The Beginning of the End

So Turkey was a pretty cool place to go, probably the biggest surprise, because I was unsure of what to expect, but I had a blast!

Our last night there, after the money dried up, we sadly got McDonalds. I know! I am in a foreign country and what do I eat? McD's. It was a low moment aka everything, especially food, it really expensive in Istanbul, so I had to.

It was pretty gross, but then we just wandered the streets and looked in terrible tourists shops and met up with my friend T who took us for Hukka & apple tea. YUM.

So I realized after a few days of constantly being offered apple tea, that it is the tea of choice. It is basically apple juice hot, but soooo much better. It was delicious! I now wish I got some to bring home, but E informed me there is a cool international market in DC, which I am going to hit up!

So the 4 of us hung out, smoked some strawberry hukka, people watched, and talked about our great adventures. It was perfect, yet totally sad that it was coming to an end.

We went back to the hostel & changed into comfy plane clothes, checked our email, and caught the shuttle at 12:15 AM to get our 4AM flight to Frankfurt.

The airport (the cheaper one) was only an hour away and we got there with more than enough time and through airport security...I think this is the first time since I STARTED the trip that I left more than 15 mins to get there...GO team.

J slept on the dirty airport floor and E & I took pictures and ate delicious chocolate...I miss it already. (I lived on this type of choco by the way people...it is amazing.)

We caught our flight & headed to Frankfurt.

Bad Ass Bargaining

So being women (no offense to women who don't like shopping and bargaining) the girls & I dedicated the entire day to getting some shopping done with the last $50 in our bank accounts.

Sadly T had the pleasure of telling us girls the night before that our plan had a slight problem....the Bazaar is CLOSED ON SUNDAYS!

What thE HECK. OMG. The well-known, 4500 shop Bazaar was closed...but we dedicated a whole DAY to shopping!!! NOOOOOOOOO.

So we decided, screw it, we are gonna find a bazaar and haggle anyway! And that is exactly what we did.

Next to the Blue Mosque there is a smaller bazaar, called the Artisan Bazaar, which has really beautiful bowls, tea sets, and other cool things.

One store had these beautiful light blue/dark blue plates & small jewelery holders that I found myself wanting, very badly...so I bought a few things for friends and family and a small thing for myself.

Next on the agenda was a BIG ticket item. Pashminas. As many as we could hold & afford.

Sadly, again, Istanbul is expensive, BUT we did awesome bargaining, and each got 2 really pretty pashminas for 20 lira. They are sooo nice! It is the best thing to get in Europe and totally worth a round-trip ticket!

Next we decided to wander through the streets and just see where the wind took us...it was cold, but happily not raining for the first time.

We wandered down and found the Big Bazaar, which sadly as T warned us, was closed.

However this other random bazaar, which was a guy fest for some reason...like it was jeans & underwear and 97% men...very odd.

But we did find purses & sunglasses and I fell in LOVE with this one mustard colored, over the shoulder, fake Jimmy Choo (YUM!...and people I don't do yellows, but it is the best bag evvverr)

And E found an awesome choco & blue purse and we decided to bargain. Bad Ass hats on!

Each bag cost 160 lira aka 140 bucks. I had about $10 left in the bank account.

Crap.
I want it.
Okay..so the two bags together he told us would cost 350 lira. Heck No h20.

We told him 100 lira. He looked at us like we were crazy & told us we had credit cards and money and he could never sell it to us for 100.

We said 100.

He told us that Bush's daughter was at their shop (yah RIGHT.) and he sold her a bag for 1000 lira. We told him that was bull and no American in their right mind would ever pay good money for a knock-off, especially a girl who can get the real bag in America for LESS.

We still said 100.

We started to walk away.

We WON.

The owner said the day was slow, and if we had cash only the bags were ours for a special offer of 100 lira.

We ran, got the last of the cash out, and got our two bags for 100 lira!

It was awesommme. I sleep with my bag I love it so much.

Best way to end an awesome Euro Trip!

Buy One, Get Me Free

Our second day in Istanbul we decided to hit up the Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar (ladies and gentlemen it is the size of 3 or 4 football fields and hosts 4500 shops!)

Of course it was raining, since rain follows us, but again, we couldn't give up the day, and we made the best of it!

We headed to Topkapi, got our tickets, and headed into this huge palace, which takes a few hours to go through. It was awesome! We got to see the old kitchens, hundreds of rubies, sapphires, and swords, plus countless plates & garbs of the big kings who kicked everyones butts & got what they wanted!

But seriously the place was awesome and it was a good thing to do on a rainy day, plus I look good in my rainy day outfit & gives me a reason to not get dressed up, which is always a plus.


(girls at Topkapi Palace)

That took us through most the day and we were going to go to the Bazaar, but figured we would dedicate an entire day to that on Sunday.

So we again did some cat napping, grabbed some food at our hostel, which was cheap & filling, and the manager sang 80s songs to us while he smoked. It was pretty entertaining!

We walked outside of our hostel to grab a cab, and let me tell you that everyone warned us about the sketchy Turkish men and how you have to be careful, but I give these guys props. They are creative!

In just a few mins walk down our street we got just these few calls:
"Hi ladies, do you have facebook?"
"Buy one, get me free" (at a store)
"Charlie's Angels"
"I think you have an appointment with me"

...well done men, well done. If you are gonna hit on me and be creepy, at least be creative!

We grabbed a cab, met T and went to a club called Babylon, the apparent hot spot of Istanbul. But again, expensive! It was 35 lira to get in the door aka $30, which I don't think I have ever paid to get in some where and they played 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s metal...oh jeez.

Then I had the bright idea that drinks were more expensive than shots (according to the dude at our hostel) so I ordered J & I a shot of tequila....24 LIRA. What the HELL.

So that was all the money for that night and the girls & I had an awesome sober dance party on the floor for my last night in Istanbul, with air guitar and head bobbing included. Beats having a hang over!

Rain Followers

So after we finally made it to Istanbul alive and got on the tram to our hostel we were ready to go to sleep immediately, but like the troopers we are, we dropped our stuff off, showered our dirty dirty bodies, and hit the road to explore.

We first went to Aya Sofya aka St. Sophia, which was a church, turned mosque (surprise!), but the annoying thing was it cost 20 lira aka about $18 to go in. Wasn't Jesus all about giving? aka poor just graduated college kids should get in FREE.




There are no student discounts in all of Istanbul by the way!

But it was a cool place, with awesome views of the city and some great architecture. Then we moved onto the Blue Mosque, which is the biggest and most well known in all of Istanbul, and that ladies and gentlemen, was free!

It was pretty awesome sight to see and women had to have heads and legs covered and shoes off. It was so pretty inside and people were praying, which was cool to see. I was excited to be in a city that was totally different from any other and it was soothing to hear the calls for prayer. I even took a video like a nerd!


(me at the Blue Mosque)

Then after our two sight seeing adventures, we decided we needed a huge nap, as my friend T was taking us out for a bit of Turkish partying.

That tiny nap turned into about a 4 hour nap (yum!) and we got up and used some free internet, which was a huge plus for our hostel, and T came to get us...the only thing was it was raining!

So T took us to the hot spot, only that hot spot has lots of outdoor bars, which no one was about to go to because it was so cold! He then took us to a club called Ridden, which is the only club in Istanbul that plays rap and hip-hop (I was craving it!) and we danced and hung out.

It was a great start to the trip, but sadly this stupid rain keeps following us! What the heck!?

Sketchy McSketcherson

So we got on our sleeper train to Istanbul around 7pm and the man showed us our cabin and said one of us would sleep in the cabin next door...um...hell no.

So instead we had two beds and E&I snuggled on the lower one while J was up top. We ate our healthy meal of 7 Day (brand) spicy hummus pita chips and chocolate, plus water and were so pooped we got our beds out immediately.

Around 3AM they call around and wake you up for your passports when leaving Greece...that takes about 30 mins and if you try to go back to sleep, don't, because they will just wake you up again at 4 to enter Turkey.

Once we entered Turkey and if you are American you have to get a visa. So at 4am the three of us girls had to get off the train in the middle of NOWHERE and go to the office to buy a 15euro pass...thank god E had $ because J & I had not brought enough and thank god the visa was cool looking in our passport. It better be for 15 freakin euro!

Then back on the train and asleep until 7 when they wake you up to get the linens and stuff...which is dumb because we didn't get to Istanbul until 9. As you can see we got a BUNCH of sleep!

But we finally made it to Istanbul, sadly, my last leg of the trip!

Leavin the Greeks Behind

So we left Santorini, which was one of the BEST islands ever, to get on an 8 hour ferry to Athens and because the Fab 5 was feeling so bad-ass, we decided to pull an all nighter at the bus station in Athens were the CO boys were going to Italy and we were off to Turkey.

So we played cards for 8 hours (I am telling you cards are the way to go on these trips!) and we rocked out to music and just chilled.

We arrived in Athens at about 11:30-12:00 and began our trek to the train station on the other side of town. When we made it we all took our bags off immediately and realized the train station does not open until 5:30 AM....okay...minor detail.

So next to the train station is a breakfast bar place which is 24/7 and where the bums and really not sketchy people (sarcasm here) hang out and sleep....thank god we had boys!

So again...cards...only for 4 hours this time! And then finally into the train station where we attempted to sleep and I just read trashy magazines.

When the ticket office opened at 6:15 for our 6:50 train we got in line and the guy was SUCH a jerk! He told us it would cost 50 EURO a person to get only to Thessalonki (which is 6 hours from Athens in Greece). WTF.

Totally untrue! So the boys watched as we started getting dramatic, flipping out, not knowing how we were gonna get to Istanbul, changing plans, thinking about cars, etc. etc.

So we decided to go back talk to the guy and a nice Greek man in front of us saw how upset we were and we THINK might have said something to this jerk off who finally told us at the the train at 9:20 was only 12 euro a person but we would have no seat...well you could have told us that BEFORE.

Then he rushed us for money...not nice. or cool.

We got on that train at 9...proceeded to get stepped on and kicked by everyone and finally a nice Greek woman showed us that some seats were not filled, and we could take them...which we did. E preferred the nook she has where luggage was and slept in a little ball! J & I proceeded to just head slam the entire time getting no real sleep by the time we arrived.

Once in Thessalonki we found lockers to store our bags, grabbed overnight tickets to Istanbul, and found internet. 3 hours later our train was leavin for Istanbul.

Yah Right!

So Mopeds are all over Europe and I have always wanted to try one but was too scared. But again, since the weather gods are on our side, the day we deemed for the beach was ruined with overcast skys and some showers...so we decided to grab mopeds and go from the south of Santorini to the north, called Oia.

It was AWESOME. I love love love Mopedin! The guy was kind of a dick telling me since I have never been on one I would indeed die and it would cost me up to 2,000 Euro for damage...thanks guy. I really love your business.

So I went anyways and had such a good time. The Fab 5 stopped and got lunch overlooking the ocean and headed to the capital of Santorini known as Fira. We got out and wandered around the street and once the guys saw the amount of shopping to be done, they bounced to do their own thing. We told them we would meet them in 30 mins...which in girl time is 45...and in our time is 50 mins. he he.

After that we headed to Oia, which is about 20 mins away from Fira to see the sunset. It was kind of a scary climb and all was good until one small incident happened. E, having ridden a scooter in India and having a bad fall, was given a four wheeler, which was suppose to be more stable...and safer according to the jerk at the shop...only she went up a hill and flipped.

It was pretty scary but by our awesome luck she was pretty much not harmed..clearly shaken up and had some bruising and cuts, but thank goodness for the helmet and that we were all close together! (Don't freak parents.)

She was such a trooper...just like when she got bed bugs, and we happened to see this beautiful bar with one of the most amazing sunsets I have seen in my entire life.

Minus a little upset the day was awesome for us all...I loved it.

That night we went to the little beach town, had a great last dinner with friends, and headed to bed early because we were going to see the Volcano and Hot Springs in the morning.

We woke up at 8am, piled our stuff in a cab, went to the port and jumped on a ferry to the hot springs, which sadly were not very hot. BOO.

We got to jump in the water off the boat, which was pretty awesome, and got our bronze on (tanning for you not up on the lingo!)

We then were taken to the Volcano (don't worry, it is not active!) and got about an hour or so to wander around and see some amazing views.

Overall it was SUCH a wonderful trip to Greece and I cannot wait to come back!

We pulled an all nighter on the ferry back to Athens and stayed at the train station last night, before saying good bye to the Fab 5 as the boys headed to Italy and us girls are on our way to Istanbul.

More great stories to come, only so sad that this is my last big trip!

MVP of the Greek Islands

After only a day or two in Athens we hit the Greek Island of Mykonos and surprisingly ran into the guys, D&J from Colorado on the Ferry.

We played card games for about 6 hours straight, which was a life saver, and go to know the guys. We all ended up saying in this awesome hostel called "Paradise Beach Resort" which had cute little bungalows and was right next to the beach...it was awesome!

The first night we continued playing card games, this time with some yummie white wine, and chilled at the beach...clearly the next day, being deemed a beach day, it decided to rain and be overcast...awesome.

So we all decided to head into town and wander around. Mykonos is basically like The Hamptons...pretty to look at, but the stores are unaffordable. So the girls and I basically gawked at the pretty jewelry and clothes while the boys wandered around the streets avoiding shopping...typical!

But seriously a great place to visit.

That night we went to Scadanavian Bar...the hot spot on the island...and had a BLAST! The Fab 5, as we called ourselves, danced the night away (we tend to love doing this...and I love to call it this) and had yummie drinks and as always a swarm of creepy men around us.

This time it was nice to have boys for protection!

The next day we all decided we were having a really good time traveling together that heck, lets all go to Santorini next...hopefully we won't get sick of eachother.

We left the next day for Santorini, played about 6 hours of card games (seriously..I can kick your butt in crazy 8's, asshole, or Egyptian rat screw) and landed with no idea where to stay.

Luckily at the port people swarm you to stay at their hotels and one guy offered 10 Euro a night AND it had a heart shaped pool...how could we say no?

We piled into a van and headed to the Honeymoon Hotel, which the owner said he only called because it was appealing to "young people"....hmmmm. This is gonna be interesting.

We got there and found out we had an entire room for the 5 of us...living with boys we just met...interesting!

But it actually was awesome. We had a kitchen and 5 beds and we were right on the beach. D&J told their mom and D's mom said "don't pee on the seat." Classic.

We made scrambled eggs and potatoes for dinner and played...ready for this...CARDS! (We kinda had a thing going)

We incorporated some more yummie white wine and hit the town...it was a sunday..clearly in teh middle of no where there is something to do...false. nothing. so bed it was.

Next day was Mopeds...:)

Athens Backpackers

After a very eventful time in Bari,Italy the girls and I made it to Athens...pertty much the place we have all been DYING to go to!

We caught a bus right outside the port and got a quick nap in and were let off in the middle of the city. We grabbed our bags and set out for probably our most expensive hostel, but the coolest one called "Athens Backpackers" which boasted a kick ass happy hour with an unreal view of the Acropolis...and it totally lived up to the reputation.

We checked in with the Aussie run place, got a quick shower and finally got to do laundry!!!! You seriously do not know how amazinggg that was since we had not gotten to do that since Lagos.

So after that we decided to hit the town. We got ready and headed to one of the most amazing views I have ever seen. They had delicious cheap drinks, played Bob Marley, and gave us a shot of Ouzo before we left (the drink of Greece...it is REALLY strong and yuckie!)

Then they take you out on a pub crawl aka one dance bar, but it was awesome and the girls and I got to dance the night away!

The next day we had a FULL tourist day. We saw everything there ever was and E & I stumbled upon the best gyro place in town, and it was 24 hours. We got 2 that day.

YUM.

We saw every ruin in the town and the acropolis was just unreal and so interesting, I was just so happy to be in Athens!


That night we met two guys from Colorado who ended up becoming our travel buddies and we went to the same bar we had from the night before...only difference was someone forgot to mention it was gay man night at the club...it was interesting to say the least. For once the boys felt uncomfortable and the girls were not being cat called. HA.

Bari, Italy=Nothing!

We made it, yet again!

We had some very rainy days in Dubrovnik, which was lame, but once we got on our Ferry to Bari, Italy, we were saying goodbye to bad weather and thinking of the sunny skys of Greece!

We took our first trip to Bari in a very nice ferry with a disco and a self-serve dinner thing, slept for about 10 hours and arrive in Bari, Italy to waste a day before our ferry that night to Patras, Greece.

We arrived, having not showered for 2 days to a rainy and overcast day. BOO. Not what we signed up for. We put our heavy bags in a holding place at the port and decided to wander around.

There is NOTHING in Bari...like I am telling you...nothing. We wasted the entire day by either eating, sleeping, playing with our ipods, going to H&M, or reading. We tried to waste as much time as possible, but shops were either closed or super busy, rushing us in and out, which is so unlike what I picture places to be in Italy and most of Europe.

More stories to come as my $ ran out!

The Great Wall of Croatia

After a few hectic travel days and short stays, we girls had a few days to hang out in Dubrovnik. So far we had a nice dinner in old town last night and a great nights sleep, which has not happened too often in this trip!

We woke up fresh this morning and headed to the city walls on bus number 8. We arrived, had a water and crossiant, and made our way to town...as best we could because 2 old people cruise ships had docked!!!

This somewhat ruined the beauty of Dubrovnik, but was not going to ruin our day! We headed towards the first museum, which was an old monastery & hosts the oldest still operating pharmacy, dating back to the 1400s.

We then went on our way to two different churches...they were old...and probably important for some reason.

Then we made it to The Rector's Palace where all the common law stuff happens, but not the courts...basically we learned from the placks (which had English unlike the Germans!) that essentialy Dubrovnik's power was handed to nobles who could do whatever they wanted.

Wow...that's original. NOT.

Regardless, it had some awesome portraits and lots of ruins and pretty useful information about Dubrovnik.

Then we made our way to the Maritime Museum...we lasted about 10 mins and decided we were over it and wanted to walk the old city wall. You can literally walk around the entire city with amazing views of the sea. I guess in the old days that wall was for people to shoot intruders!

Oh FUN Fact...I found out that in the 1200s the then ruler of Dubrovnik made every visitor to his city bring a stone that could be used to build the walls...how cool is that!?

So we walked around, got some ammazing pictures, and headed to a nice cafe for some delicious pasta, which for some reason I was craving.

Then it started to pour, which has lead me to a nice internet cafe to escape the yuckie rain, which clearly only decided to happen since we came here~!

Tomorrow we are off to Lokrum Island for some hiking, beach time (we pray!) and to see some beautiful gardens.

Split & Hvar Island

So I have told you already, but Croatia is so gorgeous. The water is crystal clear that you can see your body completely though the water. The people are so friendly and minus the bed bugs, it has been a great and different experience.

While we only really had a day or a night and morning in Split and Hvar, it was great to experience. Split has a beautiful port, where we had some delicious pizza and people watched.

Hvar Island, an island merely for "holiday" aka vacation, is so tiny and has some great pebble beaches.

The girls & I got to dive into the Adriatic Sea and just float around for the afternoon and although the sun decided to hide for our trip, it will not stop our fun!

Off to Dubrovnik for 2 days of exploring what is hidden inside the city walls and then off to Bari to catch a boat to Greece.

Ciao.