Yes, this will be updated.

Sure, I'm back from Turkey and all, but I still plan to update this, and as of right now I have a ton of my photos online, but I'm not going to tell you where until they're done. Just an lil update.

It won't let me title this post and I d k why. This is a short post. They sell chocolate flavored toothpaste here. There's also this one drink I have found here that I hope to never encounter again in my life. I asked the mom who I'm staying with what it was (this was before I had it). She said yogurt mixed with water. I thought alright, not bad maybe like a milkshake. No, by yogurt she meant sour cream. And Turkish sourcream puts the sour in sourcream. Seriously, it's watered down sour cream. And everyone drinks it! Not ftw.

Well right now Eser and Nilgun are at the Shakira concert.

And the other night I had an interesting dream. I was in heaven, and played a round of pool, and then for some reason I played a duet on the piano with God. I have no idea what it means, but I think it might have to do with the fact that I've been playing heart and soul alot lately. There's a reason behind that, but don't worry about it.

Well, I leave for home in a few days, I'm pretty excited. I'm still probably going to put a few more blogs on here though, there's lots to tell that I have written down, and will look back up and then type it up.

I can't wait till I'm at home and have had time to sort through all my pics and have fast internet again. Then I'll put up an album. It'll probably be on picassa but maybe flickr. We'll see.

Another day another post

That title was a lie. It has been more than one day since the last post. I tricked you all.

Anyways though, yesterday was quite an experience for me. In the morning we went to Hagia Sophia (which I have wanted to for a very long time, pretty much ever since we learned about it in Gala's class). The Hagia Sophia was a church/mosque. It started out as a church, and was later converted. It's interesting to see both Christian and Muslim themes rolled into one. It's history is also fascinating, of course I like history, and most of you reading this probably do not, thus I will stop. Wiki it if you want more. We also saw the Blue Mosque that morning. The blue mosque is a massive mosque whose interior is covered in blue tiles. It's pretty cool.

After that we went to the Grand Bazaar. This place is crazy. Hookahs everywhere. But not just hookahs, you can find pretty much anything in either that or the Egyptian bazaar. It's weird, after visiting this place, you realize just how inflated the cost of living is in the U.S. at least for some things. Clothing for example. For the cost of a designer pair of jeans in the U.S., you could outfit much of your wardrobe here in Istanbul.

Another place that we went to was the Byzantine Cistern. That might sound lame, but what it is is this wicked old underground cavern/plaza. The lighting was really cool, and this whole thing is filled with water. Sounds lame, but I got some decent pics. Speaking of pictures, I took over 200 again yesterday, which brings the total up to somewhere around 1200 or so on this trip I think.

Well, it's really hot outside, and I just stained a fence, so I think I'll go for a swim.

Ankara

Wow, it's def late here, I should be in bed. Well I am, but I mean sleeping.

Well, today was my second day in Ankara. Yesterday we drove for about 4 hours from Istanbul to Ankara. The ride was pretty uneventful, until at one point we suddenly accelerated (why I don't know. I don't think I'll ever understand Turkish traffic) to 210 kilometers per hour, which is about 130 mph. I tell you the traffic here is insane. One one of my first days in Istanbul, this car behind us suddenly turned on hidden police lights from behind the grill of his car. I asked the mom of the family who I'm staying with (who was driving at the time) what he was doing, or if she was going to pull over or what. She was like no his license plate was not a police one (he had passed us at this point).

So after we got to Ankara, we walked around the town for a bit, and then later that night went to a party (a grownup social gathering thing, not a rave). I met another person from the states there (well, he'd lived there since he was four, and he was about a year older than me), that's the first person I've met from America so far. Although these one girls who were walking behind me the other day were speaking in English to each other, but I'm not sure if they were all from America. And then some tourists today who were behind us I think were from America.

Today we went to the mausoleum of Ataturk. Zomg this guy is like revered. Imagine George Washington, Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and John F Kennedy all rolled into one. I'm not even joking. Statues and pictures of him are everywhere, kind of like Stalin in the U.S.S.R. except that Ataturk freed his people instead of enslaving them. The guards at the mausoleum were hardcore. The military and police in Turkey are not to be messed with. I've seen police walking down the street with mp5's, and military complexes often have guards only a few feet away from the fence surrounding the complex with assault rifles.

After that we went to this wicked awesome museum, where they had ancient artifacts from the bc days, and lots of cool really old things.

I took over 200 pics today, making that over 700 total so far. One day I will put the best of the best online for you all. Now it is time to go to bed.

3rd post

Hmm. Well that last 2 days I've played a lot of soccer. Well ok, mostly yesterday and the day before. Today we went to European side of Istanbul, and I saw some cool stuff. The mom who I'm staying with (Nilgün) was like, "This is an old part of Istanbul." We passed some aqueducts. I asked her how old they were. She's like 1000 years old. Then we drove past a mosque, and she's like yeah, that's from 1202. It was pretty cool.

Mall security is tight here. Cars have to be check for bombs before entering the parking lot, and then you have to go through a metal detector before you enter the mall. And I thought thinks were intense in the U.S.

One thing that is weird here is gas prices. It's like $2ish per liter. We pay slightly more than that, but it's per gallon. It's weird that a place so close to the middle east, and I think a country with pretty good relations would have gas prices that high. But I guess that's because American gas companies kind of took over those countries, etc. but nm about that I'm too tired to go into all that right now. But basically gas prices are over double the price that the U.S. has, and we're complaining.

I'm slowly learning a little bit more turkish. The nice is that Turkish words are fairly easy to read. In fact I'm starting to read words they way that they'd be read in Turkish naturally now, instead of in English first.

I've taken I think over 300 pics since I've been here. I definitely need to put more up. Sorry this blog was pretty boring, and not very long, but we have to get up early tomorrow, and it's getting late here.

Post #2

I come up with the best titles I know. Well I'm still alive, and getting slightly better at typing on a Tukish keyboard. Today I went to an exhibit that had miniature model of famous buildings in Turkey. It was pretty cool.

Turkey seems to have an obsessit with the theme music to the Godfather. I've heard it on commercials, cellphones, etc. (insert past tense form of jtlyk).

Oh yeah, another thing I did today was go inside this rather large mosque. It was very interesting, and a new experience for me. I'd never been inside one before. I'll try to upload a picture for you guys.

That brings up another intersting point here, religion. 99.98% of Turkey is Islamic. It's interesting to see the different levels of it. Some people say they're Muslim, but do not really practice it. When walking down the street one can tell the hardcore women from the no so hardcore. The def not hardcore ones wear modern clothing. The semihardcore ones wear rather traditional clothing and veils. The hardcore harcore ones wear all black clothing with a black veils. They look extremely hot. And by hot I mean temperaturically wise.

Another interesting thing about Turkey is smoking. People will just bust out a cig inside the mall/everywhere else. Philip Morris must be making a killing here. I don't know just something kind of interesting.

I'll upload a pic on here in a bit. While you're waiting here is the link to my current pics: here.

First Post

Well this is my blog about my time and travels in Turkey, although if you're reading this you're probably already cool enough to know that.

Wow, this place is unlike any I have ever been to, although I was surprised as to how similar it is to the U.S.

Something that separates it from us though is the traffic. It's crazy! In İstanbul, it's perfectly normal for example for there to be 3 cars in a two lane road, with a motorcycle next to them. Two cars going in separate directions will often be heading down the same road; a road that is def only big enough for one. This results in one of them backing up, often causing other side streets to back up as well, until one of the cars can get by. Pedestrians are very alert, as cars WILL NOT STOP for them. I've seen so many near misses it's ridic. Especially the taksis as they're called. The taksis are everywhere, and they're crazy.

Turkish is an interesting language. It kind of sounds like a mix between Russian, Italian and Spanish. One nice thing about it though is the pronunciation. Words are pronounced how they are written. So even though I don't speak turkish, I can still read the signs etc. That's another new experience for me. People have started talking to me in Turkish. İt made me feel really awkward, and I didn't really know what to do. But now I learned how to say I don't speak Turkish: turkçe bilmiyorum.

Another interesting thing is the religion. Turkey is 99.98% Muslim if I remember correctly. The first time I heard the call to prayer it was quite an experience. It happens 5 times a day. Someone on a loudspeaker from a mosque starts chanting/singing in Arabic. Except this happens in all of the mosques. And there are mosques everywhere in İstanbul. You can hear this echoing throughout the whole city. It's pretty intense.

Oh, and the birds here are crazy. I was at a cafe eating lunch, and me and the family I'm staying with suddenly see this bird dive into the water from the sky. So we waited to see if it would surface... it didn't. So we were watching this thing for like 45 seconds to a minute, and finally it reappeared. Only to dive right back. I know that sounds like a lame story, but we had all though it had drowned. Which reminds me of a little kitty that we saw. All of a sudden it darted out into the street (a bad idea in America, a suicidal idea in Istanbul). So this one guy who was outside was trying to block off traffic to let the kitty cross the street. Suddenly the kitty darts under a truck (it was stopped don't worry), but then the cat did something funny. It turned into Professor McGonagal and apparated. You think I'm joking. I'm not, the cat dissappeared. No one could find it, and then the truck started moving again. And still the cat was never found. I say it was professor McGonagal, because their have only been 7 registered animagi in the last century. I'd take those odds to Vegas. Yeah, I am rather looking forward to the 21st.

Anyways though, thus ends my first post. I'll try to get some pics uploaded soon (I'm uploading them online currently), and I'll prolly edit this post and put some back on here. Kthxbye.

From the album of the pics I've taken in İstanbul