On Thursday morning I woke up dark and early at 5am to get picked up for my hot air balloon ride. Really, it's the thing to do in Cappadocia. I waited with two others from my hostel until the bus driver came to whisk us...
1. The bus ride from Istanbul to Cappadocia, Turkey, (more specifically, Göreme) took approximately 14 hours. But, surprisingly, I slept pretty decently the whole way. The bus had wifi which made me happy. Actually, way more happy than it should have. 2. I am sick....
While I spent my nights having fun around Istanbul, I spent my mornings touring some of the bigger attractions. Like the Spice Market where I could have bought anything from nuts to candy to scarves to natural viagra. And the Galata Bridge, where men spent their day...
In Turkey, when a woman turns 40, from what I can tell, she celebrates with a very traditional meal, very traditional dancing, and very traditional music…...
I met up with Gulender and Murat again on Friday night in Istanbul. We decided to head to another area of the city called Taksim. It was a nice area, full of people and restaurants and pretty sparkling lights, and a far cry from Sultanahmet...
On my second full day in Istanbul I spent the morning wandering the Grand Bazaar, where I dodged carpet sellers and lamp sellers and scarf sellers and trinket sellers all spouting out "Where you from?" "You speak English?" "You want to be my friend?" and...
I spent a morning at Topkapi Sarayi, one of the palaces in Istanbul. It was big and beautiful, though my favorite part was all of the mosaics and interesting tile work around the property...
I'm eating a lot of doner kebabs in Istanbul. It's a good meal, cheap, and can be eaten on the street, which is a plus for a solo female traveler like me. But you can't eat your doner on a park bench in Istanbul. It's just...
After arriving at my Istanbul hostel around midnight, a time when the rooftop bar was closed and the two other occupied beds in my room had sound sleepers, I had really nothing better to do than go to bed myself. I wasn't really tired though,...