Post #18 - Turkey

After spending two unbelievable weeks in Greece and REALLY not wanting to leave, I made my way to my final destination, Turkey. The overnight trip to Istanbul was surprisingly luxurious: a double-decker bus with individual TVs, complimentary snacks and drinks, and A/C pumping the whole way (brrrrrrr!).

Istanbul easily makes the cut for my top 3 cities of the whole trip. There is a ton of incredible food to try (I may need to rethink my priorities) and an unending amount of things to do and see. But luckily for me, I met Evren from Istanbul while I was in Croatia, and he offered to show me around Istanbul when I got there! He works during the day but was able to meet me for a few evenings and we had a great time zigzagging across the enormous city to see as much as possible, like:

This incredible view

This real, live whirling dervish:

This tower

 which we climbed, and saw…

and 

 One evening we took a boatride along the Bosphorus, the river that separates the European and Asian sides of the city (only city in the world that spans two continents!) and joins the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, where we got right up close to the Maiden’s Tower:

 It was tough to narrow down the food pictures, but the two favourites were Iskender Kebab, which is thinly cut grilled lamb basted with hot tomato sauce over pieces of pita bread and generously slathered with melted sheep butter and yogurt:

And alllll of the desserts! These are basically different versions of baklava, which is layers of phyllo pastry filled with chopped nuts and honey:

During the days, I had absolutely no shortage of things to do and see. My first stop was the Grand Bazaar, which happens to be the world’s largest covered bazaar with over 3000 shops:

And of course the very famous Blue Mosque, which is actually called the Sultan Ahmed Mosque:

And the Basilica Cistern, which is the largest of hundreds of ancient underground cisterns that lie beneath the city. (If you’re like me and don’t actually know what cisterns are, they are man-made, waterproof receptacles for holding liquids. They are often built to catch and store rainwater. They range in capacity from a few litres to thousands of cubic metres. Thank you, Wikipedia.)

 And Topkapi Palace, which was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for 400 years.

I also visited this super cool park called Miniaturk. It has over 100 of these miniature models (1/25^th of the original size) of buildings, mosques, palaces, natural phenomena, etc from all over Turkey. I think I took a picture of literally every model in the whole park. I really don’t know why.

After 5 days in Istanbul, I moved on to the coast to a town called Selcuk, which was another overnight bus ride away. The main nearby attraction was Ephesus, an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor. Words can't express how impressive this place is. Again, I had a tough time narrowing down the photos so here are some of my favourites:

Another day I took a day trip to a natural park a few hours away called Pamukkale with a couple of awesome Australian girls that I met at the hostel, Georgie and Skye. This place has to be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Pamukkale means "cotton castle" in Turkish, and is a natural site of hot springs and travertines, which are terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water. From some angles it looks like a big white mountain with a giant staircase of shallow blue pools coming down the side. I don’t think my description makes much sense so here are some photos:

Also I stayed at a really great hostel in Selcuk. I can't think of a better way to end the trip.

And now, 93 days and 14 countries later, I’m home sweet home! I miss travelling already but  it’s really great to be back J

Post #17 - Albania & Greece

                                               Original Olympic stadium in Athens


For those of you keeping track, it's been an inexcusably long time since my last post because my laptop got stolen in Athens. I won't get into the details because it makes me angry, and I'm doing my best to get past it and not let it ruin the rest of my trip.

I had almost finished a very detailed post about the week I spent in Albania, but I'm writing most of this post from an ipod touch (which isn't very much fun) so I'll do my best to summarize the highlights. Also I'm aware that the font colour & size are variable in this post, apologies for the discontinuity but I can't figure out how to fix it. 

For starters, a LOT of people had warned me not to go to Albania, saying it was underdeveloped and unsafe, especially for solo female travelers. But then I met a few people who had actually been there, and they said that they really loved it, I had (probably) nothing to worry about, and the only drawback was the crappy, bombed out gravel roads that give even the toughest of travelers motion sickness. 

Well, what I heard was pretty much spot-on: it WAS stunning there, I had (mostly) no problems, and the roads really did suck. I say mostly no problems because there was one really scary thing that happened to me the night I arrived (although it made a pretty thrilling story in my original post). Essentially,  after taking five separate buses from Montenegro, I made it to a town called Berat just as it was getting dark and starting to rain... And then the hostel I'd booked turned out to be a deserted building at the outskirts of town with the glass front doors kicked in and big holes in the rusty chain-link fence that surrounded the place. Fun, right?

After that though, the rest of my time there was literally a walk in the park (park meaning roman ruins heritage site, ancient castle, sandy beach, or natural spring in the middle of the woods). 

                                                  Blue Eye natural spring


The old castle complex atop a hill in Berat offered some gorgeous views of the town & surrounding areas. The hike up to the castle also made for a great workout, which I (stupidly?) did at 1 in the afternoon one day.

I spent 4 days in another town called Saranda. Highlights from this place included the Blue Eye, a freezing cold natural spring that you can swim in (although only for maybe 30 seconds at a time because it's 10 degrees); Butrint, a national park and world heritage site that is covered in roman and Byzantine ruins that you can actually walk around in and not just look at from behind a rope fence; and cows randomly roaming the streets.

                                                            Butrint


The ferry to Greece from Albania was quick and easy. My first stop was an island called Corfu, where I spent 5 nights. I was especially excited for this because only about a week before, Maggie booked some flights to Corfu from Rome to come visit for a few days. She was originally supposed to meet me in Turkey, but her plans changed and luckily this worked out instead. We were full of good intentions to do some hiking around the island and enjoy the landscapes, maybe visit a few other villages on the island... but the hostel we stayed at wasn't really a hostel. It was more of a massive budget hotel aimed at young people with endless organized activities, like beer pong and flip cup tournaments, toga parties, greek dancing demonstrations, and afternoon boatrides around the island ("booze cruises"). After participating in some of these, all we really wanted to do during the day was lie on the beach and go swimming. In any case, we had an unbelievably fun time together and met some great people. 

                                                  On a boat 

                                                     Maggie and I, pre-toga party 

After Maggie and I parted ways, I took a ferry & then bus to Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city. Luckily for me, I have some extended family living there (only by marriage, sadly I'm not part greek) who were kind enough to host me. My uncle George (and when I say uncle I mean my second cousin's wife's brother, but who's keeping track) suggested I go to Athens for a few days to visit some of the most famous architecture/archeological sites in Greece. I'm really glad I did (despite the part where my computer was stolen), there are some really spectactular places to see, most notably the Acropolis, which is the site of the Parthenon.

                                             Acropolis

                                              Parthenon

George also introduced me to some more cousins who were a little closer to my age, Fotis and Thanos. Fotis took me on a few tours of the city and introduced me to some of Greece's finest foods, souvlaki & gyros. SO DELICIOUS. They even invited me to spend a weekend at their beach house in a town called Chalkidiki (try saying that 5 times fast!) which was so gorgeous and has some of the nicest beaches I've ever seen. Definitely a highlight of my whole trip. Sidenote to my Kingston & Ottawa friends- the boys took me to a few nightclubs, but it works a little different in Greece. You know how we head to the bars at 11:30 or 12 then leave when they close at 2:30 or 3? Well we LEFT for the bars at around 2:30 or 3, then got back home at about 7. As in, the time we wake up for class, and the sun has been up for at least an hour. I was practically nocturnal after that weekend. 

                                           2nd from left: Thanos      1st from right: Fotis 

And now I'm in Turkey! I got to Istanbul yesterday. It's one of the most impressive cities I've ever seen, and I get the impression that I haven't even scratched the surface. Since blogging has become a lot more difficult in light of recent events, my next and final post probably won't be till I get home, but it will have cool pictures of the Blue Mosque, the body of water that separates the Europe and Asia sides of Istanbul, and way too many pictures of stray cats that I probably should not be touching.

9 days till home :) (and 9 days till a manicure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) 

Post #16 - Montenegro

Montenegro was everything I loved about Croatia minus the hordes of tourists. The first town I visited, called Tivat, was a small port town that took about 15 min to walk around. There wasn't a lot to see or do, but I spent almost 4 full days there and wasn't bored for a second.

I've stayed at some pretty incredible hostels in the last few weeks, but Hostel Anton probably tops them all. The staff is SO nice and it has such a relaxed atmosphere.
There's this gazebo:

 And this outdoor kitchen area: 

And this rooftop:

And this view from my dorm's balcony: 

And this dog:

And the cutest baby that I NEVER heard cry:

I took an overnight bus from Belgrade to Tivat, which went by surprisingly fast, probably thanks to the several episodes of Suits and Cougartown that eventually lulled me to sleep. I arrived at the hostel at around 9:30 am, several hours before check-in, but they immediately let me come in and drop off my bag in the dorm, then offered me some breakfast. Alex, one of the staff, showed me around and asked if I had any questions. I wanted to know how to get to the beach and he told me his shift was over in an hour and invited me to join him and his friends there. Since I've mostly been spending time with other travellers, it was really fun to hang out with some locals for a change.

                                             My tan helps me blend in with the Montenegrans.

One evening at the hostel there was a local band that played a bunch of 70s rock covers. It was a ton of fun and they were really good!

I finally had to invest in some mosquito repellant though, because with the windows open at night, my arms and legs were getting eaten alive. Speaking of eating, I didn’t try anything specifically Montenegran (except for the beer, called Nikšićko) but I did eat a freshly picked fig, which I’ve never tried before. It has a strange texture and is very sweet, but they’re super tasty.

I wanted to check out another town in Montenegro before moving on to Albania, so after spending 3 nights in Tivat, I took a half hour bus ride to Kotor, another coastal town. I think I made a good choice because it was stunning. The old town is surrounded by a big wall and is right next to a steep mountain with (what else) a fortress on top. On the other side of the walled-in town is a port with some of the fanciest yachts I've ever seen:

I had only planned on spending one night there before starting my super complicated journey to Albania that started with the first of 5 buses leaving Kotor at 7:38 am, but when I woke up that morning, before leaving I had planned on double checking some bus timetables and writing down the address and directions to my hostel in Berat. I soon discovered that the reception area/common room was locked until 9 am, and that was the only place I could get wifi. I felt way too unprepared to venture into unknown territories without enough info, so I decided to stay in Kotor one more day and try again the next morning. More about my eventful entrance into Albania next post :)