Safe haven in Istanbul.

After so long relying only on hotels, we're once again couchsurfing and we're being hosted - for the second time - by our friends: Ercan and Ebru.

We continue to explore Istanbul for one day and half, the city with which we started this journey, almost a month ago.
It's really interesting to see so many changes and to discover the transformations the city has been through, since the last time we strolled it's streets. So, while revisiting some places, we take a stroll down the memory lane - just to compare the present and the not so distant past.
The streets are packed with a lot more tourists now and the local small entrepreneurs take advantage of the situation: there are taverns everywhere - offering all sorts of goodies - especially ice-cream and boiled corn.
We couldn't resist the temptation and already ate three corns in Sultanahmet area. And since we have some more Turkish lira left to spend, we'll try various dishes from the local cuisine.
Also, it's time to buy some souvenirs and add some goodies to the small stash we're carrying for our friends back home.

Two days and two nights in Istanbul.

Istanbul is a city of contrasts, placed on two continents, with an European side and an Asian side divided by the Bosporus strait.

We enjoyed the European side for its many tourist attractions, interesting mosques, architecture and easy to navigate streets. As for the Asian side, we appreciated it for the nice narrow streets and general architecture. Unfortunately, in two days we didn't have enough time to explore both sides, so we focused more on the European one that had the tourist attractions: Hagia Sofia (considered the eighth wonder of the world), Sultan Ahmet Mosque (or the blue mosque), grand bazaar, spice bazaar, hippodrome of Constantinople, many other mosques, an interesting cemetery with a restaurant inside, pottery shop & textile shop with live demonstrations (Andra participated in both ways at a demonstration, first in the audience and then on the wheel).








We were hosted on the Asian side by a wonderful Turkish couple.
From them we learned many interesting things about the Turkish language, culture, religion, differences & connections between our two countries (it seems we have many words in common - thanks to the ottoman influence in the past).
They took care of us exactly as we take care of our couchsurfers, so we felt just like home in their nice apartment. Comfortable couch, pink bedsheets :) (we have some pink slippers for our couchsurfers), wi-fi and two lovely turtles that I enjoy feeding.
It was great to have Turkish tea and coffee together; the tea glasses were interesting and the coffee came accompanied by an eatable spoon made out of chocolate!


Now, some interesting facts.
- We arrived in Istanbul around 5:30 in the morning and decided to visit until the open hour for the exchange office and public transportation. It was the best decision we took (we could have waited in the tourist agency instead, and get bored to death). It was great especially because there were just a few people outside at that hour, and we could see the hippodrome and Blue Mosque in a quiet (almost serene) atmosphere. The first time we entered the mosque, it was such an impressive sight, almost breathtaking. The silence and the echo were unbelievable.
It is was far less nice to visit the same places again, with a lot of crowd around us. So, we'll repeat this experience with visiting at early hours, as often as we can - for the rest of the trip.

- Our daily budget was around 15 euros per day, for each of us, enough for free sightseeing and eating. As said in the beginning, Istanbul is a city of contrasts: clothes are a lot cheaper than in Romania (in bazars and some shops), food prices depend on the location (you can eat plentiful traditional meals from kiosks; restaurants can be really expensive though - especially near tourist attractions), transportation is quite expensive (1$ per ticket) and there's no way around it; the city is huge and you can't walk everywhere.
It's best to choose each day an area with many concentrated attractions, rather than jumping from one place to another, as it will cost you also a lot of time beside money.

- Turkish hospitality is amazing. You won't experience it everywhere, but when you encounter it, it is overwhelming. There was this bakery boss that started asking us where are we from (we were just searching for corn flower to prepare "mamaliga"/polenta for our hosts), then he offered free cookies. The next day we passed by his place, he saw us and yelled "ce faci"/"how are you" in Romanian, then gave us other free bakery specialties - despite our initial refusal. He wanted to know many things about us: where we work, if we're married (we did a funny head salute when he heard that we are together for 7 years). The next day when we went to offer him a small pottery pot, we found out from his workers that he told everyone about us :)








- Call for prayers from all mosques. This thing happens 5 times per day and it can be easily heard inside the houses. The mosques have really loud speakers; the locals say they are too loud, but we liked it. They don't start all in the same time, but random, and the sounds build up in the first minutes, then slowly fades away. It feels relaxing every time..

I intended to upload more photos, but the internet here is incredibly slow, almost the same in Istanbul. So, I will never complain about internet speed in Romania :)
You can see more photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/IonRazvanCiuca/Istanbul?feat=directlink

Final preparations - Middle East trip.

On Friday we'll embark on our first long term travel: a one month pilgrimage in the Middle East.

Below is a rough route that may suffer significant changes, as we prefer to be flexible and avoid imposing a strict plan to follow. We'll simply go with the wind :) , relying mostly on advices from locals and couch-surfers that we'll meet along the way.
Of course, Lonely Planet guides and GPS will be among our tools, but interacting with locals is by far the best "tool" out there.

So, Friday - June 4th: bus from Bucharest to Istanbul. 13 hours drive.. enough to think ahead (make a list with things to see in Istanbul), listen to some audio books and have some sleep as well :). June 5th - first day in Turkey. We'll meet with our hosts and then we'll start exploring the city. June 7th - fly to Egypt. After two days in Istanbul - we'll fly to Cairo, where we haven't yet found full hosting in the couch-surfing community. And here is where the plan ends. After 3-4 days in Cairo, we're going to see other attractions from Egypt: Luxor, maybe Hurghada, Sharm el Sheikh, then relly on ferries to reach Jordan (where we have way too many things to see). Afterwords, Syria with Damascus, then Turkey again on the way back to Romania. We'll keep everyone updated with route changes, stories and nice pictures from the locations we'll visit.

Right now we're taking care of the last details: visas, documents, luggage, bus booking, plane tickets, Amazon order (hope this one arrives in due time, otherwise we won't have with us the neck wallets and travel adapter).
We'll write again just before leaving the country, to update about the luggage details and share any interesting info.

3xCouchsurfing; 1xPhotography

A while back when there were no couchsurfing requests for more than one month, we got a bit puzzled and worried that it may take some time until we can meet new couchsurfers.

Soon after that it started raining with requests, so many that we couldn't accommodate all of them.

This week we had Gaelle and Samuel from France, Amanda and Robert from US (..actually from Romania as they want to establish here) and Garrett from US.

It was really great; we got to see the whole Herestrau park with Gaelle and Sam.
Unforgettable experience, since we circled the huge lake for more than two hours. This was kind of a unique experience since we hadn't done it ourselves before, and we certainly won't do it again any time soon :)
As usual, I had the camera with me and took some pictures.


In the evenings, we all raced in the Dominion game:


On Saturday, Amanda and Robert joined us for a picnic organized by one of Andra's colleagues - Razvan - who celebrated his birthday.
If we ignore the sunburns and the muscular pains from football :), it was really nice, the weather was almost perfect, plenty of food, drinks and games.
Robert and Amanda played football quite good; we didn't stand a chance against their team.

Right now we have Garrett from US with us, and tonight we're preparing to race in a board game. There's a bet involved, so wish me luck :).

Free Will.

Working schedule over, usual evening at home..but not for long; ..until you hear a knock on the door.
You open it and see a foreigner, a complete stranger...and guess what, you naturally say: "hi there, just come on in".
And after that, what? A real adventure, I tell you.
Both sides work on crossing the language barrier, trying and succeeding most of the time, in deciphering the other person, by simply asking and sharing.

It's a natural process of bonding, learning and acknowledging. Pretty much the exact thing that it is currently being lost - especially in the cities - where people tend to become more indifferent and cold, to the point where minutes in the elevator or in a line, are minutes of embarrassing silence. Only because no one dares to take initiative and start a conversation with "strangers".
Those strangers could very well be possible best friends, nice acquaintances to have, or just a good way of passing time without losing it completely.

Changing the subject a bit: last week I followed a debate about having or not having Free Will.
And the resulting idea was this: while living in communities, our lives are mostly influenced by others and not by personal decisions. Like a surfer waiting for a mighty wave, we do take some decisions of our own, but afterwords we just go with the flow, until we're again able to take another big decision.
For example, we stop searching for a job after we get one; and from that point on, years are then decided by managers, colleagues, society and our fear of leaving the comfort zone.
Same for changing the city we're living in for so long, because we'll have to leave all of our friends and connections.

Who says we won't find other good and interesting people, or that we won't be able to keep in touch with the old ones? Who says there won't be similar or better opportunities?
Actually.., who says all these? Parents and good friends who are understandably afraid for you; friends or acquaintances that are a bit selfish and don't want to see you experience more; TV and media which emphasizes on problems rather than opportunities.

Talking about TV, there is one spot currently playing in Romania which sounds like this "There are many reasons to travel the world. We'll give you 10 strong reasons to stay at home!".
Gosh, it sounds so wrong, especially because many people are influenced by TV.
Sure there can be difficulties, but those are only things to be aware of and not reasons to "stay at home".

To conclude, these two seemingly different subjects are actually complementary: one contains the problem, while the other one gives just one of the many possible solutions - for taking the change in our own capable hands.
Enlarging our horizons and meeting new people doesn't mean we completely get back the free will, but we do increase the chances of receiving new opportunities and having a major change in our lives.

Written by someone just looking through the rabbit whole, still a bit reluctant to take the full plunge :).

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Visiting London - the good, the bad and the ugly.

For my last birthday I received a wonderful present from Andra: a trip to London and tickets to Transatlantic Sessions concert.
We just returned home from this interesting adventure, with mixed feelings: in the first place it was really nice, while on the other hand it was a bit tiresome, cold and bloody expensive (the most expensive city we've ever been too).

Let's have the whole adventure presented in chronological order:
The flight took three hours from Romania to London; it was nice and calm, with little turbulence.
Most of the way there was a completely white blanket of clouds below us, hence the feeling of standing still, although traveling with more than 800km/hour.
Upon arrival, we had our first contact with the high prices: we bought a train ticket from Luton airport to London, for 20 pounds (the ticket also allowed us to use any transportation, for that day alone).
To make a comparison, the price for that ticket (one day traveling permit), is almost three times the metro permit for one month, here in Romania.
However, there was also a positive side to this transaction: the ticket itself, accompanied by some special vouchers, allowed us to buy 2for1 tickets to some major tourist attraction such us: Madame Tussaud, Tower of London, Aquarium, and London Bridge (saving more than 50 pounds).

Thanks to a great tip from our couchsurfing hosts, we left the luggage for free, at Tate Modern Museum, which we also quickly visited afterwords. Then we went to buy the 2for1 tickets for the whole period, as the train ticket was valid only for one day and we were required to present a valid ticket, in order to benefit from the offer.
However, we soon discovered that no one cared about the train tickets, only took a quick glance at it and asked us to fill in the vouchers.
At the Aquarium, the girl at the desk told us we could come the next day, with no problems. So, we went to Madame Tussaud where the rules were more strict: we had to visit right after paying the entry fee.
It was totally worth it; a really funny experience - we got the chance to fool around a lot :)


We got out of there in the evening, went to the museum to collect the luggage and then headed straight to a metro station, to meet with our hosts.
Ahmad and Eeva amazed us every night with really interesting and funny stories, from their past experience. In their home we had many nice conversations, played The Dominion game, shared thoughts about interests and exchanged ethnic dishes.
Also, they took us for a ride around the city, at the Greenwich observatory and in a market full with artists presenting hand made objects (enough of them to keep Andra busy for quite a while).
Being our second couchsurfing contact - as guests, this was a great experience in itself. We'd definitely like to meet more people like Ahmad and Eeva.


The plan for the second day: Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Big Ben & Parliament building, Aquarium and - at the end of the day - we attended the Transatlantic Sessions concert.
Only the last two objectives were on the initial list, the rest of them were added along the way; ..just like we kept adding McFlurry ice-cream whenever we wanted :).
At the Trafalgar Square there was a funny dude attempting to go through a tennis rocket. He finally did it, to everyone's amusement.
There were "street artists" near all tourist attractions, each one with an interesting show.

On the road to Aquarium we noticed many drunk people on the streets, some were a bit muddy on their clothes, others with their face painted.
So, we asked a policeman to tell us about all that commotion. We found out it was New Zealand day.
At the Aquarium we got to touch a catfish, a star fish and also found Nemo :)..safe with his parent.

As there was still enough time until the concert was supposed to start, we went for a walk along Thames.
Did I mention it was bloody cold? :)


The concert was amazing and we remained breathless a couple of times. There was no playback, all singers had such clean and wonderful voices, and the instrumentation was perfect.
Just a few words and some photos won't do it justice, but this is all I've got. I'm hoping there will be a dvd release with a recording of the event.


Next day: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, British Museum.
All these worth visiting, especially the first one - Tower of London where there's a lot to see inside the fortress; and British Museum where there's no entry fee, but has top quality exhibits and overwhelming amounts of information.
British Museum alone would require an entire day in order to see it properly.


At the end of the day we visited Soho - Chinese district.
Andra, curious as always, bought all sorts of things for us to try. With a few exceptions, we have no idea about what we put in our mouths :); still, many tasted quite good and we enjoyed taking the risk.


In the last day we warmed up in the morning, with a visit to the British Museum - in order to have a final look inside; then walked to Buckingham Palace, another walk through the park nearby, and finally went in the Eye of London.
One of the most joyful experiences from this whole trip, was to feed the squirrels in the park :)


We enjoyed each day in London and we were sad to leave Ahmad and Eeva without having one more game, one more talk and that night at the salsa club. Maybe we will do all these together, here in Romania.
On the other hand, after all the running around in this big city, we were quite eager to get home to recover. We had no extra holiday kept for relaxing, so thank God today is Friday :).

Have a nice week-end everyone!

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