Albanian food? - Tirana, Albania
visited Jan 12, 2006
The albanians appear to have been conquered by every force that passed anywhere near them in the last 3 or 4 thousand years, which makes an interesting sort of mix. Italy is one of their closest neighbours (something I hadn't considered) so Italian coffee and food is everywhere, and quite a few people speak Italian, which helped us communicate a bit. The Albanian language (called Shqip!) sounds italian and seems closely related to the romance language group. Half the language, however, is turkish - the Ottomans were the invaders who lasted longest within the last millenium, and they definitely left their mark - in the food as well as the language. Actually, finding real albanian food is a bit hard. The cafes and fast food joints all advertise the same list of things: Byrek (Turkish Burek) Pice (Italian Pizza) Sufllaqe (Greek Souvlaki) Qofte (Turkish Kofte) and of course, the ubiquitous hamburger.

Durres - Shen Osman Kthupit, Albania
3 Stars This place was Average visited Jan 10, 2006
Durres doesn't seem to be marked on this map, which is odd, as it is one of Tirana's major cities, was the capital for the first half of last century and (probably because of that) is the hub of the train system. I've emailed travelpost to ask if it can be added! On the second day we wanted to take a minibus (furgon which is the same as a turkish dolmus) to Kruja, a mountain town with a castle where Skenderbeg, the national hero, once defeated the Ottomans. We wandered around the terrible crossroads that passes for a bus station for an hour or more looking for the right furgon. They are building an overpass there, so the whole area is a great big building site, and the furgons themselves have no signs, it seems you just have to know, or understand what the drivers or 'conductors' are yellling at you as pass. We did finally find an empty minibus with a driver who offered to take us to Kruja for 10 times what we expected - he wanted to play taxi, and take the two of us in an empty van. We didn't want that, so walked away and jumped on the next bus we saw to Durres, which was the capital of Albania for centuries. It was after lunch by then, and the trip took an hour over rough roads in a bone rattling bus, but the couple of hours of sunlight we had in Durres was about the right length of time to explore! We saw the Adriatic and a cluster of mushroom bunkers watching it, a few stretches of Byzantine wall, the modern town mosque (which replaced a historic one that fell down, apparently) and the Roman amphitheatre. We were peering through the fence around the amphitheatre when an old guy came and let us and sort of showed us around - the language barrier was interesting, as was his ability to mountain-goat all over th place while we struggled behind. The highlights were the mosaics that were part of the chapel there, but you could only see them by craning through two sets of iron bars around a corner. A pleasant town for a few hours, but we felt that was enough and found a bus to get back to Tirana.

Albanian Sheep - Tirana, Albania
4 Stars This place was Great visited Jan 10, 2006
Today was the day when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep ceremonially. This was definitely noticeably here in ALBANIA. Of course, maybe it had nothing to do with the bayram (bajram in albanian, or shqip, which is the albanian for albanian). It is entirely possible that there are usually sheep tied to lamp posts in albania's capital city. It is possible that seeing someone walk a sheep by the back legs 'wheelbarrow' style down the street of a clothes market (not even a food market' which I would have understood) is entirely normal. And people playing with sheep in alleys is an everyday occurence. Or maybe not. How would one ever know. Will write more soon - assuming I don't fall down a bottomless albanian pothole and am never seen again.

Shqiperise (which is Albanian for Albania) - Tirana, Albania
3 Stars This place was Average visited Jan 9, 2006
Tirana from the air is very odd. It's in a large flat valley, with a dramatic backdrop of snow capped mountains. It's hard to tell where the city starts, because as far as you can see, there are buildings dotted over the fields. While driving around we noticed the same thing - there isn't any real country there at all, just endless houses and buildings, mostly three storey and brightly coloured, each surrounded by a few fields and haystacks. The overall impression is of endlessly sprawling sparse suburbs, with fields instead of gardens. On the ground you can see the amazing building boom they seem to be having. Every second house seems to be only half finished, and even those that are obviously being lived in often have flat roofs with metal rods sticking out waiting for the next storey to go on. More evidence of the flurry of boom Albania is in is the state of half of their roads. Half of them have been dug up to be re-done, even in Tirana, leaving cars, buses, pedestrians all bumping over rocky lumps and potholes in the choking dust. Oh, and the other half of the roads are just like that normally of course. This probably explains the car wash phenomenon. The first word of Albanian I learnt after getting off the plane was "Lavazh" which means car wash. Along the road into town from the airport there seemed to be signs for them about every 5 metres, most of them not much more than a guy with a hose and bucket, I think!

Holiday plans: Albania, anyone? - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Jan 6, 2006
My school never gives time off without it being absolutely necessary, such as when a border needs to be crossed for visa reasons (one day off), Christmas (2 days off, though it was apparently 5 last year) and new years (1st of Jan is a public holiday). And, of course, the muslim holidays, like next week. I have 5 days off! So, instead of staying here and climbing our mountains of uni work (Kate's in exam time now, and I have 6000 words of assignments to write in the next 3 weeks) we are doing the sensible thing, and flying to Albania for the week. Well, for a few days, at least. We're flying to Tirana (the capital) on Monday morning, and fly back on thursday. We didn't have much choice - there seems to be only a few flights a week. At least with Turkish Air. Even if Albania does have an airline, I'm not sure I want to fly with them, so I didn't bother doing any further research! Three nights there should give us enough time to explore the capital and possibly the two towns near it that my guide book highly recommends. And apparently that is about as much of the country as you need to see! Except the beaches, of course, and as it's mid-winter, I don't think we really need to see them! Not sure why the idea of Albania has really captured my imagination, but I am really excited to be going to such an unusual place. It probably has far too much to do with the Dilbert comic strip, and its depictiong of "Elbonia". Oh dear...

New Year's Musing - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Jan 1, 2006
Our New year's plans were pretty much completely unformed until about 7pm, when Roger (one of my friends from work) rang and asked us both to a house party, which broke up aroung 10 so everyone could go into a club in Taksim. Due to general new year's chaos, Kate and I didn't end up going to the club (didn't really want to start the new year in a reggae bar anyway!) but had dinner in our favourite cosy pasta place, and then managed to be in Taksim square for the midnight fireworks. New Year's in Turkey is interesting. For a start, they can't seem to realise that there is a difference between Christmas and New Year, so all the decorating and other celebratory trappings get mixed up: Santa hats with 2006 in flashy lights, christmas trees that say "Happy New Year", even sequined bunny-ears-headbands, which seems to me to be a completely different religious holiday alltogether. And there is a strong tendency for people to sing 'Jingle Bells' after wishing you happy new year. It's all a bit odd really. So, being the end of the year, I thought I'd look at what I've achieved. During 2005 I: Lived and worked in 4 different countries (this is a record for me, I think) Spent a total of only 2 weeks in Bris-vegas (another record) Added 12 new countries to my list of places I've been Lived in Berlin - something I had wanted to do for years Lived in Sydney - something I must do again sometime Helped organise Queeruption in Sydney Met Kate Survived 5 months of long distance relationship Survived 5 months of live-in relationship (including intensive travelling!) Went to Queeruption in Barcelona Found a summer school in Britain that I actually want to teach at again (never happened before) Started a Masters of Education (TESOL) Added turkish to my list of languages I can get by in And something else I did in 2005: failed to finish writing up all the posts to this blog about our travels in august and september. I will finish them - I add a new one every now and then, so check to see if you've missed any. As soon as I've finished the 6000 words I have to write for my Masters course in the next 4 weeks, I'll try to actually get those posts finished! Glad I have a good memory...

2 nights at the Opera - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Dec 13, 2005
After the sad performance of West Side Story (see my earlier post) we were slightly trepidatious at spending another whole 10AUD on two more tickets to the opera, but I have wanted to see a production of Carmen for a long time, so we decided to risk it! I'm very glad we did! Far from the mess of WSS, Carmen was a wonderful production both visually and musically - the costumes were beautiful and colourful, the sets incredibly elaborate, the dancing polished (I think they might have actually rehearsed more than once!) and the singing beautiful. There were a few moments when I thought a little more drama and actual acting would have helped those of us who were having trouble with the turkish subtitles (opera is hard to understand in any language and the non-native french was mostly impossible to decipher) but overall it was a great experience. I don't think I had ever realised just how much famous music there is in Carmen. Hearing it all at once was fantastic. On the strength of that, we bought tickets to Madame Butterfly this week - another famous opera I have often wanted to see. Again a very traditional performance, with elaborate sets (well, set, this time, in the singular) and traditional costumes. Actually very traditional costumes - possibly modelled on original costumes from the 1904 premieres - designed by someone who had had a kimono described to them, but probably had never seen one! Butterfly's dress was something like 1900's dress with japanese features, such as long rectangular sleeves and an obi on the back! Quite pretty, of course! Like 'Carmen' the music was wonderful, though a few moments could have done with a little more drama to help those of us who couldn't understand their turkish-italian diction or the subtitles. I had to stop myself trying to understand the words after a while - both in Carmen and Butterfly, I found myself getting a headache after the first act or so - from trying to decipher singing in one language, subtitles in another and translating what I could into English for Kate! And it wasn't just the multi-lingual aspect that got to me. I suddenly realised at one point that we were australians watching a opera set in japan about an american sung in Italian performed by turks. Argh!

I think I like Eastern European food! - Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Dec 8, 2005
I had to leave Turkey to get a new visa, as my three month one was coming to an end (we've been here three months already, it seems!) and, after much discussion with Kate (Beirut? bad flight times. Lesbos? only one overpriced ferry a week. Cyprus? let's just not even go there) we ended up retracing the path we took to get here three months ago and headed for Bulgaria. We took an overnight sleeper train, and had our own two-bunk cabin with wash basin for the trip! It left from the station that was the terminus of the Orient Express, and I'm not sure they aren't still using the same train carriages. It felt quite luxurious, and not overly expensive (50AUD each way for a 12 hour trip) and, apart from being woken up for the border formalities (you have to get out in the cold for the Turkish part) we pretty much slept comfortably the whole way. Veliko is not the world's most exciting town, despite being billed as the number one highlight in Bulgaria. It was pretty, being situated on a gorge with a hairpin bend in the river at the bottom of it. It has a nice fort that is nearly 1000 years old or so, a few museums we didn't even bother with, and a wonderful restaurant (actually two - they are a chain!) where Kate and I ordered far more wholesome eastern food that we could possible eat all for 20AUD. It was so good that we went to the other branch of the same restaurant the next night to try a few more things. The enormous salads and feta cheese and stewy things were all amazing. We stayed one night there - in a hotel that was billed as the best deal in town, but where the lady who ran it was rude to us pretty much non-stop. We should have left right at the beginning - it certainly isn't the only hotel in town! We hadn't made a reservation, figuring it wasn't necessary in December, and so walked in off the street (it was easier just to walk there than to work out coins or whatever for the public phones). We asked to see the room, which seemed to annoy the woman, and she showed us a cell with two narrow beds, a dubiously beige bathroom and a view of the street. We asked about rooms on the other side of the hall (the ones with a view of the gorge). 'No. Full.' Then we asked about a room with a double bed. 'No double bed'. She grumbled to herself all the way back down to the desk. We should have left then, but it was definitely cheap, and for one night we decided we could handle it. While registering our passport details, she paused to complain about something at great length to a friend who had come in. Neither of us understand Bulgarian, but I am positive she was complaining about us. Her eyes never so much as flickered towards us, but her friend was not so well controlled, and by the way her eyes slid over us occasionally, we could tell we were the topic of the discussion. She spend longer whinging to her friend about us than we had spent in the hotel so far, so goodness knows what she was saying! I even started to think about reclaiming our passports and leaving, but didn't. She was short and unapologetically rude to us the whole time we were there, which thankfully wasn't much. At about 9pm, we were in our hotel room considering an early night, when we heard a commotion outside. There was a parade of what appeared to be morris dancers who had taken a few fashion tips from the KKK, all with what looked like cowbells of various sizes tied around their waists waving flaming torches. Half the town seemed to be following them, and not surprisingly we decided to join them. After putting on our many warm layers, we caught up with them easily (flaming torches and cowbells are not hard to follow) and followed them to a square and monumnet outside a shiny new hotel and casino. We joined the crown watching what looked like morris dancing. Then there were speeches. Then a bit of theatrics, complete with fancy lighting and atmospheric music - a guy in chain mail and a group of women in white robes and veils clutching tealight candles came through the crowd and posed and danced about a bit. Then things got confusing. Some strange little man in a bow tie and cape wearing a great big gold-coloured wreath around his head recited some sort of dramatic poem. It was all highly entertaining, even though we barely understood a word (Bulgaria was mentioned frequently). Then there were fireworks from the top of the hotel. Everyone craned their heads back to watch them explode directly overhead and then were forced to look down to avoid the rain of ash. Then we all spent some time dusting off our clothes. We finally worked out what was going on when a ribbon was stretched across the entrance to the hotel and a large pair of scissors appeared. The ribbon was cut, the people in fancy clothes all went in, and the rest of us rabble dispersed into the night. I wonder if that happens every night in Bulgaria...

Worst Side Story - Istanbul, Turkey
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Nov 23, 2005
We've discovered the opera here! The Ataturk Cultural Centre (the performing arts complex here) has an opera theatre and a program full of famous names, and the most expensive tickets are only AUD10! And it's a quarter of that for the top balcony! Not wanting to splurge that much, or sit up in the gods, we've decided the mid priced 1st balcony is our favourite spot! Tonight we saw West Side Story, figuring that whatever language it was in, we both knew it well enough to follow, if not recite the entire thing ourselves! It was with some excitement that we took our seats in the 'Big Hall' (such an original name for a theatre)and took a moment to appreciate the 70's decor (It's very similar to QPAC in Brisbane - both inside and out) and get freaked by the gold face of Ataturk leaning out of one wall at us (that guy is EVERYwhere). The appreciation started to wain when the orchestra started playing the overture. And then the 'dancers' came on and it wained further. And then they opened their mouths. Oh dear. We didn't leave. It was sort of compelling - in a 'how much worse can it get' sort of way. The dialoge was all in Turkish, but the songs were in English - with Turkish subtitles on an electronic signboard above the stage. For some odd reason they had significantly changed some of the words - even the ideas of the songs, and some of the new lyrics were definitely not written by a native speaker. The oddest part was where they changed the song 'America', which is originally a sort of musical duel between the Puerto Rican men and women, into an all-girl event, with one lone female playing the men's anti-US part. Very odd. Apart from that, the orchestra were sloppy and the dancing all over the place, which is odd cos the performers certainly weren't singers, so they must have been chosen for their dancing. The 3 main characters were definitely singers - Anita in particular was excellent - but the lovers themselves looked more 40 than 14. All in all it was an interesting experience, but we're really hoping that next week's performance of Carmen is a whole lot better!

Underground Cities - Kaymakli, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Nov 6, 2005
On Sunday morning we took a series of buses and domuses to get to Kaymakli, one of the most popular underground cities. We had been told that it was worth getting a guide as many of the rooms have no sort of explanation of what they were used for (stables, kitchens, living rooms, storage etc), but there weren't any official ones, and neither Kate nor I could stomach entertaining the hustlers that offer themselves as guides at the entrance. We decided to explore on our own, which would have been fine - if we had remembered our torch! We had carefully packed a torch when leaving Istanbul, then managed to leave it in the hotel room the entire time we were away! We did have Kate's little red key light, but that wasn't really enough. Although all the main passages of the city are well lit, there are many passages leading off the main route that invite exploration, but without a torch it's all a bit scary! Luckily we quickly met some other anglophones - an american couple who had bought a torch outside the entrance and were intent on exploring every nook and cranny of the place! The four of us crawled down every tunnel we could find (many passages were too low to allow just bending over) and poked the torch into every corner of every room. Surprisingly, it was quite warm underground, and between that and all the exercise and contortions required, we were soon stripped down to t-shirts and were carrying all the warm clothes that were necessary outside. I thought it odd, as I had heard that it could be quite cold in the underground cities, but I guess the caves are about the same temperature all year around, and it would seem pretty chilly in summer when it's 35 degrees or more outside! After more than an hour underground, we emerged mole-like into the grey sunlight, dusty, hungry, with thigh muscles killing from all the crouching and bending and crawling and hair full of bits of roof-rock from all those times we had failed to crouch and bend enough.

strange and unusual - Goreme, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Nov 5, 2005
The end of Ramadan meant both Kate and I had a few days off school and uni, so, again after much last minute discussion, we decided to fly to Kapadokya (in English it's spelt 'Capadoccia' for some reason) which is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Turkey (after Istanbul and the beaches that is). Kapadokya is a region right in the middle of Turkey that is famous for its bizarre landscape and cave cities - both above and below ground level. Both of these phenomena are caused by the thick layer of incredibly soft yellow rock that covers the whole region. The ease of carving rooms and passages through this rock has been exploited for millenia and there are whole villages that consist of cave-houses and whole 'cities' dug underground where hundreds, even thousands of people could live for months and months at a time in times of danger. Göreme is the main town in the most interesting area, but we stayed about 2km away in a tiny village called Cavusin. We were the only guests in the little hotel, and the only foreigners in town (apart from the busloads that arrived every morning to see the local cave village and church) and so the evenings were very quiet. It was grey the whole time we were there - and freezing - so staying out after dark (about 4.30pm) wasn'tt too appealing. We had dinner in the hotel (the guy who ran it cooked, just for us!) and spent the evenings drinking apple tea and playing backgammon! During the days we explored what we could of the area. It would have been marvelous to have been there a little earlier in the year when it was warmer and the days were longer, as there are dozens of walking tracks to follow. AS it was we didn't have time to walk more than a short way along any of them. The tracks lead through valleys of bizarre luna landscapes and the almost-ubiquitous Fairy Chimneys (see the photo when I get around to loading it), and often lead through caves and tunnels and other exciting things.

school and.. well.. school - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Oct 28, 2005
After a few weeks of working 35 or more contact hours a week, my hours have finally dropped to something reasonable, and I might even have time to write more often! I'm now working full weekends - at school from 9 til 7 saturday and sunday, but during the week I only have 3 evening classes - each three hours long, so I practically feel like I'm on holiday during the week. The classes are mostly allright though - each three or 4 hours long and all beginner, elementary or pre-intermediate. I prefer the beginner and elementary classes - it's nice to know exactly what your students know and don't know, pretty much, because you've taught them everything they do know! I've also started turkish lessons, just for fun. My colleague Suzanne and I thought it would be interesting to be on the other side of a beginners immersion language lesson for a change. And of course, turkish might be useful in the next few months. Unfortunately we started with a completely crap teacher, and pretty much failed to learn anything useful for the first week (8 hours) of classes. I don't know where they found this teacher, but she didn't seem to have any discernible teaching skills at all. She arrived over an hour late for our first lesson, and 40 minutes late for the second. On the third she brought a friend who sat next to her at the front of the classroom, and they conversed in turkish occasinally during the lesson. In front of us. The lesson content consisted of random lists of words - apparently whatever came into her head at the time. In the second lesson (that's after about 4 hours of class) she decided to teach us every verb tense that exists in turkish - all the suffixes that is. Of course, she didn't speak any english, so she was explaining entirely in turkish, which of course we didn't understand a word of, and we didn't actually know any verbs to add the suffixes to anyway. Mercifully, that teacher couldn't come at all for the 1st lesson in the second week of our course, so it was taken by the school director - the woman we had arranged to take the course with. And in those 4 hours, we actually learnt to say things! Whole sentences! And questions! We (the three of us in the class) had pretty much determined to ask her for a different teacher that day anyway, so it was a nice surprise. We begged her to continue teaching us, and, by changing the days of our classes, it was possible. It just means I have to go in to Taksim on my 2 days off as well every day that I work. But that's worth it if I'm actually learning something. The course will run about 8 weeks in total, so it won't be forever anyway. I'd better go get ready for today's lesson. I'm sure there was some homework I had to do... Kat

On the second day of Ramadan... - Istanbul, Turkey
3 Stars This place was Average visited Oct 6, 2005
There is some sort of big national festival. The largest Turkish flag I've ever seen has been hung from a building just accross from the school. And there was strange chanting in the streets, and the schools all have a holiday (but apparently no one else) and the usual impressively/oppressively strong police presence in the Istiklal Caddesi has been supplemented by other uniforms. Something to do with independence from something, I'm told. Turkish keyboards irritate me.

The Hammam - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Oct 5, 2005
We finally got there. After weeks of planning to go to the hammam and having to postpone the plan, we finally took ourselves to the Turkish bathhouse. We chose Cemberlitas, an expensive touristy one, as we were told it was probably best at first, just because they are used to silly foreigners who don't know what to do! Next time we'll go to a locals one. It was also strongly recommended to pay for the full treatment the first time around - again so that you know the drill next time! After paying your money, you go into the dressing room, to remove all your clothes and wrap a thin cotton bath sheet (like a sarong) around you before progressing into the bath room - or rather the steam room. It's all entirely segregated, of course, and men and women don't see each other at all after the entrance. The bath themselves consist of one great big room with no actual bath or pool in it at all. In fact, there is are no pools in a turkish bath - only taps and basins and lots and lots of steam. Cemberlitas is a historical hammam - about 500 and something years old, and the steam room is large and round with a domed roof with small stars and circles cut into it so you can lie back and watch the sky. The main feature of the room is an enormous raised marble platform which occupies most of the room. This is, as far as I can work out, the source of the heat. Everyone lies on the platform and soaks up the heat, and it's also where a nearly naked attendant washes and massages you, if you've paid for the full treatment. The wash and massage can get a bit personal, but it is relaxing - and you certainly get exfoliated! It's all done with mountains of sudsy foam that they produce by trapping air in a wet soapy pillow case and squeezing it through the fabric. I wonder if it's the traditional way... After getting washed, you go back to lying around with all the other naked women for an hour or so soaking up the steam and occasionally being dripped on from the ceiling. All in all it was a wonderful experience and I really wish I had more time to go more often. I wouldn't want to go back to the touristy one, but I've heard about one in Besiktas, which is near us, that is the hottest in town! And another not too far from my school that is the largest in town! Both sound worth checking out, and both are a whole lot cheaper than the most touristy one in town!

On the first day of Ramadan my true love sent to me... - Istanbul, Turkey
3 Stars This place was Average visited Oct 5, 2005
an sms asking if I had clothes to wash. But enough of my domesticities... Ramadan has started. For a secular country, this still seems to be having enough effect to disrupt things. Perhaps it won't be so noticeable after the first few days, but my evening classes will be starting a half hour later for the whole month, to allow the students to eat first. I have just been told this - 4 minutes before I was planning to be in class, and they tell me i have an extra half hour. mildly annoying. And we aren't supposed to eat in the streets. And this morning I had to change the planned lesson that was all on buying food in a cafe. I had planned it for just before lunch (that's my sadistic tendencies showing) but found I couldn't do it when most of them hadn't eaten since dawn and wouldn't til sundown. 3 mins at the photocopier, and it turned into a lesson on clothes shopping instead. We are also told we should expect a drummer in the streets at about 3 in the morning - to wake us up in time to eat before sunrise. Just what I need. Haven't these people heard of alarm clocks? More entries await uploading on my computer. If I ever had more than 5 min at home at a time, I would do it! soon, I promise. Although Nathaniel and Carolyn (of all people) arrive tonight, so computer time might not happen much this weekend...

Rejoice with us! - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Sep 30, 2005
We have a house! After two weeks in the hotel looking at flats and rooms in sharehouses that were never suitable, we have found a wonderful place in a suburb called Nisantasi (Nish-AHN-tasher). The area is known for being a fancy shopping place, and rather chic area of Istanbul. Turkish people are all very impressed when we say we've moved in here. One friend instantly asked "near the Armani shop?" which gives you some idea of the type of place it is! Of course, it doesn't look it in our street, but it is a bit nicer than some other areas we've seen. The flat itself is the largest flat we have seen in Turkey so far, with 2 bedrooms, a study, a garden and an enormous living room. It also just happens to have a washing machine, dishwasher, satellite tv, and, more importantly, internet and a wireless hub. We're sharing it with one Australian woman, who just happens to be going back to Australia in early February. She'll be away 3 months, during which time we have the flat to ourselves. Very glad to be out of the hotel and have access to a kitchen and laundry again. It's been a while, and eating in restaurants and handwashing clothes was really getting a bit boring! We had some trouble leaving the hotel though - there was a bit of a dispute over the payment. It's all way to complicated and boring to explain, but there was a little matter of 75YTL (which is just under AU$75) which the school thought we should pay, and we thought was the hotel overcharging us. The confusion was all due to a little discount the school was getting, which the hotel was trying to make us pay. It took more than an hour of stressful arguing before I worked out that if I asked my Director of studies (an English woman who speaks turkish) to explain it to all the turks I was dealing with in turkish, then maybe it would be sorted. And low and behold it was. I think I really need to learn turkish. And properly enough to argue with hotel morons.

First Impressions - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Sep 15, 2005
First real döner in turkey: disappointing. We were starving and went into the first doorway we saw with a kebab spit out the front. Turned out to be a kebab joint that aspired to restaurant status, complete with red plush seats and leather menu holders. We ordered one overpriced dürüm döner and a drink to share. It was entirely without sauce and dry and horrible. We'll have another asap, from an ordinary street kebab joint this time. Real Turkish Delight: We have found a wondrous shop. They have every sort of turkish delight and halva that you could possibly imagine. We are already regulars, and it's only 24 hours since we found it. I started with plain, vanilla turkish delight. Much chewier than any I've had before, and strongly and deliciously flavoured. Turkish Icecream: I never knew it was different! We bought an icecream each today when in need of a sugar fix. I can honestly say I have never uttered the phrase "I still have icecream stuck in my teeth" before. Turkish icecream is thick and slightly chewy, and very strong in flavour. And the chocolate is a rich dark brown and actually tastes like cold, soft, chewy chocolate! Incredible! The Bazaar Quarter: See, this isn't all about food! We wandered into the bazaar quarter today pretty much by accident, while looking for a post office and internet. At first it was wonderful, although the crush of people and noise and hawkers trying to sell you things by practically pushing them up your nose was slightly worse than in most of the rest of this city. We thought we'd just try to get through to the other side. Bad idea. Several tiny streets and alleys and uphills (there are some serious hills in this town) and millions of people later, my agoraphobia is getting the better of me, and we turn for what I think is the quickest way out along the quietest streets. The variety and quantity and fascinatingness of the things for sale is amazing and fantastic and looks incredible, but I think I will have to be more psychologically prepared before I wander in there again!

Room service... Room Service... - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Sep 13, 2005
Well, I think I'm in Istanbul. We've just spent two days and nights in a truck, so perhaps after a shower all will be clearer. We arrived last night, and were taken to Kadiköy (one of the major suburbs on the asian side of Istanbul) to our truck driver's company site, given a truck to sleep in for the night, and this morning were dropped off in a place that may or may not be called Saragoza. Our first necessity was money, so we looked for a bankomat, and found this net cafe just near it. As it's only 10am, we thought checking email for the first time since poland might be a good idea. I thought I had better see if my school had been trying to contact me before I contact them today and break the news that I have arrived without giving them any notice! This blog was planned as an up-to-date day by day account of our travels, but lack of internet access and time in the last 2 and a half weeks has made that hard. Over the next few days I'll go back and fill in all the blanks in this blog - we've definitely been having adventures, so there is lots to tell!

Arriving home? - Istanbul, Turkey
3 Stars This place was Average visited Sep 12, 2005
Driving towards Istanbul, I am reading the Salman Rushdie article in the book of travel stories i've been carrying for months. He writes about returning to India after more than 12 years away - after the Satanic Verses brouhaha. It's interesting to read something about going home while driving towards what will be my new home. At least for a while! The European Turkish countryside is noticeably different from Bulgaria and Romania. For a start, the roads improved the moment we crossed the border, and we are travelling on a 6 lane engineered marvel - better than we've seen since Hungary, I should think, and more of it too. The landscape consists of gently rolling hills, but the road doesn't go up and down much - instead there are long viaducts built over the valleys - each with a sign at the beginning to tell you the name of the bridge and exactly how many metres long it is. Without these signs I might not have noticed, as the bridges are no different to the roads, and unless you are looking at the side of the road, you don't notice that the tree tops are suddenly at road height! Another major difference is a lack of people. Instad of the road winding through constant villages, we have nothing but the occasional town huddled on a distant hillside. The fields are huge, obviously worked by machine (unlike Romania) and currently burnt to the colour of dust. The heat and dust haze means the sky is almost the same colour. 30 Km from Istanbul, according to the signs, and it feels like we are on the outskirts of a big city. 25 Km from Istanbul, I see a corpse. The traffic stops all of a sudden, an ambulance races past us on the hard shoulder, and everyone is changing into the far inside lane. When we get to the accident, there is a body lying in an unnatural heap with a few sheets of newspaper over the head and shoulders, and a growing bright red pool of blood seeping out from under it. The ambulance is already there, but the paramedics are just standing around. A few metres further on, an old beaten up truck with what looks like a scrape of red paint on one corner has stopped at the end of a long pair of skid marks. Maybe we won't stand on the side of major roads and wave our thumbs at passing traffic in Istanbul...

Friendly border guards!?! - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Sep 11, 2005
We crossed the Turkish border at about lunchtime today. Borders have been getting more and more complicated lately, and this one needed a map and directions. For some reason we couldn't just stay in the truck and have our passports checked there, but had to walk half a mile through no-man's land to the a gi-normous parking lot with a few little booths in it. There were no signs, so we lined up with everyone else, who seemed to be clutching bits of paper along with their passport, which worried us. When we finally got to the window we were utterly astonished to find a helpful border guard! After barking an initial impatient 'paper?' question at us, he realised we had no idea what we were doing, and came out of his little booth to point us toward the border police booths. Turns out we were lining up to declare our cars or something. Oops. Amazingly, the next border guard was also helpful and friendly. I presented my passport at a booth that had no line (turns out it was for turkish people only, or something). The guy took it, looked up my name, and then used it, nicely, while pointing us to the office where I had to buy my visa. And even that was easy. We returned, en-visa'd, to the next booth (which now had a shorter line than the first) and were shown yet more displays of amiability! My visa was stamped without comment, but Kate's student visa earned her a nod of respect! And then we had to explain that we were walking back the way we came to find our truck, which got more surprised and impressed noises from both the guards (the man from the first booth had come over to chat with his colleague while we were still there). Wonders will never cease.