Blog Alert!

I want all my loyal readers to shift their attention to a hot new blog that has been created on cyber space by one of my fellow traveling besties! Follow her as she travels through Turkey, Eastern Europe, Japan, and only the Virgin Mary herself knows where else!

Best of luck VDPandemic, I thuroughly enjoyed our day in Istanbul together, especially our Mosk attire!

http://vdpandemic.blogspot.com

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65plus Club

Since my last posting, countless blog worthy events have occurred, however due to my 'travel cheapness' and basic hatred towards paying for things I get for free back home, these stories have not made it onto your monitors. Probably the example of this which enraged me most, was when I wanted to order room service, and a can of coke was listed at 15 dollars. I wanted to jump into a pool of coke-esque acid when I read this amount, and hoped that it was listed in some foregin currency which had no value, like the Antarctic penguin coin.

So I have since joined up with a tour group, as I am lazy, and the thought of totting myself around Turkey was not high on my list of things to do. To be frank, I would say that the average age of participants in the tour I choose is 65.. at least. To the untrained brain, this situation would present itself as a horrible one.. however really this is probably the second best scenario, the first being I meet some new wealthy Turkish vegabons who insist on yachting me around the Mediterranean.. but since I refuse to speak with strangers, there is no possibility of this situation presenting itself. Perhaps I could place a wanted ad? Anyways, I created a mental list of pro's whilst on the bus today, as I watched an elderly couple argue about drawing the blinds on the window.
1. I will be worshiped and idolized by the seniors, all vicariously living through me.
2. Seniors always open up to youth like myself, exposing the trails and errors of their lives, thus increased entertainment value.
3. Seniors love gossip. Often, early in the day, when seniors are most alert, I will plant a small seed of gossip, which by lunch time will have full throttle spread amongst the group like wild fire. For example, ''Did you know Shelley is lactose intolerant?"
4. Seniors=controversy. This point is most entertaining for me, as the smallest miscommunication, or sign of confusion sets of mass pandemonium amongst the group. Every day, we are supposed to have "seat rotation", each person is supposed to move up 2 seats. Fairly simple to the common 22 year old. Every morning, mass choas erupts when someone gets to the front of the row. "Where do I go now?", ''How can this be?" They would exclaim with a tone so strained with fear that one may believe that the bus were plumeting towards a cliff. Tomorrow I plan to completly throw off the group by switching over to the next row, and watching the little gremlins squirm.

When all these ridiculously hilarious moments occur, I simply rest back in my chair and watch the mayhem unfold, as I mildly chuckle under my breath.

Some readers may think I am going crazy, but they are all wrong. There are some friendly 20'somethings on the tour, which I prodominantly spend my time with. 1 American girl from LA, and 2 Asian-American girls from NYC with broken english. Today I found a turtle on one of our walks, and I immideietly ran to Jenny and Nelly and they practically tore off their Hello Kitty napsacks seeking their cameras. At one of the Roman ruins today, the three of us found a little dark tunnel leading to heaven knows where. I convinced Jenny to step into the dark tunnel to take a picture to try to see what was in it. Nelly and I trapped her in and she started screaming.. but it was covered up by my laughture.

Tomorrow we are off to see the Virgin Mary's homestead, and hopefully none of the 65plus participants in my tour arent religious, because I have a basket full of questions just waiting to be asked to our tour guide about Christianity. "So a VIRGIN gave birth?.. who knew?"

Pray for me.

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Hostelitus

Is that a word? Patent Pending! ..Ok so If this blog posting seems to make no sense, it is completly distracted by the Nigerian basketcase re-doing her weave out of the corner of my eye. Talk about culture shock. I am certain that a terrorist is seeking refuge in my dorm room, as he studies all day, eating crackers from a can. Finally today two annoying UK residents fleed to southern Turkey, and thus, out of my life. They partied all night, and slept all day, ruining mine.

Ok, so today was yet another glorious day in Istanbul, and my day started early with a pedestrian escape from the Saltanahmet district in which I am sleeping. I walked along the Bosphorous boardwalk, and spotted a tourist couple and decided to latch onto their route to ensure my safety. I have a serious issue with just walking until I end up someplace shady, and it is too late to save my soul. Thankfully this couple knew where they were going, and "we" ended up in the main commercial area of Istanbul. I spent a shameful amount of time walking along the bridges taking photos of the locals fishing over the sides. This is how I lost my secret travel companions, and I immidietly lost my way and ended up in a narrow shady side street, which turned out to be a blackmarket for household appliances. After backing out of this situation, and the next, when I wandered into a shipyard, I headed back to Sultanahmet, and stumbled upon paradise.. a "tea garden" which was a glorious park in central Istanbul near my hostel. I was initially deterred by the armed guards at the gates, but headed in anyways. I walked along a long winding pathway, lined with tall trees and ridiculous amounts of tulip beds. These flower beds immidietly became frightening when I saw how many cats were living in them. Every now and then you would see one dart out and scurry across to another.

Science Girl arrived around dinner time, and we immidietly hit the streets.. and lucky for me, she was there to talk me out of buying street watermelon, which many of you know is my weakness, and the cause of my illness in China. "Let me just see how much it is" I insisted.. Next, in an attempt to shake SG from her jet lagged coma, we hit the restaurants and found a delightful one, fitted with pillowed couches and Turkish lanterns.. and of course, ridden with cats. One cat would sit under each table, waiting to pounce on any scraps that may come their way. One little misfit took a nap on Science Girls day back, which was placed on the ground between her legs.. which made for an uncomfortable dinner. We both waiting in anticipation for a rabies infection.

Tomorrow we have a long string of places to see and people to meet, and if everything works out we will get to hit up the continent of Asia as well!

PS. My sources reveal that SG may just be starting up a blog of her own?

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Turkish Delight

It is only 3:15pm on Day 1 in Istanbul, Turkey and I feel as if I have accomplished enough touring for a week, however father time and his jet lagged antics are compeltely to blame. Staying in a hostel isnt as bad as I imagine it to be, though it is akward sharing rooms with people I do not know, I am instantly repaid when I wake up to conversations amongst the British residents about "VITTamins". I believe they were talking about how huge the VITTamin C pills were, the size of "dinnerplates" and that they were so hard to swallow, until later on the poor UK lad discovered that they were chewables.

Today I was "spot the tourist a mile away", Canadian edition. Despite the rather chilly air and cloudy skies, I lathered up in my 30SPF, and gleefully slipped on my flip flops, shorts, and t shirt, and hit the streets. It felt like summer, until the rain started. After scurrying back to the hostel to pick out a more appropriate outfit, I spent the afternoon "not buying, just browsing" the shops, and instead of lunch, decided to just buy a ridiculous amount of street bread and coke.

Today's highlight would be my observation of the disturbing, yet entertaining number of mangey cats lurking everywhere, who beg for bread, running the birds right out of a food source. Also, the "call to prayer" blasting on the city's loud speakers at 5am, 1pm, and god knows when else gives me the heeby's, it is just as creepy as I imagined, especially in the middle of the night.

Tomorrow's agenda is unclear, however I plan to make another attempt to get into the Four Seasons across the street from my hostel, which I am certain has a pretty fantastic outdoor pool. If that fails, which would be a realisitic asumption, I will hit up the mosaic museum, drink more coke, and hopefully allow time for my poor toes to heal from today's "breaking into the sandals" experience.. oh yes, and Science Girl will be arriving tomorrow, so I will have a partner in crime!

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Communication At Its Best

Just a quick announcement to all DT readers;
Be sure to tune into CJSW 90.9FM tonight around 8:30pm to hear the exciting tales from Calgary' most outrageous Engineer, aka. my sister Stacey. Be sure to get on the phone lines, and call in with all sorts of outrageous things to say, if its that kind of venue..

I wont be in town to hear the fantastic appearance, so be sure to leave your comments hear to tell me all about how it went! You can listen online by clicking this link:

http://www.cjsw.com/home.html

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Pack Rat Extroidenaire

With my departure just 48 hours away, I have slowly begun accumulating the "essentials" which must last me for the next two months. Lessons learned from past starvation's abroad have perhaps led me to overcompensate, and have filled my bag with enough snacks to keep a small army alive. I will assume that all those "haters" out there, who thrive on negative opinions about the 110L of space my travel bag can accommodate, are kicking themselves now that they see all of these delightful things I can add to my pack. Yes? Okay so perhaps my bag has yet to be filled with such necessities such as clothing or my passport, but I am confident that once all packed in, I will still be below the weight limit, thoughtlessly enforced by the airline industry.


So wish me luck on Monday's departure to Istanbul, and keep checking back for updates from my journey abroad. I will undoubtedly have countless stories to report, and perhaps even pictures to post!

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Pick Your Poison

As my exciting travel days approach, I have been spending a lot of time getting my ducks in a row, and organizing such details as, where I plan to sleep at night. The other night I spent a glorious length of time with Science Girl on hostel details. We are both going to be in Istanbul on the same day, and it will be good having one of my besties by my side as I find creative ways to fend off money hungry locals, and undoubtedly force me to try local delicacies. I have however made a rule that I refuse to eat meat off of a revolving stick. I have not stayed in a hostel before, and am learning quickly that I may not enjoy, though am surprisingly excited to experience it. Science Girl and I spent hours skimming through hostel options, and tossing those which we deemed to be "uninhabitable". Thankfully, neither of us are attracted to such "pro's" as defined by the internet as being "great partying spots" or "social hubs for travelers." When I opened the page of one potential candidate, I was immediately disgusted when the main picture selected for the hostel was a large group of 20-something travelers all hanging out together in the lobby, having a fantastic chum session. This is my absolute nightmare. Under no circumstances do I think this was an appropriate selling point for this property, and would much prefer the management to showcase the cleanliness of the rooms, the one place in the hostel I plan to "hang out in", and by "hang out" I mean to sleep exclusively. I have no intention of "chillaxing" on beanbag chairs with fellow globetrotters on rainy afternoons, or reading novels from the "library" which one hostel boasted as a selling point. Your not fooling anyone, just because you have a single bookshelf partially filled with travel agency magazines, that doesn't make you the Four Seasons. Science Girl and I settled upon a candidate which thankfully didn't use "meet lifelong friends" as a sales pitch. Its not that I don't want to meet new people, I just don't want to have to talk to them.



My Prediction: I don't sleep a wink my first night alone in this hostel, as I am too busy contemplating ways in which I could potentially get suckered into something unpleasant, like a hostel photoshoot in the lobby, or a hammock chat with strangers about how traveling changed their life.

PS. Good luck to Science Girl who is having grad school interviews this week! Allstar!

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