques later. Next, we decided to walk along the walls of Topkapi Palace on the banks of the Bosphorus to get back to our hostel. The walk ended up being a bit longer than expected (the wall went on forever! haha), but traveling has made me a firm believer in the fact that you’ve never really experienced a city until you’ve gotten a little lost in it. And anyway, it gave me the opportunity to take in the great view.

This is Ataturk, Turkey’s first president. Turkish people have a kind of cultish love for him – his picture (complete with crazy eyebrows) is everywhere. It kind of reminded me of Stalin, but I thought that this statue (which has a beautiful view the Bosphorus) was nice and was just grand enough for such a revered man. But seriously, someone should’ve told him that his eyebrows are legitimately scary.

After we dropped off some of our stuff at the hostel, we went to the Basilica Cistern. It was made in 532 AD. You know, 1500 years ago. Over the centuries, people forgot about them and they were only rediscovered when people found wells beneath their homes and were even fishing from them.

They had cool lights so you could see all the columns. Ooooh. There were also two Medusa columns in the cistern. The people who built them used them to ward away evil, but no one knows why this one was upside down or why the other one was lying on its side. Walking around the cistern was a very cool experience, kind of like traveling back in time… except for the café downstairs and the shop at the exit. But other than that, time travel.

Next on the list was a visit to the Blue Mosque! I left out pictures of the first mosque we went to because this one was even more grand (although the first was still absolutely stunning… I took around 800 pictures, so I had to make lots of cuts).

Meghan and I posing in front of the Mosque, look how cute we are! Aww. =)

As soon as you walk in, you have to remind yourself not to block the entrance. The outside of the mosque was impressive in its own right, but the inside completely floored me. I really have no words to describe it… it was absolutely gorgeous. All of the walls and the domed ceilings were painted with such intricacy.

We weren’t allowed to visit much of the Mosque, but the parts that we were allowed to see were stunning.

There were always low-hanging chandeliers in the mosques that we went to, the Blue Mosque included. I loved the stained glass windows, too.

The three of us had dinner near the hostel after our visit to the Mosque. The waiter was very friendly and invited us to come back for drinks (to “make blah blah”… or talk) after 11 or so when business was slow. We ended up not taking him up on the offer and went back to the hostel to watch a free belly dancing show.

The next morning we had breakfast and went to the Haggia Sophia. There were church ruins immediately outside of it, but they couldn’t excavate more because doing so would destroying parts of the Haggia Sophia itself. The inside had a mix of décor, including Christian mosaics.

This shows part of the old decorations inside the building. There were a bunch of restoration projects underway. The tallest part of the domed ceiling had scaffolding right beneath it, but it was still incredible. What an amazing building, especially for its age!

This was my favorite part of the Haggia Sophia. The gold doesn’t come out that much in the photo, but it was wonderful. I also liked how the decorative Arabic script contrasted with the Christian frescoes above it (you can’t see it in the picture because I couldn’t fit it in, but there’s a 9^th century Virgin Mary and Child mosaic as well as a 9^th century Archangel Gabriel mosaic. To the right (also outside of the picture – sorry!) was the part of the mosque where the call to worship is held… I think it’s kind of like a pulpit.

I’m on the second floor of the Haggia Sophia in this picture… and you still can’t see the ceiling in the shot. I hope that gives you an idea of how expansive it was. It was just incredible!

Here’s a 12^th century mosaic of the Virgin Mary and child. Again, I found the fact that both religions used this as a house of worship very cool. I’m glad it’s been preserved as a museum, it would be such a shame to have either religion forced out of the building.

After we saw the Haggia Sophia, we went to Topkapi Palace.

Here’s the entrance to Topkapi Palace. There were lots of flowers and beautiful open areas inside of the Palace. I was surprised by Istanbul’s fondness of tulips.

This is inside the sultan’s harem. I really loved it… it was almost too ornate. The tiles on the walls were so colorful and were all hand painted. There were also wonderful rooms with lots of detailed stained glass. It was absolutely beautiful!

This was the Sultan's audience room. It was my favorite room in the harem and it made me think that it really wouldn’t have been too bad to live in a harem back in the day. Everything is provided for you, you’re surrounded by beautiful things, and if you become a favorite you get all sorts of power. Plus you’ve got no expenses, a stipend, and early retirement. ;)

The harem was only one part of the palace, though. There were many other parts, many of which we didn’t have time to see. I loved the large courtyards with flowers and sometimes a great view of the Bosphorus.

Here’s Kevin and I in one of those courtyards with the Bosphorus behind us… I love this picture!!

I’ll say one thing for Turkey – the men there are a bit more creative than other people when they hit on you. One of the guys working at the harem asked me if I was Spanish, then practically insisted that I was because of my “beautiful coloring.” I was flattered and can now check off being hit on in a harem from my list of things to do before I die. Hahaha.

A door in the palace. I’m not sure where it led, only that it was beautiful.

There were a bunch of museum-ey rooms in the palace, including one with old ceremonial clothes for the Sultans. The pants reminded me of a MC Hammer music video, haha. The treasury room was also wonderful – Turkey has a special fondness for emeralds. They were featured in crowns, ceremonial chairs and boxes, and rings among other things.

One of the rooms that made me very cynical was a room full of religious relics. They had Mohammed’s cloak, a few of his teeth, and some of his beard on display. I can believe that, but the palace also claimed to have Joseph’s turban (which was far too white… don’t you think it would’ve yellowed/disintegrated a lot?), Moses’ staff (suuuure), and a bowl used by Abraham. There’s no way in hell. But it was interesting, I’ll give it that.

That night, Kevin, Meghan and I went to a Turkish Bath. Kevin went to the guy’s section of it, but Meghan and I had a lovely time chatting and being pampered! It was a very naked process (haha), but I really loved it. =) It was kind of like a mini spa treatment. They gave us towels for the steam room, sat us down in the all marble room, and told us to use the warm taps of water. Then they took us to a separate room and gave us massages. After trekking around with a ton of luggage for a week and a half (I know, I lead such a difficult life), the massage was just wonderful.

After our baths, we had a very relaxing dinner next to our hostel at a restaurant with cushy reclining chairs. The dinner was wonderful (as usual – Turkish food is my new favorite!!), and it was nice to just relax and chat before bed.

The next day, the three of us took a cruise on the Bosphorus. It was Easter and we wanted to find a church to go to a service, but obviously our options were very limited. So we had Cadbury eggs instead!! (I brought them with me from London)

The boat took us to the part of Istanbul that is in Asia (it's the only city that spans two continents) and since it was right on the water, we decided to go to a fish place. The food was very fresh, haha. And very delicious! I freaked Meghan out by teasing her with the fish’s head. =)

After lunch we trekked up a huuuuge hill to go see a ruined castle. The view from up there was fantastic, so the long walk (with at least a 45 degree slope at some points) was worth it.

Meghan and I enjoying the view. We’re pretty much adorable, just sayin’.

The boat cruise was a bunch of fun and a nice relaxing way to spend most of the day. After the cruise, we decided to visit another mosque because it overlooked a lot of the city and was huge… so we figured that it’d be important.

We followed this sketchy sign. Turns out that it was right, but it does look a bit untrustworthy, don't you think? Anyway, it made me laugh so I took a picture. ;) The mosque was under a lot of construction, though, so we didn’t really get to see much. Oh well.

That night, we got tickets to a Whirling Dervish show! Whirling Dervishes are something that I’d heard about before, but I had no idea what it was all about. It turns out that the show is supposed to be very spiritual and symbolic.

They spin around while a band plays traditional music on really interesting instruments. It wasn’t my favorite part of the trip, but I enjoyed it and it was definitely something cultural that I’m glad I saw.

Kevin and I woke up early the next morning to catch a plane to Izmir for our extended trip to Ephesus and Pamukkale and Meghan returned to Prague for classes. Classes?? What are those? This is the best semester ever. =) Once we got to Selcuk, we joined a tour to Ephasus. The other people on the tour were very nice. There were a few other students and a very friendly Kiwi.

Ephesus was once a hub of commerce and we got to wander around the ruins, many of them 1^st century. While I was casually sitting on a 1st century column that had toppled over, it finally hit me how old everything was. It was really cool to be able to climb on everything. We were able to explore the sites on our own, but our tour guide also told us about everything.

The Ephesians liked to play dominoes.

We saw an old roman bath and some of the terra cotta piping they used to keep the steam rooms warm (they’d pipe in hot water beneath the floors). Another part of the ruins that was very well preserved were the public toilets, haha. Our tour guide told us that those wealthy enough to have servants would send them in to warm up the marble seats for them. Ew.

This is the library of Selcuk. This was the most impressive part of Ephesus in my opinion. There was a brothel across the street from it and an underground tunnel connecting the two. Men back in the day were still stealthy. "Hey honey, I’m going to the library today…"

After Ephesus, the tour took us to a bunch of different specialty factories. I’m sure it was just a typical tourist trap kind of thing, but I enjoyed a lot of it.

Our first stop after Ephesus was to a ceramics factory. We watched the master make a vase and when he asked for a volunteer, I was able to make something of my own! He let me take it home, but it didn’t survive the journey.

Later that afternoon we visited the site of one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. The tall pillar near the center of the picture is all that is left of the Temple of Artemis.

The next stop took us to the last house of the Virgin Mary. They have a lot of pretty solid reasons for believe that it was the last place she lived, so it was pretty cool to have visited it. The pope has even come to see it!

The other two factories we went to were a huge leather store and a rug store. The leather store put on a fashion show, which was pretty neat. They tried to sell us leather jackets, but Kevin and I just wandered around the store trying on the most expensive ones (my record was 23,000 euros… a full length fur coat). The rug store was actually pretty interesting. They told us how to tell a good rug from a bad rug and showed us how some of them were made.

Most of the rugs are made by women in nearby villages, but they had a few at the factory itself so we could see how they were made. This one is almost done – the owner told me that once she finished, they would open up a few bottles of champagne and celebrate… too bad the tour didn’t stay an extra half hour.

The next day we went to Pamukkale. It means "cotton castle" in Turkish, but the whiteness comes from calcium carbonate deposits. The water has a lot of minerals in it and there’s a pool of it that they claim has mild healing properties. Anyway, when the water flows down into the pools, it’s very pretty. =) I was glad it was such a lovely day – but it was very windy!

Anyone want to play Jenga? Pamukkale had its fair share of ruins. Kevin and I hiked around them for a while and even climbed into a few crypts to explore. Tons of fun!

Instead of paying the 23 lira to swim in the mineral water in a touristy restaurant/lounge area, we chose to wade in the pools and enjoy the lovely view of the city below. Anyway, now my feet feel much healthier. ;)

Pamukkale also had a very well preserved (/renovated) theatre. It was a bit of a hike to get up there, but it was definitely worth it. It had a great view of all of the ruins, plus the theatre itself was really cool.

That night we took an overnight bus back to Istanbul and then hopped on a plane back to London! What an absolutely fantastic trip!!

So I realize that that was a terribly long post. But hey, it covers a full 8 days! ;) And as a side note, it is officially over 1000 words longer than my longest paper this semester. Hahaha.