Sweden

Stockholm quickly became one of my favorite cities in the world. It's got the perfect mix of lively activity, clean air, and active citizens. People walk or bike nearly everywhere, and there are lots of cute shops, delicious restaurants, and fun sites. It's a bit less expensive than Norway, but can still be fairly pricey. The city spreads over about 14 islands and the buildings are as cute as can be. Despite being a fairly big city (around 2 million including the suburbs) the town has lots of green areas close by.

Spent the first day exploring with the wimmers and then drove up to their friend's house in Uppsala. Picked arman up from the airport the next day and then drove to their cabin on an island on the baltic sea. spent a wonderful midsummers eating strawberry cake, listening to traditional music, and watching kids play many traditional races. The kids were dressed to a t, and seemed to have been taken straight out of a polo/ralph lauren magazine. We also all danced around the maypole and sang songs....hands down it was one of the best holiday celebrations yet....everyone was smiling and laughing and having a blast. That night we had a traditional midsummer's meal, including herring and aquavit. The wimmers supplied us with wonderful french wines, so the meals were five course meals including the drinks;) champagne to start, a shot of aquavit, a glass of wine, a glass of belgium beer, followed by some brandy at the end. not too shabby;) Took a ride on the sailboat one day, as well as the little two-person sailboat. Went swimming in the freezing water (18c or thereabouts). also went fishing for herring...although I seemed to have brought the bad luck as we only caught about 6 and they claimed they usually grab a bucketful in under 30 min. went back to stockholm and explored the city more with arman. went to see the vasa ship, which sank 30 min into its maiden voyage due to being top heavy. an absolutely stunning ship though. so many detailed wood carvings and detailed work went into it.

Headed for two days over to vasa, finland to try to trace my grandma's family down. Didn't get too far as we think my great grandpa may have changed his name when coming to the states...we found a karl oskar nordberg who was born just 11 days earlier, but he had only sisters compared to my great grandpa's 7 brothers and only one sister. anyhoo, vasa was a rather dull town with common shops and not much to do. met an amazing bartender the first day at the hotel though, who brought us to vora, a geneological place that had lots of information. finland was quite different from norway and sweden as most people did not speak much english. they also tended to look much more russian. the swedes and norweigans have perfect english with hardly any accent, which they say they get from watching tv with subtitles. they are also the most beautiful people i have ever seen.

have been back in stockholm the last few days and have been enjoying the time strolling through the city, doing some shopping and snapping pictures. looking forward to being back in the states shortly!

Norway

Flew from Iran to Stockholm and then Oslo, which was an adventurous day. Topped it off by meeting my aunt and mom, who had managed to nearly lose a passport twice that day (all the while it was somewhere on the body). Finally we arrived in Oslo, after much hysteria. A nice Norweigan man offered to drive us to our hotel and he gave us a brief tour of Oslo on the way. It's a cute little city, much like Minneapolis. Laid back and quiet but very cute. Spent the next day wandering around the city-it is ridiculously expensive. The city bus cost $8 per person one way! We went out to dinner at a "nice, inexpensive" italian restaurant...one personal pizza, a pasta, and a caraf of wine later, and it cost us $100. Went to see a few viking ships, which were pretty cool. Spent the rest of the day walking around town and shopping. On the bus ride we saw a bunch of young norweigan school children who were as cute as could be...all blond hair and blue eyes which was quite a contrast to Iran;) The next day we took a train ride out and saw the beautiful norweigan countryside....rocky, very green with trees everywhere and in the middle of the country we past by a region with a few feet of snow everywhere and not a thing in sight. Got of in flam and took a very scenic little train through the valleys and by some amazing waterfalls. Then boarded a boat and rode through the fjords to our hotel...in the middle of nowhere on a fjord with stunning views.

The next day we went to see a glacier and enjoyed some more boating expeditions on the fjords. Talked to some kids working at the hotel and found out that they were mostly austrians, as Norweigans only work an average of 6 hours a day, and they expect too much pay. The Scandinavian countries serve amazing buffet breakfasts with a huge variety of food. Everything from fresh breads, cheese, meats, fruits, eggs, meat, fish, pancakes and sometimes even espresso. Quite a change from flat bread and feta cheese everyday for 3 months;) Next morning we nearly missed the boat to Bergen, a cute little town on the coast with lots of old style houses and fun little shops. It's quite a big city (for norway at least) and had a lot of character to it. Hands down, Norway is the most beautiful country (landscape wise) that I have seen. It's a beautifully rugged country, that reminds me of a more hilly northern minnesota, although mn pales in comparison. words and pictures just don't do it justice.

Isfahan and Kashan

Headed to Isfahan to visit haleh and kia and had a blast. It is one of the most beautiful cities in iran that i have seen thus far. the fresh air up at the base of the mountains where they lived was also well needed. spent a day touring the city and learned lots of amazing things. all the ancient buildings had some inciteful trick built into them. also saw a pigeon tower where thousands of years ago they collected pigeon dung for maneur...apparently england wants to copy this now. they killed the predators of the pigeons-rats and snakes by ingenious methods...snakes by pitchers filled with milk that they would get stuck in, and the rats by putting wet flour on the ground that would harden in their stomachs and kill them. also saw the shaking minarets which were impressive. sat out and enjoyed some of the lovely bridges also. saw an old armenian church still in use today which was absolutely beautiful...also saw the piece of hair on exhibit there where a guy wrote on it with diamond. had a memorable moment at the abbasi hotel cafe where i asked for the bill by asking for the "hissab surat."

kia, haleh and i then took the bus to kashan, in between isfahan and tehran. went out and saw the little mountain town of absineh which was somewhat similar to sirince in turkey. you could wander the streets and buy lots of local foods they made...the faludeh was amazing. we also went to see how they made rose water and about 30 other eraghs. had a cute little taxi driver who on the way, offered us tea, cookies, sugar cubes, nuts and fruit. i joked that he had the kebabs in the trunk;) also saw an underground tunnel/cave area where the worshippers of mitra built many, many years ago. walked around and saw some beautiful and huge housed in kashan. we saw one that was so big it was being turned into a hotel and was absolutely gorgeous, with a hamum inside.

all in all, it was a great getaway from the busy, crowded and polluted streets of tehran;)

Iran part deux

ooo boy, time has flown by. life is going well, no complaints. well, actually there is one itty bitty major drawback. Tehran the last few days has been in the 90s, which is INSANELY ridiculous for april. I can't begin to imagine what august will be like here this year. My aunt informed me that usually this time of year it is cooler and rainy, and unfortunately I choose the year when it's a burning flipping inferno. although I can't honestly say where I'd rather be right now...heard that it snowed a few days ago in minnesota and it's in the 30s there....how about the average of the two, bueller? bueller? arman just informed me that I shouldn't limit my options to just two places, and why not try boston? after all, apparently its in the 70s. good point. san diego is starting to sound extremely appealing where it's a whopping 70 pretty much all year long. one good thing about tehran right now is it is a dry heat, but unfortunately with a coat and scarf on it doesn't earn too many bonus points. but, with that said, I am actually amazingly starting to get used to wearing a coat and scarf.

ok ok, enough weatherly complaints. things are going well. a nice mix between occupied and lazy bum, which suits me wonderfully. my dad got me in touch with a friend of a friend who's the leading genetique counseling doctor/clinical researcher in iran. he does research on predicting genetique diseases such as thalassemia and hemophilia. saw his lab/clinic, and it's pretty dang cool. got same stuff just like back home. has anyone seen lab benches that are made out of granite??! yeah, that's what I thought. plus, hands down the cleanest lab I have EVER seen, and in a decent sized lab they had about 30 girls (b/w 20 and 30 years old) doing research/clinical tests on patients. Pretty crazy/fun group of girls. they go crazy about science which was pretty sweet to see....made me think about the engeland lab and all us 5'5" brown haired girls;) he then put me in touch with his sister in law who is a general surgeon. went to the hospital and watched surgeries which was pretty....interesting. without knowing it, the first surgery I witnessed from 2 feet away at 9 am was an optional (cosmetic) breast reduction surgery. umm, yeah. apparently the surgeon's favorite type of surgery, but personally I think she's a bit wacko to feel this way. was a rather dull 2 plus hours in which she just cut out huge chunks of fat. we're talking over one kg from each one. almost put me off ice cream...almost;) the surgeon at one point was like, "jeez, what did this lady eat?!.....must have been a lot of kalepache" hehe...good thing I don't like it;) it was rather artistic though...I'll spare you the details, but just think, they had to make them both even....which when you are hacking away globs of fat left and right is a rather challenging chore. brought me back to the first year of snow sculpting, and bryan working the sphinx=) umm, yeah well anyways, you get the idea. chatted a bit with the anesthesiologist and other surgeons...really nice, fun group of people. this one really old guy after his surgery (forgot what he had done) started singing some old persian poems and made everyone laugh. also saw oral/plastic surgery done on this guy who had been shot about a year or so ago with a gun to the cheekbone. two awesome male oral surgeons were doing it, and they had the most fun I've ever seen. You'd think they were watching a futball (soccer) game if you heard them;) kept telling jokes left and right and then showing me the craziest things. at one point some of the other surgeons were trying to pull me away to eat lunch, but the guys wouldn't have it and sent someone to fetch me back and said this is the best part, you can't miss it. they had managed to break the guys jaw bone, and had pulled the upper lip all the way back (with the nose just flapping around) and all you could see was this huge bloody cavity. they then dug away and produced some bullets which they excitedly showed me. at this point the guys upper/lower bridges were wound together with wire and were at the bottom of his mouth. oh, and if this wasn't enough for you, to break the jaw bone they had giant tool box equipment...big screw drivers and hammers and such. yeeeaaaahhh. they realigned his jaw though and put in a plastic cheekbone and screwed his bridges back together. all in a days work. awo, and apparently they claimed he would heal faster than the lady who had her breasts downsized. but honestly, please, take it from me. if you are even remotely considering an optional cosmetic surgery, don't. it's just not worth it. to watch them cut and sew and poke around a perfectly healthy (to some extent;) human being was a bit much.

hmmm, what else. been taking a farsi conversation lesson twice a week, just me and my teacher. it's helping immensely and the best part is they bring in tea/coffee and dessert;) score. baked chocolate chip cookies a few times, which is a hit. even baba haidari tried one without anyone coaxing him to eat. awo speaking of which, we were watching the persepolis soccer game one afternoon and the funniest thing happened. baba haidari (80 some year old, cute as can be) was watching and the only line that came out of his mouth the entire game, but mind you was repeated about 15 times-every single time the camera showed someone falling-was "bah! *smacking his right hand to his thigh* yeki khord zamin!" which literally means "one ate the ground, but means that someone fell. absolutely downright made my day...ok maybe week;) other than that, my days have been spent lounging around the house/parks and reading...which seeing as I still have a plethora of books to go, has not lost its charm.

mohammad reza and I have been having a grand old time. for my bday, he took me to an indian restaurant which was delish and spent the rest of the day bumming around tehran. we've also managed to have a few colorful encounters with the park police which thankfully ended pretty quickly. the funniest thing I've learned so far, is that there are different types of police. there's the ones that are for cars, that could *note-hypothetically* see you kissing right in front of them and the only indication they give of witnessing it is a smile and salute-and then there's the park police that assume that a young boy and girl talking together albeit not touching are obviously up to no good. thankfully I have the fortune of being an "innocent american girl whose farsi isn't so great" so after a few minutes of confirming this and showing off a few words of english, they skidaddle. on a brighter note, tehran is blessed with some of the most beautiful parks. they are quite a haven from the rest of the busy city. and climbing in the mountains has quickly become a favorite pasttime as the air is clean, the peaceful sounds, and the wonderful omelettes;)

anyhoo, hope yall are doing well. I have about another 6 weeks in Iran and then I'm heading off to Sweden!

Tehran

Made it to Tehran, sans problems a few weeks ago. Things have been going well and the weather is great…I’ve been doing a lot of swimming lately, and my favorite place is the Simorgh hotel. They have the four nicest ladies working there…always asking if I need anything and making sure I can make it back home ok. There isn’t hardly anyone there during the week and I pretty much have the place to myself. Which is sweet, cuz once you get one other Persian in the pool, the order goes to the sky;) The other day I was swimming laps, and this one girl comes in and starts swimming perpendicular to me…unawares, I ended up running into her. Then a third girl came in, and the genius started swimming diagonally across the pool. Mumbling wonderful words under my breadth, I started swimming in circles;)

Went to school with my aunt one day..she teaches chemistry to high schoolers. The girls were adorable and absolutely went crazy when I came…I spent the morning in the gym talking and playing badminton and ping pong. As soon as I’d walk out into the courtyard, the girls in the classrooms would see me and start screaming and run out, grab my arm and shove me into their room…at which point the teacher would shoo me out. It was pretty crazy…I couldn’t stop them they literally shoved me along. Nice girls though and we had a long conversation where they questioned me about the US and what I thought about Iran. It’s an all girls school where they have to wear chadors to school, and even though there are no men in the place, they still have to wear scarves in class (I was told to get them used to it??) They told me it wasn’t a big deal for them at all though and they were really used to it. They were very curious about school and hw in the US, how much make up girls wear, what movies/music I like, and which place I thought was better. I had a lovely Eman moment while playing badminton where I did a skillful fall flat on my face after going after the birdie and tripping over some box on the ground and crashing into the wall. Not bragging or anything but I think it would have earned me a 10 at the Olympics. They were pretty worried about me after that and didn’t leave me alone much;) After one of the other chem. teachers found out I was also a chem. major, she went off on a 10 min speal really fast in farsi about chem. in Iran, and then she asked me if it was the same in the US, and I was like “uhh…ozmikham?” she was a little annoyed, so I just said “are are, chemie tuye amrika mesle injust”…she wasn’t very satisfied. She then asked me to read some chemistry paper in English, and then had me sit and listen to her try to read it, which was hilarious and I was biting my lip very hard trying not to laugh. Another hilarious thing is how they pronounce IBprofen….I made my aunt say it about 20 times the other day and I was rolling on the floor crying my eyes out….”ibb booo pruuuu feeeeen”said really fast and with a thick accent. I have to capture it on video for yall. Ridiculously hilarious. My aunt then said, “eman jan, man sarma khordam, maghkse man kar mikone uncorrectly” which sent me back rolling on the floor. I can’t be too harsh though, my Persian is nowhere near to perfect. I’ll leave the details out=)

Today is the first day of Nowruz, or Persian New Year and I’ve never seen Tehran like this before. It’s amazing….a city of roughly 15 million with horrible traffic/drivers, is deadly silent. The streets are empty and it’s so peaceful. The weather is beautiful sunny and in the 60-70s, and you can look up the tree lined vali-e-asr street by my aunt’s house and see the snowcapped mountains. Gorgeous. The past week has been full of people scrambling around shopping like during xmas. Wednesday night was chahar shambe souri which is where people out in the streets explode fireworks and jump over bonfires in the streets. A few days before I saw a boy no more than 5 warming up with one that shot fireworks about 20 ft….he was kheyli shaytoon and instead of shooting them into the air, started shooting them off horizontally and almost hit two girls walking farther down the sidewalk.

After the past month and half of horrid nescafes, I am spoiled with one of the best coffee shops I’ve ever been to. Amazing espresso that without fail keeps me up to 4 am. It’s soo good, and those of you who know me will be shocked to know that its so good I can drink it without adding sugar;) yes, it’s quite a feat;) anyhoo, my dad comes in a few days, and it’ll great to have my laptop finally…and see him of course=) hope yall are doing well…send me some emails…and for those of you wondering why I’m ignoring your facebook messages, facebook is blocked in Iran, sorry;(

Cairo

After arriving in Cairo, Louise and I headed to a koshary place…it’s a popular dish here that isn’t too bad. Rice and lentils on the bottom with some macaroni noodles added on top, covered with a tomato sauce and fried onions. You can add hot sauce or a garlicky vinegar to it. Interesting combo that is actually quite tasty. Our hostel is on the roof of this old building and there are chairs/tables right outside our room to sit outside and enjoy. It’s nice to get away from the crowded, noisy streets below. Like Tehran, car horns are an essential for driving here;) We’re right in the center of town and have lots of fun crowded streets to walk around at night. Tons of coffee shops, cheap restaurants, pastry shops, and Louise’s favorite-yummy ice creamJ

Headed to Giza and the pyramids one day….amazing. A guy named Mohammed (surprise;) helped us get there and back super cheap. He invited us to the tourist shop where he works at after we were done at the pyramids. The pyramids were huge…it was crazy how the city just sprawled out all the way to the foot of the pyramids practically. The sphinx was cool also, though not as big as I had envisioned…at the base of the pyramids it looked rather puny. Considering they were built around 2000 bc though, they were incredible. There were lots of locals there when we went, and surprisingly we had tons of people coming up asking if they could take their picture with usJ weird…we even had girls taking their boyfriend’s picture with us, which was just downright creepy. I credit it to Louise’s beautiful blond hair, and kept telling her we asked for a small fee, we would be rich=) Met this absolutely adorable little girl selling souvenirs, and it turns out her name is Eman also!! I told her we had the same name, which she got a kick out of….she got a huge surprised face, then a ginormous smile and then started giggling. Cutest little girl….her friends came up too and started talking and they were super cute kids….took some pics with them and ended up buying some stuff from them. Cute as a button;)

Kept getting asked if we wanted a camel/donkey/horse ride…finally I started joking with one of the guys and told him I was just a poor university student. He cut the price in half, and I told him sorry but I have no money expecting that he would leave us alone. He then told me he would give me a ride as a gift. After I ditched all my stuff off on Louise and ensured that it was a free gift, I hopped on the horse. Started galloping pretty fast and I got freaked….he then offered to take me over the hills to get some drinks and make me happy….yeah, pretty much flipped out at this point and was like “crap, what did I do?!” I kept rejecting this idea profusely and finally he took me back to the road. He then asked what gift I would give him….I literally had nothing on me and told him I had nothing. He pointed to the ring on my finger and said, “what about that?” The guy had balls….I lied and told him it was my wedding ring and my husband would kill me if I gave it away...he laughed at this and after trying a few more times he finally gave up and rode off dejectedly. Man, it’s gonna suck traveling when I’m older and can’t pull off the poor little student thing;)

Went over to Mohammed’s shop afterwards and had some tea. Turned out to be a really nice kid and told us a lot about Egypt and his life and such. Told us not to buy anything in the store as it was extremely over priced;) He helped us get on a local bus back to our hotel. The next day we went to the Egyptian Museum which is absolutely packed full of stuff….and tourists;) pretty cool to see all the stuff they have…the cute little knick knacks were my favorite, and they even had cloth that was preserved pretty well. They had a room full of animal mummies which was pretty crazy as well. Egyptian script is sooo cool. At night we met up with Nathan (who we had met in Petra) and Mohammed. We tried to get into the Cairo Jazz Club, but found probably the only place in Egypt that has rules that they actually stick to…apparently you have to be 25 to get in. Took a felucca ride along the Nile, then headed to an excellent restaurant for dinner and walked back near to our hotel and had some shisha and an amazing yogurt/honey/milk drink called Zabadi. Talked a lot to Mohammed about life in Egypt and it was cool to hear his views on life…..he got a degree in mechanical engineering but can make more money working in the tourist craft shop. He told me about how most Egyptians didn’t support the government and wished it would be more like Iran in terms of sticking up to the west. He also told me that most Egyptians were aware of a lot of corruption in the government, but didn’t want to do anything drastic so they didn’t do anything about it. We walked by the building where an Egyptian writer wrote the books that he won the Nobel Prize for. He also told me about how he wouldn’t drink any alcohol but he had tried drugs “because the Holy Quran doesn’t say anything about not doing drugs.” I love his logic…of course Allah would approve of us getting wasted; it’s soo much better than drinking a glass of wine.

The next day we walked, and we walked, and we walked…saw Abdeen palace, the citadel, al-azara park, and khan-el-khalili market. You could see the pyramids at giza from the citadel which was pretty cool. Al azara park was beautiful…it was like a little mini US park in the middle of Cairo. It was clean, (with garbage cans!!), lots of plants and well groomed, quiet and clean air with a few restaurants with good food. Had a young guy as our waiter who was really nice at first and was trying to teach me Arabic and wanted to learn English. Things got pretty bad though after he kept trying to get us to hang out with him after work and we (as in Louise bc I played the “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say role) kept refusing as politely as possible. He came back about 4 times and kept saying “so I’ll see you at 5 when I get done?”..the kid would not take a hint. Finally we had to flatly refuse him, at which point he got pissed and was really rude to us. The kid had it coming.

There is one thing in Egypt that I find absolutely appalling/intriguing. They get people’s attention (whether it be a waiter, or a girl passing by) by hissing. It is extremely and amazingly effective…I have no clue how it came to be so prominent. But it infuriated me after a few days bc walking by guys and getting hissed at isn’t necessarily the best feeling. Walking the streets in tiring, as you have to pay attention to the crazy drivers, uneven side walks, and avoid eye contact with guys. Louise and I had fun roaming the streets and laughing at the horrible fashion sense. The girls were wearing the most hideous outfits known to man. Lots of ugly patterns with pinks and purples and sparkles and fuzzy fringes and weird triangular cut shirts….as Louise put it, any one item of their clothing was way over the top, but they made it 100 times worse by have crazy shoes, pants, shirts, scarf and purse at the same time. We’re talking like striped bright colored shirt, with leopard print pants, huge silvery shiny purse, bright pink patterned scarf and funky shoes….hideous. It was good though, because at least it kept us from spending money on clothes;)

My last day in Egypt we went to Ma’adi and met Nathan and he showed us around town. Ma’adi is a nice suburb of Cairo where most of the expats live. The place was full of French people. There was a little grocery store that had tons of stuff from home like Nature Valley bars, gushers, and cereal. Louise and I were amazed. Gave Uncle Abby a call and he had his driver pick us up and we met him at his office. He then took us out for an amazing dinner in a restaurant on the Nile, where we ate tons of delicious appetizers and he sneaked in a few crazy ones like liver and friend brain….He was kind enough to let us crash the night at his place. It was great seeing him after so long…had me thinking of the good old days of driving around parking lots in my saab and *somehow* busting the engine, Arman “driving” Gina’s stick shift golf and looking like a fool in front of the police, sleeping from 5 am to 11 am and playing sims, going to the grocery store and making chocolate dipped strawberries at 1 am, driving crazy uturns in florida, the “bouncy ball” breaking the glass oven and walking through the drive in at Taco Bell at 2 am. Ahhh, good times.

Alexandria

Alex seems to be the favorite destination of Egyptians, but Louise and I weren’t too impressed. Not much to do besides shopping and walking along the Mediterranean (which isn’t nearly as nice as it sounds since the path is right by a busy street). Maybe it was the wrong time of year though….too cold for swimming and the public beaches were rather dismal anyways. We did meander our way into the famous Bibliotecha (a ginormous library), which you have to pay to get into and has a surprising dearth of books. It was right by the university though so it was cool to see all the college kids. The nightlife, aka walking along the streets and shopping, seemed to be the thing to do in Alex. Although my personal favorite was going into the little fruit juice shops and getting fresh squeezed juice for amazingly cheap (strawberry-lemon was the best). We kept going every day, although I think it was the cause of some stomach unrest. We went for a run one morning along the water….got a lot of looks from the locals, a cute old grandpa told us “hurry, hurry, faster, faster,” and a young boy snapped a pic of us on his cameraphone as we were passing, which was…awkward.

Ate THE MOST AMAZING schawerma in Alex at a fast food chain called Gad. Chicken with sautéed onion, green pepper and tomatoes, with tahina in a pita bread for a whopping $1. Egypt is amazing…Louise and I were eating like kings for a few bucks a meal. We managed to get away with pretending to not know what “bakshish” is (a term basically meaning they want you to pay them a tip)….we learned that a confused, innocent face with an added “huh?” did the trick…they were either too polite or didn’t know enough English to accurately describe what they wanted. It’s not that we were against giving them some money (after all it was so cheap) but it was more that they wanted bakshish for doing absolutely nothing. This cute little old man showed us to our hotel room in Alex (which was literally 10 feet away from where we were), and then he just hung around the door moping around obviously expecting some bakshish…

Oh…forgot something funny that happened in Petra. We were walking up the steep path in the middle of nowhere to the monastery, and this cute little Bedouin boy, probably about 4 years old, was playing on the stairs with a broom. He had a cute smile and was looking at the chips in my hand longingly. I offered him a few which he quickly grabbed, and then proceeded to grab the entire bag…I just started laughing, and next thing I knew, he was trying to grab my camera off my neck. At this point, I was like “nooooo! Sorry you can’t have that” and he started pouting. I started to walk past him, when he whipped out his broom and blocked the path so I couldn’t get by! I tried to walk around it, and he kept moving to block my path…..finally managed to sneak my way around him…yes, I’m proud of the fact that I got around a 4 year old…after all, his broom was pretty big and ferocious;)

Mt. Sinai

Took a little mini tour bus to Mt. Sinai along with some other tourists. John came along with us and we met an amazing couple....Adel and Rose. Rose is Spanish, Adel Syrian and they are probably in their upper 50s but are some of the most worldly and best travelers I've met thus far. They research and know a lot about the places they go, and aren't worried or fazed by unclean and unplanned circumstances. They were so kind and interesting and we spent most of the day chatting with them. I hope when I get older I'll be as open minded, easy going, and enjoy life as much as them. We went to St. Katherine's monastery, which was unfortunatley jamm packed with tourists. Ate lunch at Fox camp, a bedouin camp where Louise and I spend the night. A cat ended up stealing most of my chicken....there are cats and dogs everywhere and they have gotten to be quite sneaky. (most restaurants in Dahab gave you a spray bottle filled with water to fend them off;) Climbed up Mt. Sinai tonight and watched the sunset...it wasn't a spectacular sunset and the best part was getting back down;) It was cold and extremely windy at the top. We took refuge in the mosque at the top though, which helped. Ran out, watched the sunset, then booked it back down. I gave Rose and Adel my flashlight as they didn't have one and Rose has vertigo and had a bit of trouble. Louise and I pretty much went down the rocky path mostly in the dark....John had a flashlight that helped a bit, but it wasn't so bright. Luckily we managed to make it down without any sprained ankles. Had a bit of a fiasco at the bottom as two young supposedly security guards wouldn't let us go back to the bus, and made us sit by the monastery. They almost didn't let us go to the bathroom, argued for a bit then let us, then asked for $ for the bathroom, then said nevermind, then the electricity went out, they took John's flashlight and we were stranded in the dark, then we finally got upset, grabbed the flashlight and told them we were leaving which they reluctantly let us do. Crazy but we finally made it ok. Spent a cold night fending off the crazy bedouin camp guy and woke up at 5:30 am to take the bus to cairo. Made it to Cairo around 1 pm, and we immediately boarded a train to Alexandria, with the help of a very kind, older army guy who helped us get the tickets and showed us to the train. I think he enjoyed it and kept teasing us about getting an extra ticket for him too;)

Dahab

So....I'm officially a certified open water scuba diver! yup, Louise and I took a scuba course at Big Blue and learned how to scuba in the Red Sea;) Pretty much the sweetest thing ever. We took the course with a fellow traveler (30 some year old John-there is a creepy trend of 30 year old males clinging to us) and had a great young Scottish instructor named Vivienne. Managed to finish the course in 3 days packed with dives, skills, reading/movies, wksts, quizes and tests. But we did it and boy was it worth it. Today we dived two of the best spots in the world...canyon and Blue Hole. We went with an instructor and a couple from Arizona, down to 30 m for both of them and it was pretty crazy. The first 10 m are the worst and really affect your ears, but by the time you get down to 30 it's not bad at all. Blue Hole was amazing...the coral was huge and gorgeous, and the aquatic life was numerous and beautiful. Our guide, an awesome guy named Emad, opened his mouth and let a wrasse fish in to clean his teeth....better watch out mom, I hear it's the new thing and you might be losing your job soon;) Emad is an amazing diver, and has done 6,000 dives in 8 years. He plays around so much and has a blast underwater...it was quite fun going with him. We saw a bunch of fish and it was just like out of a documentary or something. Amazing...y'all have to try it sometime.

Dahab is a sweet town....very relaxed and cool atmosphere. It's only a few blocks long along the coast and has many restaurants serving the same things, but their fairly cheap and have decent food. One of my favorite places serves some amazing thick pudding like sahleb, topped with strawberries and bananas. We're paying a whopping $3.50 a night for a place at Jimmy's which is decent. Breakfasts are amazing and only $2. The last night in Dahab we strolled along the main street and did some shopping. Ran into some little local girls selling bracelets and started talking to one named Noora. She was a really sweet girl and we talked for awhile and bought some bracelets. Some others then came up and initially started intensely questioning why we didn't by from them but all but one obnoxious girl quit after a few minutes and sat down to talk. She kept throwing a little fit, thrusting her bracelets on me and being quite mean about it and I really wanted to smack her, but I refrained. The guy at the nearby Caravan restaurant was trying hard to get us to come for dinner, so he brought us some fresh lemon juice which pretty much sealed the deal. For 25 EG (less than $5), we got an amazing meal of tabouli, tahini, bean salad, eggplant sauteed, baba ghanoush, cucumber yoghurt, and freshly made pita bread for starters, along with grilled chicken, rice, veggies, tea and crepe with ice cream for dessert. Yeah, it was quite a feast. Noora came by and sat with us for awhile and then we played backgammon for a bit...her friends soon followed and eventually the restaurant guys told us they were bad for business and had to go....

Dahab was over all a blast and thawed us out from Turkey and Jordan. We both sport a pretty nice tan now. And now, I will probably start planning vacations around diving;)

Petra

the treasury

If there is one place you see before you die, forget about the eiffel tower, forget about the colisseum, forget about minnesota (I know you were debating this one;)....and make it Petra. First walking down the siq (a rock canyon) towards the stunning treasury was an unforgettable and indescribable experience. The Nabateans were skillfull carvers that way back around 300 or so bc carved tons of tombs out of the rocks. However, the impressive thing about it was the geological landscape. The rocks were incredible...pictures are unable to capture the beauty of them...the various shades and concavity of the rocks were beyond words. In different sunlight, the rocks were different colors....reds, tans, browns all in different layers and patterns. Pretty sweet place. We spent two days exploring Petra, although I'm convinced that it could be done in one. The first day we went along the main path and saw all the big sites, including a trek up a hill to the monastery. The second we spent hiking along one of the many paths. Trekked around with two 30-some year old aussies named Hulgar and Nathan, which pretty much describes itself...I mean, how can you beat hiking with Hulgar?! Well, I guess we kinda did, by grabbing beers afterwards in a 2000 some year old cave bar...which was, well cold and dark, but the company was fun. Dinners at valentines were amazing....for 4 JD, we got a buffet style dinner with around 20 amazing vegetarian dishes of homemade Jordanian food. It was pretty great.

petra

Took a bus to Aqaba where we got tickets for the ferry to Nuweiba, Egypt. It was pretty hilarious how unorganized and lack of directions there were....we first went up to the second floor of this building to buy tickets, where we had to go across the hall to the bank to pay for it, and then go down to the first floor to pay a departure tax, and then go back to the second floor to get our passports stamped...there were no directions or signs to this all so it was figured out by wandering around and showing up to windows where they would point us in the right direction, along with a few fairly confusing english words. We finally made it though and grabbed a bite to eat, and wondered where we would get on the ferry until I found out we had to take another bus to the ferry, so we took off so we could catch the ferry before it left. The ferry was fairly uneventful and longer than expected although apparently in the opposite direction in can be delayed (and often is) by as much as 12 hours! We ran into a tour guide who basically got kicked out of Jordan for bureacratic reasons, so she gave us the downlow on what to do (since the officials seem to let you do whatever-they are great at telling you what not to do, but tend to fail when it comes to telling you what you should do;).

From Nuweiba we immediately jumped on a bus to Dahab, which is basically a backpackers/diving central and heaven for sore eyes;) More to come....

Dead Sea!!

Louise and I enjoying dinner in Olympos, Turkey

Amman is not a terrifically spectacular city, but I think it will live forever in Louise and my mind's as an amazing place, simply because of the generosity of the Ibbini family. They were some of the kindest people we met. They invited us over for a family lunch at their home on Friday, where they made a traditional Jordanian meal called mensaf. It was absolutely delicious...rice with pine nuts and boiled lamb (intact head and all;) placed on top, and then a yummy warm yoghurt sauce on top. It was sooo good. We also had some cardammon tea afterwards along with some delicious kanafa. We chatted with their family for awhile and got to know some of Ahmed's brothers and sisters (12 kids in all) and their families.

Ahmed and mensaf

After lunch, Moayad, one of Ahmed's nephews, offered to show us around town. We spent til midnight driving around with him and his friend Yanal. It was great and we got to see much more of Amman, since you really need a car to get around town. He took us to Mecca Mall, a huge shopping mall pretty comparable to the states, and one of his friends took pictures of us in the mall, which was pretty crazy and a bit odd. (you get some odd looks when you're taking a bunch of pictures of yourself in a mall;) He then drove us to his university and we grabbed coffee while he met with some of his friends for a club he's in. Shopping seems to be the thing to do in Amman, at least this time of year, because we stopped at another outdoor pedestrian street lined with shops and then headed to yet another huge shopping mall to watch a movie (Enchanted). We then tasted some popular food called zataar (?) which is a thin bread wrap filled with different things....I had it filled with yoghurt and some smushed eggplant and it was really good. Amman is not the prettiest town, nor the best layout, but they certainly have a lot of things for entertainment and you can get pretty much everything you can in the states. I think the thing that I disliked the most about it was simply the climate....its so dry there that there is little to no greenery and instead of plants around buildings, there is just clumps of rocks and dirt. However, the people are super nice though and more than make up for what the surroundings lack. A funny thing we found out is that Jordanians tend to have more than one cell phone....and we're not talking two or three....some of them have as many as 8 different cell phones! they have to have the newest and best model and often times they have cell phones with different providers to talk to different friends. And it's not like its cheap...apparently, on average, they spend an outrageous amount of money on cell phones.

Louise and Noor floating in the Dead Sea

salt in the dead sea

The next day the Ibbini family generously invited us to go to the Dead Sea with them. It was a spectacular day....even the weather was terrific..in the 70s and sunny plus the sea was pretty warm. Ahmed is the director in charge of the Dead Sea area, so I think we got a bit of special treatment;) There was a nice beach, with an area with two swimming pools, tables and chairs if you didn't want to swim in the sea. Headed straight away to the sea though, which was pretty wicked. It is downright ridiculous how much salt is in it....salt ppt floating at the surface, salt crystals on rocks on the bottom, and layers of separated salt and sand composing the bottom. It stung like crazy if you got it in your eyes and tasted nasty. You float so high in it that it is difficult to swim. We went way out without hardly any effort. We also put some of the mud from the bottom all over us, let it dried, and then rubbed it off. It is supposed to be amazing for your skin, and indeed it felt amazing. My skin was so soft and clean afterwards, felt almost like leaving a hammum. Looked pretty funny probably though with all this brown dirt dried on me;)

We ate pretty well in Amman, which was probably good for us after all the street vendors in Turkey;) My personal favorite though was the juice stands in Amman which gave delicious fresh squeezed juices. mmmm, wish we had that back in mn;) We also bought some super cheap and pretty good quality movies...1 lyra each (~$1.20). Spent a few hours waiting around for a bus to wadi musa (petra) and had quite an experience there. We were sitting on the sidewalk waiting for the bus when a group of little 10 year old hooligans came buy and one got shoved into me. They walked off laughing and then came back a few min later and they were showing me that they were playfully beating the kid up. They then commenced with saying the few english words they know, which primarily consisted of "fuck you." Louise did a good job and told them off, with the addition of a strict finger wave. Their mothers would be proud;) Anyhoo, getting on the bus was a fiasco....we had a bunch of men trying to drive us down in their taxis, for an exhorbitant price and finally the bus driver came by and kicked some guys out so we would have a spot. It was a crazy ride down in the packed minivan with horribly arabic music playing. Finally made it to wadi musa and ended up in valentin inn packed with fellow backpackers which was pretty crazy. There were a bunch of cool people and it seemed to be especially full of young jewish kids going to israel on birthright program (basically they all went for the free all expense paid trip) and it was cool to hear their view of things and refreshing to see that they could even sympathize with the palestinians and didn't agree with all that israel does. Anyhoo, tomorrow we're off to explore Petra!

Amman, Jordan

Whew...just finished a whirlwind of a day. Got jipped again last night in the taxi from the bus station to the hotel-paid 5 JD for a 15 min ride and it should have been closer to 2, but as they say, "welcome to Jordan:)" Grabbed some fuul/hummus and fresh pita bread at a street vendor for under a buck. The hotel is decent...a better way of putting it is that the large living room area with couches makes up for what the rooms/showers lack. Did some laundry in the morning as it was cloudy and raining and then hit the streets to get mightily lost on our way to Hashemite sq. We are staying in downtown Amman, where there are lots of rundown shops and its a bit grungy, and has a dearth of street signs. Stopped to ask some police the way which didn't help much. Finally wandered back and took some turns and low and behold we ended up on the right street and made our way there alright. Its a cute little park with an ancient Roman amphitheater built into the hillside and is supposed to be a good place to people watch, but it was pretty empy probably due to the fact that it was around noon on a thursday.

Pretty much as soon as we got there it started to downpoor again and we took a cab over to a nicer part of Amman (jebel amman) to Abdoun circle, which is pretty classy and completely different from downtown and where they restaurants have decided to tack on a pretty hefty 26% tax/service charge to everything. Despite this, it's still fairly cheap (coffee is delightedly a mere couple of dollars;). Stores are more spread out, cleaner and more expensive. The people are dressed in european fashions and you hardly see any women in hijab. Comparatively, downtown there are more men, and the women are pretty much covered, many wearing chadors and some even with their faces covered. Grabbed some lunch in Tche Tche cafe wear there were lots of women in 20-30s and practically everyone was constantly smoking either cigarettes or shisha. It continued to rain so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice valentine's day sans hommes and headed across the street to Cafe Moka where we grabbed some dessert and some tasty drinks. I had an espresso with milk, orange juice and cinnamon with blended ice and Louise had a mint lemonade that tasted a bit like a mojito. Very yummy. We then continued our fun-filled day and headed across the street again to the Galleria Cinema where we watched an Egyptian film all in Arabic. It was a light romantic comedy and despite my lack of Arabic knowledge, wasn't too difficult to figure out what was going on, although it would be interesting to see what the actual story line is.

After the movie, we took a taxi to the Blue Fig Cafe for dinner. The taxi guy got lost for a bit (he thought it was someplace but it didn't look right, so we continued to drive in circles for a good 5-10 minutes until he finally asked another cabby and turned out he was right in the beginning;) but he was super nice about it and apologized even though it wasn't really his fault. The place was uber cool and reminded me a lot of Chino Latinos. There were lots of young Jordanian couples out for Valentine's day, but my date was best of all (yes, you louise;) It's a chic bar type restaurant that often has live music and kick-ass menu with food from all over the world (organized into similar food categories like ravioli, manti, and spanish/indian/chinese versions of the same dishes). It was really cool and we ended up getting some tasty Jordanian pizza with sauteed tomatoes, onions, peppers covered with mozarella and pine nuts. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel after convincing a taxi driver to take us there.....the bum was trying to rip us off and claimed that given the weather no taxis were driving into downtown tonight (a bunch of bs, it was merely drizzling and we're in a car for crying out loud...people drive in much worse). He wanted 4 YTL but I refused and told him only 3...in the end he was like "what about 4" and I replied with no way, I told you 3 and you drove.

Got back to the hotel and I called Uncle Emad's brother who came over immediately and much to our surprise took us back to his house. We met his family and spent a good couple of hours chatting with them. They were extremey hospitable and we had a valentine's day cake (I told you, our day just kept getting better;) There were some awesome folks and really into traveling themselves (the little girl Noor is in 5th grade and her favorite things are art and traveling and I'm trying to convince her to come along with us;) Pretty fun kids and it seems like their life is identical to ours back home. They told us that since the war in Iraq, they have a lot of Iraqis coming into Jordan and consequently prices have doubled to tripled in the past few years. On the drive back to our hotel, the dad got into a road rage argument with a crazy cab driver. It turned into a few minutes of yelling back and forth, stopped in the middle of the street downtown. The best part was when Noor turned to me and said, "I love it when he does that!" lol, she cracked us up. Anyhoo, that was probably hands down the best valentines day ever.

Istanbul revisited

Spent another long 14 hour night on a bus back to Istanbul and managed to figure out the metro/tram back to Sultanahmet, despite the rain which seems to follow us wherever we go. (the metro people don't speak very good english and there were no maps up) Finally we experienced the joys of a well heated room,. The Sultan hostel had a bit of a makeover while we were gone and was painted all sorts of bright colors. Crashed for a few hours and went for another run along the shore and then hit up a local restaurant called Doy Doy which was very tasty. I had some sort of beef/tomato/potato/green pepper stew. I got some sweets afterwards (some kanaffa type stuff) and the guy also gave me a few pastry balls soaked in sweet syrup to try....unfortunately in the process I managed to lose 15 YTL which wasn't a big deal other than the fact that we only had one day left and I really didn't want to take more money out of the atm.

Back at the hostel we chatted for a bit with the guys working there and some other backpackers. Met a girl from Haiti who is studying at Haifa and wants to move to Turkey. She was pretty cool and it was interesting to hear her background.

Spent the next day wandering all around the city....took the ferry across the bosphorous to the asian side of istanbul, which was awesome and we absolutely fell in love with. Everyone plays it down and says the only reason to go is to see the european part better, but Louise and I both loved it better than the other parts. It felt like the real Istanbul...Sultanahmet (the old part of the city) is extremely touristy now, Taksim and Beyoglu area are very europeanized and feel like 5th ave or the Champs Elysee. But kadikoy and the asian side felt like Turkey. The locals were going about their business and we wandered the hilly streets and stopped in a few cute shops. Lots of charming streets with street vendors all around and lots of really good, cheap looking restaurants. Stopped in a pastry shop and tried to buy a few balls of the syrup dough, and the guy who didn't speak much english was trying to give me a huge box full;) after about 3 minutes of telling him no less, no less, no that's still way too much, he finally asked me how many I wanted and I ended up with 5 instead of 50;) Picked up a traditional Turkish cd which I'm pumped for...it was playing in the shop when we were there and sounded pretty sweet. It's crazy but Istanbul is a huge city...about 15 million people and even on a Tuesday afternoon, there were people EVERYWHERE. We were starting to wonder if they work at all;) Took the ferry over to Beyoglu (european side) and wandered along the streets eventually making our way up the hill towards Istiklal Caddesi and Taksim Sq. Had a nice detour through the hardware store part of town...one shop had all sorts of nuts and bolts prominently displayed in neatly organized glass bowls in the window.

Wandered along Istiklal for awhile, laughing at the exhorbitant price of coffee (around $5-6!). Not surprisingly, there was also a Starbucks every couple hundred meters. Managed to find a cute little coffee shop on a side street not 20 feet away from the main road, which had coffee and sahlep for only about $3. It was a cute place with comfy couches, and lots of locals playing cards and backgammon. Stayed there for awhile and then went next door to grab a bite to eat at local cafeteria style place which again had great cheap food...rice and stew for under $3. We then went to a nearby bar where they had live traditional Turkish music. It was a bit early still so we were pretty much the only ones there (there were the owner/workers and a few other men hanging around but we think they were somehow affiliated with the place). Had some wine/beer and some amazing pistachios. A young guy was playing the Soos (oud) and singing and it was rather beautiful. After about an hour and a half, he took a break and they all came and chatted (or rather, tried to chat) for awhile. The young musician was trying really hard to talk to us but was having difficulties as he didn't have the vocab and had to keep asking the 70 year old owner for words like married and such, which probably embarassed him a bit but mightily amused us. He kept getting frustrated and it was hilarious because he would throw his hands up in the air and say "Problem.....large" and then shrug, slap his leg and say "Sheeeet!" He did this over and over and it was probably one of the funniest things I've seen. After straightening out the bill (they overcharged us for the drinks and then tapped on 4 YTL for the pistachios) we headed back towards the hostel and rashly splurged on 3 YTL chocolate from a street stand. I say rashly, because after paying the hotel and airport transfer fee the next day (it was raining/snowing and we didn't want to get drenched on the way to the airport) we made it out barely, and by that I mean we didn't have a penny to spare.

Had an interesting bus trip to the airport...met a lot of fellow tourists including a Nebraskan cop spending some time in Kosovo who kept telling me if he ever caught me going through Nebraska without getting off the interstate, he would throw me in jail;) There were also some girls from England who were studying Arabic and English and there were some interesting political conversations going on. The van was packed and extremely stuffy but we managed to make it to the airport alright. Had a nice meal on Jordanian airlines and landed in Amman a-okay, and discovered, much to our dismay, that the rain had followed us yet again;)

Fethiye...and beyond!

Took a very windy, stomach wrenching four hour bus ride to Fethiye along the coast. While it was beautiful scenery, we both felt a bit nauseated by the end. At one stop, I ran out to get us some fresh oranges (it's orange season here and you can see them everywhere) and the owner was super nice and gave me four oranges for free. The bus stopped in another town called Kas, a cute little town where a Turk told us St. Nicholas was born. They had a cute little statue of santa claus in the middle of a square, and since then Louise and I have seen about four men wandering the streets that resemble santa claus and it's been fun to discover them;) Fethiye is an awesome, laid back town, big into sailing and hiking and such, but disappointingly the crappy weather followed us, so we ended up staking out a good coffee shop and spent the better half of two days in it. It was good to get some reading and knitting done, although it was a bit frustrating to be in Turkey on the Mediterranean and stuck in a coffee shop. There was an awesome boardwalk along the shore with tons of restaurants and coffee shops and locals hanging about. People were very relaxed and you'd see them walking around in jeans/sweat shirts and workout clothes. Stayed in a crazy hostel called Farah's place, where the owners lived and had about 4 cats and a huge dog that wandered around the place. It was filled with plants and schtick everywhere. The oweners were nice though and pretty much kept to themselves.

The coffee shop we staked out had AMAZING coffee (probably even better due to the nescafes other places sold for exhorbitant prices that we avoided) and it was decently priced too (only $2-3). The place was packed with locals, either watching a football (soccer) match or playing backgammon. The never ending sound of dice hitting the board was omnipresent. It was fun and Louise and I played a bit....sadly we had both forgotten how to setup the board and had to ask the older waiter if it was right, and he happily confirmed it was right and proceeded to help us along a bit. Really nice guy and he kept coming back to check up on us and see how it was going. Grabbed a doner for dinner (hehe, that sounds wicked) in a wrap with french fries in the sandwhich, which was surprisingly tasty. Walked around town a bit and checked out the Carrefour, which was the largest grocery store in town. It was fun to check out the food.

The next day was again rainy and we headed straight away to our favorite coffee shop. Staked out a table right next to the huge open fire pit, and proceeded to drink some amazing Sahlep. It's sort of like a chai latte, and is milk with some sort of white root powder, topped with cinnamon....tastes a bit like rice pudding as its a bit thick. The waiter kept giving us supposedly free drinks throughout the day (they had the best apple tea there), which in the end we had to pay for;) He was constantly hanging around and asking if we wanted to smoke nargileh later or if we liked to drink and then wanted me to give him the scarf I was knitting in exchange for his heart...our numerous refusals apparently did not sink in. He then proceeded to tell us that we should be wary of Turkish men as they don't have good intentions and only want sex, which was funny because he was one of only a few Turks that we had run into that had acted this way. The rest have been extremely decent folks.

Olympos

After another all night bus ride and a few short bus rides, we finally arrived early in the morning in Olympos. It's a small and extremely touristy town, which was pretty much dead given its the low season. The "town" consisted of a bunch of treehouse hotels and a few restaurants which were pretty much all shut down. We stayed at the Turkemen Treehouse Pension, although we stayed in a bungalow aka small, dilapidated shack as the treehouses don't have heating. We walked along the beach which we had to pay for since its a national park with ancient Roman ruins. They were pretty dismal, but the beach and mediterranean were beautiful but the shore was fairly rocky. The landscape was fairly similar to Colorado with lots of pines, rivers and rocky cliffs but with the addition of the mediterranean. We ran along the beach for a bit, trying to avoid the incoming waves and jumping over the rocks in the sand.

On the plus side, breakfast and dinner were included in the rate, and we had an amazing dinner beside a huge fire. Dinner consisted of rice, chicken breast, a salad, and garbonzo bean/tomato soup. There were construction workers all over as they were building new luxory treehouses complete with jacuzzis...crazy eh? In the summer apparently, the place is a big party town...kinda glad we avoided that. Sadly we didn't go see what olympos is famous for...the chimeara, flames coming out of the side of the mountain. Everyone gave really vague directions and they wanted to charge us a fortune to bring us there, and so we decided to skip it. Probably would have been cool although I suspect it would have been one of those things that is cooler to say you did it, than actually seeing it;) Louise and I exchanged Arabic and Farsi lessons, which will hopefully come in handy later on. Talked for awhile with a German chap that I think owns the place. The only other tourists at the place was a Canadian girl that was dating a Turkish guy. Called it an early and turned the heater on full blast, hoping to finally get one warm nights sleep...after awhile 10' by 8' shack felt a bit warmer. There is something to be said for a good heater, and it's something they seem to be lacking in this part of the world, at least in the $20 hotels;)

Cappadocıa-Göreme

We stayed a few days ın Göreme whıch ıs a sweet town ın Cappadocıa where there are tons of caves carved out of the old volcano deposıts. We met a guy named Levı from Colorado and stayed ın the Kısmet Cave Hotel whıch a frıend of a frıend of louıses owns. It was an awesome place and we actually slept ın a cave. It was a bıt cold-freezıng ın fact but Faruk the owner was awesome. He gave us a lot of good tıps on thıngs to do and drove us around a bıt and then let us hang out ın hıs offıce and meet all hıs frıends that came by. It was a really fun couple of days. We explored a lot of caves and underground cıtıes where thousands of people lıved. They even had wınery and stable and schools underground. We also walked around the Göreme open aır museum whıch ıs a bunch of cave churches from as far back as 1 ad. They had some really cool frescoes paınted on the ceılıng and ıt was cool to see. We met a lot of nıce local kıds and got to talk to them a bıt...over many glasses of tea to keep warm at the local hang out a restaurant called the sılk road. Turkgeı ıs a young artıst who makes really cool ceramıcs and paınts them and he also does frescoes on the ceılıng of the local hammum. Hıs stuff ıs really ımpressıve. he had learned some phrases ın farsı and ıt was hılarıous bc he talked just lıke people from tabrız wıth such a strong turkısh accent...ı couldnt help but laugh. we also met a guy who was kıcked out of ıran bc of hıs polıtıcal wrıtıngs. he had some really crazy storıes to tell especıally one where he swam ın the medıteranean for a whole day as he was tryıng to escape the cops. he also told us thıs funny story of an amerıcan tourıst who went to ıran shortly after 9/11 and the guy grew a long beard for awhıle so he wouldnt stand out and when he got to the aırport he realızed no one had a beard so he quıckly ran to the aırport bathroom and shaved:)

Faruks wıfe made dınner for us one nıght and ıt was pretty good. we ate a lot of yummy tradıtıonal turkısh food. she made a garbonzo bean and tomato soup and some tortelını fılled meat dısh called mantı and a potato tomato and green pepper cooked dısh wıth some meat. ıt was all pretty good stuff. as good as the cheap street döners are you need some good hearty food every now and then. we are pretty much lıvıng off of way too much bread:) The nıghts ın Göreme were pretty much fılled wıth drınıkıng tea and learnıng turkısh around the stove and tryıng to stay warm. Faruk and hıs frıend had a backgammon match that got pretty ıntense. all ın all ıt was a great tıme but Im ready to move on to a warmer clımate.

Pamukkale and Mıchael

Today we headed out to Pamukkale a place that has amazıng calcıum bıcarbonate deposıts (travertınes. about 14000 years old?) and looks lıke ıcebergs but feels lıke sand wıth water flowıng all around and cool pools of water formıng. The Romans had buılt a cool cıty there a long tıme ago. It was a beautıful place especıally to watch the sunset however the adventure was gettıng there. Two guys named Danıelle and Mıchael at the bus statıon sold us the tıckets (ın Turkey there are tons of bus companıes and you have to talk to them all to fınd the best deal) and they were good bc they were the few people who spoke englısh. They explaıned that we would have to take a small bus from denızlı to pamukkale bc they dont go dırect. However what dıd happen was lookıng back on ıt slıghtly shady at fırst. the bus pulled over ın the mıddle of the hıghway and there was a plaın unmarked whıte van on the sıde wıth two guys and the bus boy told us ıt was our stop. so we got off and the guys ın the van told us they would take us to pamukkale. along the way we stopped some random guys house and he got ınto the van and the drıver handed hıs wıfe 100 lyra whıch was weırd. we then ended up ın pamukkale and much to our annoyance ın a tour offıce rather than at the sıte. we got the whole shpeal (?) about theır travel company but managed to get away wıthout spendıng any money. It was quıte an ordeal as they gave us tea and some gozleme (lıke a turkısh crepe) and turned the heater on just for us. They were a bıt bummed out. But we dıd talk to one of theır guys for awhıle who was pretty nıce. He told us that he loves motorcycles and when he was young he bought one. Hıs dad made hım sell ıt and told hım to get a tractor ınstead. Its hılarıous but you see lots of people around here drıvıng tractors and not just to work ın the fıelds. You see famılıes rıdıng around to go out to places and ıts quıte a common source of transport. So common ın fact that ın ıstanbul as you get on the hıghway you see a sıgn that says no tractors or wagons allowed:)

Anyways we got back to Denızlı that nıght all rıght and had already bought a nıght tıcket for the bus to cappadoccıa from Mıchael. We got to the bus statıon and must have looked pretty helpless because ımmedıately thıs old man told a young boy to help us out. The boy grabbed our tıcket out of Louıses hand and took us down the back hallway to the bus companıes offıce. He just barged ın the back door and told Louıse to go ın. He then started talkıng to me and ıntroduced hımself and then gave me huge kısses on my cheek. awkward! anyways luckıly louıse came out then and she found out that ıt was the wrong bus company. the guy asked us ıf we got the tıcket from Mıchael and then he just shook hıs head. the boy then took us through the back door of four other companıes and fınally one told us that Mıchael sold us a tıcket for a non exıstıng bus. and they were gonna help us but they had to waıt tıll he forwarded them the money. fınally Mıchael saıd he would and ıt turns out he stole 20 lyra from us. From the men ın the bus company thıs seemed lıke a normal occurance. the sleazeball. anyways wasnt that bıg of a deal and we got a lotof orange tea out of the deal. we got up afterwards to grab some dınner and all the men ın the offıce were all concerned about us and were lıke where are you goıng and ar eyou goıng to be alrıght? ıt was pretty funny. apparently ıt dıdnt do much to ımprove our helplessness look. Through talkıng wıth a lot of people we have realızed that they all try to take care of us and help us out because they thınk we are so young....everyone thınks that we are about 15-18 years old:) at least they thınk ı am one year older than louıse who ıs actually two years older:)

Ephesus and Sirince

We found a cool hostel in Selcuk to stay at called Jimmy's, although they raved about their great heating and then purposely did not give us the remote to the strong heater and instead turned on a wimpy little radiator that failed to even noticeably heat the room after a full day. We befriended some fellow tourists from Utah (a grandma, aunt, and boy) who since obviously had more money than us, were getting the royal treatment. They used their remote to turn our heater on (take that Jimmy;) and then offered to drive us around to a bunch of ancient Roman sites in Pirene, Miletus, and Didymos. It was a long day, of seeing practically identical ruins, but it was cool nonetheless. Spent the next morning at Ephesus, supposedly the next best ruin to Pompei. Pretty sweet place, but I think we were pretty ruined out from the previous day:) In the afternoon, we went to a little village in the hills called Sirince which is known for their fruit wines that they make. We wandered around a bit and had some gozleme, a Turkish version of a crepe filled with veggies and cheese....it was delish. Also tried the Ephes Pilson beer, which wasn't bad either. We then wandered around and taste tested the various wines. They had everything including blackberry, pomegranate, kiwi, apple, peach, honeydew, cherry, blueberry, black mulberry and more. Wallked back to Selcuk and enjoyed the surrounding scenery...it's pretty green with lots of olive trees, stray dogs, and even some horses around.

Troy...or maybe Selcuk?

We left Istanbul via bus and headed towards a small town called Canukkale where we were planning on visiting Troy, yes, THE Troy. However, one bus and ferry ride later we arrived and found that all of the hostels were shut down since it's low season. We ended up taking off and two buses later we ended up late at night in Selcuk. It was an interesting whirlwind of a day. As soon as Louise and I got off the bus, tons of men around starting talking to us. Thinking they would be like Moroccans and try to get money off of us by taking us to a hotel, we avoided them but shortly realized that they were trying to help us. That's pretty much been the same experience everywhere we've been. We must look like two helpless little girls, as most think we are about 18 and they all come up to us genuinely trying to help. It's kinda fun, like we are their daughters or something;) The buses are hilarious. On one, there were four workers, one driving, one doing the bags and two serving tea and pastries. Yes, they serve tea/coffee/pop on the buses for free. And they have movies showing and even individual tvs for everyone. crazy eh? We watched part of one Turkish movie where they depicted Americans in a hilarious albeit embarassing way. The American army guys in charge of a missile launched it towards Iran by accident as they were making bets on a football game. To avoid catastrophe, they redirected the missile towards Turkey and then sent a group out to find it. The group consisted of two very sleazy girls wearing practically no clothes and very skinny with blonde hair, and some jock guys, along with a nerdy guy that spoke horrible Turish. They also swore constantly and goofed off a lot. Another interesting tidbit about the buses is they just seem to stop in the middle of nowhere and let people on. We can't tell if they are designated stops or not, but they'll just pull over on the highway and people get on.

Raki is a common favorite drink among the Turks and it's pretty hard liquor made out of anis seed and tastes like liquorice. Another interesting fact I've learned is that the term kangaroo comes from the aboriginals in Australia. When James Cook landed he asked them what it was and they replied "kangaroo" which in their language means "I don't understand" but apparently he took it as the name of the animal. That's about all for now, not too much to report yet.

Istanbul, Constantınople:)

Louıse and I arrıved ın Istanbul the other day and have been hangıng out ın sultanahmet, the old part of the cıty and are stayıng ın a hostel a few blocks away from the blue mosque and top kapı palace. we got gıpped at the aırport...the ınformatıon guy told us that takıng the metro to our hostel would be expensıve and that ıts dangerous for two gırls to go on ıt alone so we would be better to take a shuttle dırect to our hostel....agaınst our better judgement we lıstened and ended up payıng a ton to get there. ah well so goes lıfe. the blue mosque was beautıful and the top kapı had a lot of cool jewelry and such. my favorıte part though has been a walk to taksım sq and our dınner at a local restaurant. no one spoke englısh and we had to poınt at the food we wanted but ıt was delısh and cheap and they were very kınd. coffee ıs extremely expensıve here, about 4 for a glass and surprısıngly starbucks has the cheapest stuff;) not much else to report, other than a relaxıng past few days. the turks are very dıfferent from moroccans and thankfully, for the most part are very kınd and helpful.