Turkey and Greece

Hi everyone,

Well, after a week off work it's time to start again, but the 9.5 days of vacation was great. I went to Istanbul, Santorini and Athens, but the best part was meeting up with my family (won't be able to do that until I go back home now). So lets start at the beginning.

Day1
• Well, I flew in to Istanbul to meet up with everyone. Upon landing the whole plane started clapping and stuff, so I don't know if it's just a sign of appreciation or if a safe landing is that rare it has to be celebrated...
• The passport control lines were huge but luckily I spotted my brother near the end of a line (he arrived a bit before me) and cut infront of a couple hundred people, was great.
• The salesmen in Istanbul are annoying and try to sell everything, even at the airport. Tried to get us to take their shuttles buses to our hotel for 40 and 30 YTL, we took the metro (cost only 4.40)
• The Hotel we stayed at was the Yasmuk Sultan, very nice and close to all the sites in the old city.
• The rest of the day was spent waiting for my parents to arrive. They were delayed so it took a while.
• When they finally came, we went out for some dinner. Don’t know how traditional the food was, but we had Comlek kebabi, Pazi Sarmali Incik (lamb shank wrapped in chard), and Kuzu Kolsarmasi (stuffed lamb shoulder).
• We went to the hotel rooftop restaurant afterwards, nice view of the Blue Mosque at night.

Day2
• Going to an old ATM makes you feel rich, the enter the amount to withdrawl screen was in the old currency, so dad withdrew 600,000,000 TL :)
• Went to Aya Sofia. It was originally a church (roman times) then the turks won some battle and turned it into a Mosque. Kind cool, can see the Christian elements under the Muslim stuff.
• Pilars were used in James Bond’s “From Russia With Love” but can’t remember the exact scene. That’s 3 Bond locations down.
• Interesting facts, 1 pilar is crooked, mosaic of empress shows her like 20ish but she was 60 (a little vain, eh), and every time she killed off her husband and got remarried (3 times) she’s just get the head of the emperor redone in the mosaic and not the whole body.
• Went to Topkapi Palace, saw the Harem (couldn’t go in to) museum, Sultan’s Clothes, Mohammed’s hair, sword, Koran, 3rd largest Diamond in the world (Kasikci Diamond)
• Interesting fact, the diamond is named after the guy that bought it from a merchant (when it was in rough form) for 3 spoons. When the merchant realized what he did, he tried to get it back, case went to the Sultan where the Sultan bought it (probably for more then 3 spoons, maybe 4 ?)
• Saw the skull and arm of John the Baptist.
• Went to the Blue Mosque. Called Blue Mosque because of all the blue tiles inside (really expensive for some reason)
• Walked to Galata Bridge and had some fish-bread (recommended by my Turkish friends)
• Went for dinner, had meat Saute, Coban Kavurma, and Hunkar Begendi
• There are lots of stray cats here, but not as nice as in Santorini (more on that later)

Day3
• Went to Basilica Cistern or Yerebatan Sarnici, not sure the real name. It where the romans kept water back in the day, the cool thing is it is underground.
• Another cool thing was it was the tunnel used in From Russia With Love to spy on the Russians (Bond site number 4)
• Has pillars of Medusa in the back. The eyes are carved out to protect visitors.
• Went to the Grand Bazaar (Covered Bazaar), the place is HUGE!! Tons of shops everything selling everything.
• Tones of really pushy carpet salesmen but they had some cool color changing carpets. Just turn them 180 degrees. Tons of expensive jewelery. And have to negotiate prices like crazy (start at 10% of their asking price and go from there)
• Went to the Spice Bazaar (Egyptian Bazaar). Lots of cool spices, very colorful. I now know what Opium smells like.
• Went for dinner, had Calimare, Mixed Meze plate, Stuffed veggies, Iskender Kebab, Sultan Resat, Mixed grill, Ice cream, rice pudding, and baklava.
• Got a Turkish-Bath. Was weird being rubbed down by some random guy (he better have worked there). You basically sit in a sauna type thing to sweat a lot (no mist of steam). And after 30 min you go to this room and this dude rubs off the loose skin (pleasant image, eh?). Then you get the coldest water in the friggen world poured on you, get a massage (friggen painful, feels like they are ripping off your muscles, but it does feel nice afterwards, but during is just pain, in the words of Homer Simpson, “I’ve been tenderized”), soup, and rinsed off in super cold water again. Afterwards you just sit and chill for a bit. Takes an hour, it’s pretty relaxing but I think the Japanese one should be cooler (they crack all your joints).

Day4
• Took a river cruise around the Bospherous River to the mouth of the Black Sea. Was pretty cool, Europe on the left side, Asian on the right.
• Lots of mosques everywhere.
• Saw a fortress along the river, close up view of the Bospherous Bridge.
• Went to Beylerbeyi Palace on the Asian side, very nice crazy Chandeliers, carpets.
• Had a nice lunch close to the Galata Tower.
• Went to Camlica hill (highest point in Istanbul) great view of the city)
• Went to Maiden's tower (another Bond site, that’s 5 now). This time from “The World Is Not Enough”. Was the place the sub was parked, M was locked up and was Elektra’s hiding place sorta thing.
• Traffic in Istanbul is just crazy.

Day5
• Day5 was sort of a wasted day as it was all travel and lay-overs. Flew to Athens then to Santorini
• Checked out the Athens airport museum, some greek artifacts and stuff
• Really nice view of Greek islands from plane.
• Landing in Santorini is impressive, see nothing then the huge cliff comes out of nowhere and you fly parallel to it and land. The airport is like in a cavern
• Stayed in the Honeymoon Villas (sorta weird being there and not on a honeymoon, but the place was just amazing) in Imerovigli.
• Santorini used to be a round island, volcano blew up (so say this caused the sinking of Atlantis) and now it’s a crescent. Nice view of the Volcano from our room.
• There are 24 villas, and they are exactly what I envision when I think of Greece.
• Amazing view of the sunset and nice night pics

Day6
• Amazing view of sunrise.
• Went to Akirtiri. It like Pompeii but smaller. Basically it’s a complete abandoned town. The people knew to volcano was gonna blow and fled, but no one know where they went or if they made it safely, some thing they fled to Crete but the tidalwave got them. In the town, it’s covered under volcanic ash and the only dead body found was that of a pig. Was neat, but couldn’t see anything since it was all blocked off (being excavated still)
• Took a beach boat tour, went to a red, black and white sand beach. The water was a little cold but very clear. The cliffs are very impressive and lots of caves all over the place.
• From red beach we hiked back to town, neat red hills and cliffs.
• Back at the hotel, we hiked to this far rock/cliff thing. Found a church and another hidden church behind the cliff looking in to the sea.
• Went for a swim.
• Lots of nice cats everywhere, very cool. Found out cats eat French fries.
• More sunset pics
• Went to the main city of Fira for dinner, had Mixed fish grill and Mixed seafood Grill. Fish wasn’t that good but the squid and Octopus was really good.

Day7
• Flew back to Athens
• Went to the National Archeological museum, was an amazing museum with lots of see (Bronse poisiden/zeus sculpture), unfortunately the Egyptian exhibit (supposed to be really good) was closed.
• Took night pics of acropolis
• Ate roast lamb, pork chop, baked lamb in earthenware
• More cats but they were less friendly then the ones in Santorini, still fed them.
Day8
• Went to the Akropolis, saw the Parthenon, Roman cistern, Propylaea, Erechtheion. Temple of Athena Nike was removed to be restored.
• Saw Theatre of Dynoesis.
• Went to the Parliament and watched the changing of the guards (pretty cool, the guards do some weird marching stuff then 3 guards come and 2 replace the 2 current onts). Saw the tomb of unknown soldier.
• Went to the Plaka for dinner, had more greek food.
• Saw random ruins while walking in streets

Day9
• sad day, said goodbye to parents as they went to more Greek islands ( I have to back to work, sucks)
• Went to Kerameikos (ancient graveyard), neat gravestones and stuff all over the place.
• Went to market, it was closed
• Went to Panathenaic stadium. It was the original stadium in whatever B.C. Reconstructed for the first modern games and used for the stadium.
• Went to Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch.
• Went to Plaka to buy some souvenirs
• Went to Olympic Stadium (new one). Couldn’t get into the stadium but saw the torch. Saw the velodrome, 2 swimming pools, water polo pool, tennis court.
• Fly back home on old looking sketchy propeller plane, was freaky.
• Istanbul looks very nice from the air at night.
• Camped out in Istanbul airport, annoying kids yelling and screaming constantly.

Day10
• Back home and back to work instantly.
• Ended up being in 4 countries in 24 hours (Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany (went food shopping))

Well, that just about wraps things up. Hope you don’t mind the point form stuff, didn’t want to write 10 days worth of text (I’m lazy). Hope you just enjoyed the read, talk to you all later.

vic