Istanbul!

Istanbul was one of the most amazing cities I have ever been to. It was vibrant and colorful and so alive. I travelled with a group that went along with a class at DIS and the people I was on the trip with were great. I learned a lot academically through the things we got to experience and people we talked to, etc. This post will do no justice to the trip, so I will have to tell you about it when I see you in person!

One thing I do not have pictures of is the Turkish Hamam. A Turkish hamam is a bath house and a type of spa. My friends and I decided to go all out and get the whole luxury treatment. This means that we got bathed, a soap scrub and an oil massage all by the "mamas," which are large, saggy Turkish women who smack your butt when it's time to turn over. In between, we got to go in the hot tub and just relax. It was definitely a bonding experience because everyone was naked and experiencing something completely different for the first time. The girls and I had a great afternoon there!

We went to the Prince's Islands on one of the days and got a tour via a horse and buggy ride of the largest island. Here, besides seeing some beautiful sights, we met some of the members of the Greek minority and learned about minority status in Turkey.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to meet some Turkish students who are studying in Istanbul. This was the first night when we met them over hookah and Turkish tea. We ended up going out to the bars and clubs with them a few nights that week. They were really awesome and we had a lot of fun together. I have even kept in touch with a few since I got back to Copenhagen!
This is in the 1500 year old Haga Sofia. It is one of the most incredible buildings I have ever seen. It is a really neat piece of history because it was originally a church and was then converted into a mosque. There are remnants of both Islam and Christianity, which is so neat.
Haga Sofia from the outside. It's pretty spectacular. Also, note the palm tree. There were all trees whose leaves were changing colors and roses were in bloom. The weather was gorgeous while we were there - between 65 and 70 and generally sunny! It was such a nice change from Copenhagen.
This is my friend Kat and I in the Blue Mosque. The building is beautiful, very open comfortable. As women, we had to cover our hair, our elbows and our legs to our knees.
This is the view at night from a bar we were at. It was pretty spectacular.
We went on a cruise on the Bosporus the first day we were there. It was a great way to get our bearings and we got some great views of both the European and Asian sides of the city.
This is one of the main entrances to the Grand Bazaar! The place is ridiculous, with people asking you buy something everywhere you turn. It is also so easy to get lost in the carpets and scarves because after a while, everything starts to look the same. It was really fun bargaining down, too! I was much better here than I was in Hong Kong!
Out the back of the Topeki Palace. GORGEOUS.
The front entrance of the Topeki Palace.
Inside the Topeki palace with Kat.. look at all the tiles. The whole place was so detailed and absolutely gorgeous.

On our first night, we had a traditional Turkish dinner and this is the plate of desserts we got to choose from. The food in Turkey was unbelievably good and there was a lot of variety, too.

I can't wait to tell you more about Turkey when I see you in person! It was really an awesome awesome trip and I am so blessed to have gotten to travel there. Now my parents will arrive in Copenhagen tomorrow and Dave will come on Tuesday! I am so excited to show them around my new home :)

Milan & Bra

After waking up at 3 am, taking two night busses and a shuttle to get to the airport, I took my 5 euro flight from Paris to Milan to go meet Emily Goldman, a good friend from high school, and share some Newtown love in Italy. Emily is studying ecogastronomy and hospitality and the poor girl is REQUIRED to go to Bra, Italy and study food and wine for the semester as part of her major. Sounds tough, right? She gets to travel all over the country going to vineyards and olive oil refineries and learns about the history and production of different Italian foods. Needless to say, I ate very very well when I was with her and her friends. I also never thought anyone could love food as much as Emily as, and she found a group of 5 or so who are just about as passionate as she is.

We spent the first day wandering around Milan, and I have to say that I'm not that fond of the city itself. We were mostly around the train station, but still, it was not that impressive. Maybe the city center is better. Also, no one could point us to good shopping, which was rather surprising in one of the fashion capitals of the world. Anyways, after perusing a few shops and getting lunch and gelato, we hopped on a train to Bra, a few hours away.

Bra is a small city, exactly what you would think of when you think countryside Italy: cobblestone streets, outdoor cafes, rooftop/balcony gardens, bakeries etc etc. The first night we were there, we went to aperativo with a few of her friends, which is this sweet deal where you go to a bar and order drinks and get all sorts of appetizer foods (as much as you want) for free. There should be more places like this in the world. We spent the night hanging out with her friends and it was so nice and relaxing. I really liked Emily's friends, and it was neat to finally put faces to names I've heard so many stories about.

On Thursday, we walked around Bra in the morning and Emily and her "foodie" friends (their name, not mine) showed me all their favorite places: the milk machine, a spice store, and pretty much every pastry shop or bakery that we passed. They picked me out delicious things that I had to try and of course I didn't turn any of them down. Then Emily had to go to class so I wandered around Bra for a bit longer and then went on her balcony with a big blanket and just read and people-watched. Emily's balcony overlooks this really adorable walking street lined with shops and cafes, so people watching was easy. It was so nice and relaxing after such a crazy first part of the week. When she and her friends came home, we did some shopping and then went to this restaurant run by Slow Food, the organization that also runs her university in Bra. The restaurant is special to the town and to the program and I can hands down say it was the best meal I've ever eaten in a restaurant in my life. I had the "foodies" order for me and the wine we drank was from vineyards they had visited during their stay. We took 3 hours to eat the meal and it was a wonderful way to enjoy good food and good conversation. Afterwards, we met some other people in their program at a bar and enjoyed some live music. Later, Emily and I skyped with Dave Wilkins, one of our best friends from high school. It was the perfect end to such a great day. I left early Friday morning to go back to Copenhagen before meeting with the group to go to Istanbul.

This is Bra from a high point over looking the city. It was so pretty, built right into the hills.
It was so awesome to see Em in Italy! This was at our last night's dinner excursion.
These are Emily's books. Just read the titles to get a taste of her semester (pun intended).

This is the milk machine in Bra. You bring your glass bottle to the machine and put in a euro and out comes fresh milk! How cool, right? A "foodie"'s dream!

Paris

The Eurostar is a train that runs through different countries in Europe and it was supposed to take my from Amsterdam to Paris. I booked my ticket with my friends who were supposed to be in Amsterdam with me and we were supposed to pick the tickets up when we got to the station. What the website and later emails did not say was that we could only pick up the tickets at the train station in Brussels. You see my problem. So I got to the Amsterdam Central Train station with plenty of time only to find out that I couldn't get a ticket for the train I was supposed to be on. The lady behind the desk suggested that I buy a ticket to Brussels and go there first, get everything straightened out and then go on to Paris. I figured this was the best decision and buy a ticket and run to the platform of the train, which was leaving in 2 minutes. Of course, the train is pulling away as I get to the platform. So I am sitting there looking distraught enough for a woman to come up to me and start to comfort me and assure me that there is another train to Brussels in an hour, that I can just take that one. I sat on the platform waiting for the next train to Brussels and it turns out my train to Paris was on the same track. I was watching all these happy people with their tickets get on the train when I saw the conductor on the side of the train. I decided to go up to him and show him all my travel information, booking reference, etc, and try to talk my way on the train. The begging worked and I think he felt bad for me so he let me on board with no problems. I really learned how to ask for help and to take a chance on the kindness of strangers while I was traveling these past two weeks. Sometimes I felt like I was making it up as I went along.

Paris itself was an absolutely amazing city. I need to go back as I did not spend nearly enough time there. My friends flew to Paris and met me there at the home of a family friend of one of the girls I was traveling with. We stayed in a little countryside house in a suburb of Paris called Lozere with a family of four of the nicest people I've ever met. Adriene is a year younger than us and he met my friend Anita while they both worked in Hong Kong last summer. His family cooked Parisian food for us, helped us with all our planning and travels and fully welcomed us into their home. While I was there, we did all the touristy things: The Louvre, The Notre Dame, a wine tasting, The Sacre Coeur, the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triumph and of course, the Eiffel Tower. I also got to meet up with some friends from Tufts for a drink while we were there, which was great!

This is the four of us in front of the Eiffel Tower. We saved it for the last thing we did in Paris... we bought some baguettes and wine and enjoyed the views before we climbed up the tower.
It was really really pretty when the lights twinkled on the hour. The whole thing was enormous and just awe inspiring.
In front of the Arc de Triumph!
The Sacre Coeur was one of the most gorgeous cathedrals I've ever been into in my life. We had to climb up tons of stairs to get there, but it was totally worth it. The inside had the most beautiful mural on the wall and ceiling of Jesus being raised, it was just wonderful.
Tufts love in Paris! Rosanna is on the right and Cady is in the middle - they are both studying here for the semester and it was so great to see them. Cady is pretty much fluent in French now, and it was awesome to have them both speak/order etc for us and show us their favorite spots. They had us try Kir, which is a French cocktail made with white wine and black current liquor.
The food was amazing in Paris. We tried all the typical French foods, including escargot and fondu and crepes and croissants and meringue etc. etc. The street vendors (below) made great crepes and other snacks that were perfect for walking around and eating with sight seeing.

The Notre Dame is absolutely gorgeous. It was exactly what I thought it would be from the movies that we've seen, etc. I chose to put this picture up because from far away, you can start to imagine the presence it has because it is so huge.
We did the wine tasting in this little cellar through this company called O' Chateau that was close to the Louvre. We learned all about wine and how to tell the difference between different kinds and ages, etc. We learned how to properly taste it and smell it and how to pick apart the different ingredients. He also showed us where the different types of wine came from around France. It was a great little lesson and we got to have three very different, very good wines.

We pretty much ran through The Louvre... we did not have enough time to really appreciate everything that was there but some of the highlights included seeing the Mona Lisa and a few sculptures by Michaelangelo. Two of the girls I was traveling with, Jessi and Tessie, had taken classes on some of the art we saw, so it was cool for them to see the real thing right in front of us. For me, I was really excited to see the Pyramid in the front because I had done a project on I.M. Pei, the architect who designed it. The outside and the actual building of the Louvre was just as much of a piece of art as the works inside of it.

The River Seine runs through the general center of Paris and provides some really beautiful scenery. It rained for a good amount of time while we were in Paris, but the moments in the sun were really spectacular.

Finally, this is the little house we stayed in. It is so cozy and cute and really made us feel like home while we were staying there.

Amsterdam

So I'm back from my whirlwind travels around different major cities... it was an incredible and crazy two weeks and I got to see so much cool stuff! I am truly blessed to have experienced such an awesome trip. Now, though, it's back to reality and homework and other things, so updates will come in parts.

My first stop was Amsterdam. The friends I was supposed to travel with booked their flight tickets on the wrong day, so the trip started as a little adventure, but I managed to find some other DIS students who were going to Amsterdam and I tagged along with them. We had a really really good time experiencing the city, etc, and saw some really cool stuff. We went on a canal tour of the city in the morning (it was a great way to get our bearings and learn about the history) and then wandered around and found our way to the Red Light District. Later, we went to the Anne Frank House, which was where she hid during the war. The whole thing was very well done as you walked through the rooms guided by quotes from her diary. It was just really really cool. We went out to some bars and clubs on Halloween and had a really great time. They were a fun group of people, and I was lucky to get to see the city with them.

This was on the pub crawl-- you can't get as good of a feel of how many bars there were around. There were tons of people walking all around and the streets are lined with different places to go into. The girl in yellow is Allie, and she goes to Tufts.. we just met here in Copenhagen, though.
WOODEN SHOES! They were everywhere.
Amsterdam was really pretty in the fall with all the canals and changing leaves. These two girls are in my special needs class at DIS.

Canal tour! It was in 5 different languages, which was kind of cool. Here are a few friends (Danny goes to Tufts, too) with the English signs, haha.