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This week, I finally posted about my travels through Turkey last fall. Yes, it was about time, I know! Istanbul is one of my favorite cities, and I’d go back in an instant. I occasionally find myself searching for flights even though I have no immediate plans to return. ;) I loved having a week [...]

My first experience traveling abroad was to France in 2006 (when I officially got the travel bug). Since then, I’ve wanted to go back and see more of Europe. However, with the euro and dollar exchange rate at $1.60 this summer, I decided to stick to the outer edges of the EU that don’t use [...]

When plans to go hiking in Sakilent Gorge near Fethiye, Turkey didn’t work out, the son of the pension owner offered to take us on a bike ride to the beach. It sounded like an easy ride, but after zooming down the most massive winding hills with beautiful views of the Mediterranean the realization that [...]

We headed to the coast yesterday to Selcuk — known for the ancient city of Ephesus. Our hotel has a pool! I’ve been dreaming about a pool since Istanbul. It’s been scorching hot! We spent several hours at a jewelry shop in town. Unfortuntely, I discovered that I have very expensive taste. Everything I picked [...]

After a very early breakfast, we taxied to the ferry port and took the ferry to Yalova and then took taxis to the bus station and eventually arrived in Bursa around lunch time. Bursa is known for their Silk Market and cotton towels/robes etc. The silk market is mainly just scarves. We did a quick [...]

So the free breakfast at my hotel is so much nicer than my hostel was. OK, the hostel had a rockin’ free breakfast of toast, hard-boiled egg, butter, honey, jam, fruit and tea. But hotels have treats like halvah! Now to recap last night’s conversation with N (my roomie)… we had a disturbing chat about [...]

I love my hostel! I spent most of yesterday chilling on the roof, reading and getting some housekeeping (ie. trip planning & computer stuff) done. Oh and I had Turkish pizza for lunch (called lahmacun?) and did a bit of window shopping around Sultanahmet. This morning I moved my bag over to the hotel that [...]

So I conveniently forgot to mention that I went to Starbucks yesterday. Yes m’am, I was needing a Chai Tea Latte after my hamam. It was kind of Western night all around. I spotted a Mexican restaurant yesterday (I should have a blog devoted solely to all the horrible Mexican restaurants I’ve been to around [...]

Last night we went to a hookah bar (they call it Nargilah here though) in the middle of the Sultanahmet district (ooh, and I had aubergine kabab for dinner — yums!). It was fun, but insanely touristy. This morning I checked out of the hotel and moved to my hostel behind the Blue Mosque and [...]

I spent my last Lev on snacks and baklava, changed into my comfiest outfit and headed to the train station to catch the overnight sleeper train to Istanbul. It’s kind of neat to be on the Orient Express to Constantinople. ;)  Our train was, of course, late so we ended up leaving two hours later [...]