Turkey
Ok, i will have a go at a Turkey post..while i am still upright. Am going to try and go for a really short walk outside today as i havent seen the outside world in 5 days and am starting to get cabin-fever.
My first impression of Turkey was being completely overwhelmed by the size of Istanbul. Also, not being able to read a map in public. As soon as the map comes out, coupled with a backpack, you suddenly get around 150 offers of help (help being directions to a cousin, mother, sister's guesthouse who also happens to be Australian) The first day we found the hostel we were booked with and shut the door of our room and cowered in the corner.
I have to admire the skill of these guys, half the time you dont realise you are being fed a line until you are halfway there. Then you feel all hurt, cause you had to be really firm to get rid of them, and maybe they really just did want to be helpful (i know, i am a sucker at heart)
By the second day, we had figured out not to acknowledge anyone shouting out a test-english sentance to us, and i stopped smiling at people. I must have perfected by stony face look, cause by the end of the trip the first language tried on me had changed to german, rather than english.
We saw the blue Mosque, which was interesting, but not as cool as the Aya Sofia. I really enjoyed that one. The mosaics were fabulous and the sheer size of the place was incomprehensible. I felt like an itty bitty ant standing in the centre of the massive dome. A lot of reconstruction work is going on there at the moment so there was a lot of scafolding. But we did get photos of the mosaics, and photos of the varangian graffiti.
We went to Topkapi Palace, and saw the relic room (Hmmm Mohammids teeth, in an unopened silver box, also hair. And a footprint would you believe it.) We made our serious faces and looked at everything in the sombre manner instructed by the sign. And then left and had a little quiet giggle.
We had been to the Museum already that day, so weren't really impressed (kinda like the whole, 'oh, another 2500BC pot. How, yawn, exiting')
I did see an 87 carat diamond. It was....big.
Also braved the Grand Bazzar. Glad we had done our serious face training before we went. We had a wander around and got lost. Part of the charm. Also saw a few old men looking like they were selling purse packs of tissues, only to realise that they had packets of viagra for sale under the tissues. Didnt get a photo of that unfortuntaly.
More on the road trip later....
My first impression of Turkey was being completely overwhelmed by the size of Istanbul. Also, not being able to read a map in public. As soon as the map comes out, coupled with a backpack, you suddenly get around 150 offers of help (help being directions to a cousin, mother, sister's guesthouse who also happens to be Australian) The first day we found the hostel we were booked with and shut the door of our room and cowered in the corner.
I have to admire the skill of these guys, half the time you dont realise you are being fed a line until you are halfway there. Then you feel all hurt, cause you had to be really firm to get rid of them, and maybe they really just did want to be helpful (i know, i am a sucker at heart)
By the second day, we had figured out not to acknowledge anyone shouting out a test-english sentance to us, and i stopped smiling at people. I must have perfected by stony face look, cause by the end of the trip the first language tried on me had changed to german, rather than english.
We saw the blue Mosque, which was interesting, but not as cool as the Aya Sofia. I really enjoyed that one. The mosaics were fabulous and the sheer size of the place was incomprehensible. I felt like an itty bitty ant standing in the centre of the massive dome. A lot of reconstruction work is going on there at the moment so there was a lot of scafolding. But we did get photos of the mosaics, and photos of the varangian graffiti.
We went to Topkapi Palace, and saw the relic room (Hmmm Mohammids teeth, in an unopened silver box, also hair. And a footprint would you believe it.) We made our serious faces and looked at everything in the sombre manner instructed by the sign. And then left and had a little quiet giggle.
We had been to the Museum already that day, so weren't really impressed (kinda like the whole, 'oh, another 2500BC pot. How, yawn, exiting')
I did see an 87 carat diamond. It was....big.
Also braved the Grand Bazzar. Glad we had done our serious face training before we went. We had a wander around and got lost. Part of the charm. Also saw a few old men looking like they were selling purse packs of tissues, only to realise that they had packets of viagra for sale under the tissues. Didnt get a photo of that unfortuntaly.
More on the road trip later....