Hibernation Anyone?

Istanbul allowed me to settle down for the last five days of my trip. It was a beautiful trip, and once I rid my life of the crazy Norwegians, the trip was filled with beautiful people.

Ebru, my first host, and I hung out a lot. We went to dinner every night, went to a Turkish night club which was possibly the greatest thing with everyone dancing a combination of swing/salsa/belly dancing and singing their hearts out. We smoked hookah under a bridge on the Bosphorus and she taught me how to play backgammon while I was surrounded by locals in the town square all meeting after a day at work. She introduced me to her cousin who is an artist and has paintings in museums all over the world and took me to the Istanbul film festival where I saw truly horrid acting by Penelope Cruz. Or maybe I just really dislike Penelope Cruz and that just took over my judgement. On my last day there we met up again and went to the Museum of Modern Art and ate deserts in the Egyptian Bizarre.

My other host Esra was also absolutely wonderful. She lives in the suburbs of Istanbul with her sister and parents, and the whole family was just amazing. I think I gained 10 pounds in the time I stayed with her, as they just kept piling food on my plate. My first lunch I thought was just going to be soup and some small side dishes, but then chicken, potatoes, salad, and yogurt, and many other things were all piled on my plate. It was like thanksgiving dinner. Then they decided we should go for a picnic by the Bosphorus with Turkish snacks, and then the fed me more food once we got home, and then they took me out for dinner which was enough food for the Turkish army. I woke up the next morning still full, but was still served a huge breakfast. It amazed me that the girls were still so skinny...I don't understand. I think that if I were a bear I would have been ready to hibernate for several years after the feasts that I partook in.

Turkey even has there own type of ice cream. I can't decide if I liked it or not. They also had an abundant supply of regular ice cream. Even McDonald's and Burger King had ice cream windows instead of the usual take out windows. Beautiful.

Cyprus let me back into the country, and hopefully will let me leave it tonight when I leave for Berlin and Vienna. I will be in Berlin by myself again, but will be meeting up with my friend Katie for Vienna. It has been wonderful getting to travel by myself but I think I will be ready for some company by the end of the week.

Enjoy the pictures


Love you all.