Photos of trip

If you missed the photo link - http://picasaweb.google.com/lwaagen
There are over 3000, so be careful, but they are labelled by either day or place -I'm working on the editing and sorting to get them manageable...but late night boredom might be relieved (or at least sleep could be induced!)
Some of the things I miss:
- .50 lira cold water on every street corner
- rice pudding
- cheese, olive, vegetable breakfasts
- being noticed
- cheap food
- appropriate sized gelato cones
- cherry juice and blueberry juice drinks
- sour cherry jam


Some of the things I appreciate now that I'm home:
- public restrooms - even port-a-potties - free, toilet paper, water & soap
- quiet
- drivers who stay in their lanes
- fresh fruit
- washing machines
- blending in
- cleanliness of streets and public spaces

Conquering Conquerors

The past two days has been about seeing what we didn't see before, revisiting sites we wanted to see more of, and last minute shopping to get teaching materials and souvenirs.....
Yesterday 5 of us went to the Archaelogical Museum - totally amazing;the Spice Bazaar - shopping! ; the Pera Museum of Art - beautiful; and then for dinner the whole group went to dinner at a place featuring music and belly dancing. Great views of the Hagya Sofia Museum and the Blue Mosque - gorgeous lit up at night! The music and dancing left a bit to be desired but hey, we were together and then survived amazing taxi rides home "double time speed" and for some double rates as well. Which reminds me that in general, I have been impressed with the integrity of all the people who have dealt with us language challenged people across the region. A few people have been taken advantage of - mostly by taxi drivers.
This morning, however, we found a taxi driver who really went out of his way for us! The same 5 of us (Abbey, Stacy, Jeff, Ben, and I) decided to go to at 6:45 AM to see the Gate of Theodosius, where Mehmet the Conqueror's army broke through the wall of Constantinople to overthrow the Byzantine emperor. It is not an easy place to find when we only speak English and have a tiny map and vague name and the driver spoke only a little English. But after several stops and turn-arounds we finally arrived - at least the driver said we had (maybe he was just tired of us!) so we piled out and looked at the wall in front of us. Abbey, the expert on these things said, "This isn't it - we're going to have to walk about a mile and a half to get there!" I suggested we go ahead and walk through the opening and see what was on the other side. And there, in large gold script was a sign proclaiming that we ewre indeed at the sight we had been looking for. Relief was huge and we took pics and clowned around before catching another taxi back to our hotel. Mission accomplished in 45 minutes! It was great fun.
We split up for the morning and I got a few last minute items purchased (I am about 10 pounds overweight on 1 bag but the other is full - I may have to scoot down to a shop to get a bigger bag in the morning - cheaper than overweight charges by 50%! We then went back up to the Blue Mosque site and explored for a couple of hours before meeting back up with the group to attend a Whirling Dervishes "performance". We were able to meet with one of the sect members/performers for a bit before the program, which was informational. The hour long program was very reverent and solemn.... so much for the oft used term "whirling dervish" to mean someone frantically rushing about! It was rather magical, really.
Our farewell dinner was at the first restaurant we ate at - deja-vu - can it really be the end already? Bittersweet and yet we are all ready to get home to the joys of driving, school beginning, cell phones, cooking, and being in charge of our own lives. Thank you for sharing the journey with me/us!

"Home" to Istanbul

The karavansaray proved to be a very comfortable hotel and once the wedding celebration ended (12:15 am), was quiet and peaceful. Yep, we're in Turkey - cheese, olives, bread, tomatoes, and cucumbers for breakfast - and Nescafe coffee......walked to two mosques - the Old Mosque, with beautiful large calligraphic decorations and then Sinan's masterpiece, the Selimiye Camiisi. It is a stunning structure and definately a testament to Sinan's desire to create open spaces with an open reach to the heavens. His main goal was to be able to surpass the dome of Hagya Sophia AND open the space, moving columns out of the central meeting space. The Selimiye dome is 1 meter larger in diameter and the decoration so exquisite. Pictures don't even begin to capture the essence.
We then drove to the BeyezidII complex with a medical school and hospital, just out of town. The Ottomans were excellent healers in their day, with surgeries and psychiatric treatments, some not all that different from some techniques used by advanced hospitals in the world today. Still glad I live in the 21st century!
Driving back across Turkey, I thought about the travelers across the centuries....traders of the Spice Trade, Nomadic herders, Silk Road caravans, Crusader knights, conquering armies of the Greek, Illyrians, Macedonians, Roman, Byzantine, Selchuk, Ottoman, Italian, and more and beyond (WWI and II). And now a group of tired teachers....so much now to process and reconcile.

Thessaloniki to Edirne

Must have been tired - slept through the alarm so had a quick breakfast before we toured the Ottoman sites of Thessaloniki. The city was named Thessaloniki for Alexander's wife and step-sister. It is the second largest city in Greece. The old Ottoman sites were built on old Greek sites and later new Greek sites on top of them. There is a lot of excavation going on in toen as they put in a subway system. We had brief stops at the "White Tower on the port and the fortifications on the acropolis of town - also the old Ottoman neighborhood. It is a beautiful city with a lovely port. We then drove a couple of hours to Kavala - used to be Philippi - for lunch. The harbor doesn't allow for any swimming or even dipping of ones feet into the Aegean, but we at least spent a relaxing hour sampling bakery goods and walking along the waterfront. All too soon it was back on the bus for 5 more hours of road trip, mostly on 4 lane divided highways. The scenery along the coast was quite picturesque, and without all the curvy roads, most of us could enjoy it, too! I have decided that there needs to be an Aegean/Adriatic cruise in Jim and my near future! The coastal cities of Turkey, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania and Greece were so lovely and so beckoning......

The border crossing into Turkey was a bit intimidating - NO PICTURES ALLOWED - armed gurads and checkpoint gates, machine gun "bunkers" and barbed wire fences surrounding....we had no trouble, but it was a bit creepy.....we were then back in the land of mosques and for a time on a cobblestone "highway". We entered Edirne, a quaint, picturesque city about 7PM and discivered that our hotel for the night was to be a 16th century caravan "sarai" or Ottoman Motel. It is amazing in its design and history. The only problem is that tonight it is also the scene of a wedding - with very loud Turkish music still going on at 11 PM - looks like it's an ear plug night!

It almost felt like "home" to get back to Turkey, where we had become familiar with the language (and able to use a few expressions), food, and customs. After a good dinner, we wandered the main pedestrian walkway. There are a large number of old Ottoman style buildings, probably 19th century, all around the town, plus Sinan the architect's most impressive mosque from the 1500's. Most of us then came back to try to finish blogs, re-pack, and go to sleep before our on foot exploration tomorrow as a group. Last day of the "educational" part of our trip! Tomorrow night we are back in Istanbul and Hotel Bristol to work on curriculum projects and any repeat tours or last-minute shopping. To the USA on Monday!

Albania to Greece

Woke up in the amazing hillside town of Gjirokastra, with its steep stone streets and slate roofed houses, all overseen by a huge castle-like fortress and former Bektashi monastery. The Bektashi were the liberal sect of Islam that came with the Ottoman conquerors and made it easier to convert to Islam because they drank Raki (strong alcoholic grape product - Uozo in other countries) and didn't require their women to cover. (Sufiism would come later). We climbed up the hill to the monastery/castle and enjoyed the labyrinth of hallways, rooms, and cisterns. There was quite a collection of cannon, a tank, and a US spy plane, shot down in the 1950's, in and about the fortification walls. There is also an old stage for celebrations and cultural gatherins held every two years during dictator Hodga's reign. Gjirokastra was his birthplace and our second visit was to that location, now an ethnographic museum of costumes and household furnishings of the upper class of Albanians in the 19th and 20th centuries. After a hike back down the hill, we bid our Albanian tour guide farewell, boarded our bus for Thessaloniki, Greece and began our scenic adventure through the mountains of southern Albania and northern Greece (old Macedonia). While splendidly scenic, most of our stomachs were at least mildly unhappy. At least it was light and we could enjoy all the sights.....

We were into Greece by lunch time and our food blogger, Abbey, found us this amazing family restaurant where the food was either fresh from the garden or the farms nearby. We ate family style of home baked bread, fresh goat cheese, green beans, chard, potatoes, carrots, and roast beef, followed by what we were told was candied zucchini, but tasted more like candied sweet potato. It was the best food of the trip, I think. And the atmosphere so perfect, on picnic tables under a grape arbor.....a perfect Grecian lunch.....Alexander would have approved. But, the road called us on.....

Our bus driver was amazing and got us right into downtown Thessaloniki where we only circled downtown twice before finding the right one way streets to get us to the Hotel Aegean. There we were met by our lovely Turkish tour guide and friend, Arzu, who got us settled in quickly and got us to a nice restaurant a block from the hotel for dinner. She is an amazing woman and really works so well with our group (we are worse than a group of school kids). Bedtime beckoned and 7:30 breakfast was going to come too quickly. A few walked to the waterfront, but I needed sleep!

Tuesday in Albania

We are so much better today! I forgot to mention that we overnighted in Shkodra - a charming town. The hotel is being renovated and updated, is situated at the end of a lovely walking mall and right across from a beautiful Mosque.(We were originally to have spent last night in Berati but with the delay we are trying to cram as much as possible into our 1 1/2 days in Albania) Albania is about 60% Muslim (a direct result of 500 years of Ottoman rule), 20% Albanian Orthodox, and 20% Catholic. There are a few minor religions (our guide knew about Adventists), but they don't really make an impact. Since Socialism and the forbidding of religion ended in 1992, people are open about religion but do not register a religion, as it was forbidden in the past and there is a natural distrust about sharing personal information. Politics still play a huge part in getting and keeping jobs, but religion less so.

Our day commenced with a visit to the Old City of Kruja, with shops, and ethnographic museum, and a museum to the national hero, Skenderbec (there are about 6 different spellings of his name!) , who kept the Ottomans at bay, until his death in the late 1400's. The interpreter at the ethnographic museum was a retired teacher, spoke excelllent English and gave one of the best and most efficient presentations of this whole trip - he was great! We shopped briefly but spent well, those who had exchanged money (I didn't have as much as I would have liked!) mostly on local weavings and carvings.

We then drove a couple of hours to the town of Berati where we hiked up a steep cobblestone road for 1 kilometer to another ethnographic museum, in an 19th century restored house and then up to Berati Castle, where there is an Albanian Orthodox church, the Church of the Sleeping Mary, that has an amazing collection of original icons, all maintained despite a ban on religion during the Cold War years. We then drove on another 3 hours to our destination for the night, Gjirokastra. We hiked up ANOTHER cobblestone hill for dinner, and finally were in bed by midnight.

Sick in Montenegro

Well....it was bound to happen, but we never expected it to be all of us (except 4) who would get food poisoning from pizza......so bad that one of our group - Ben (don't worry Ben's Mom, he's OK now) even had to go to an emergency care center....trust me - Montenegro is NOT a place you want to be if you are unwell. I was only queesy, as were a couple of us, but the rest had been tossing pizza since 4AM. Our poor tour guide! What a way to get to know your group. It took about 4 hours and a lot of negotiating, but Ben finally got re-hydrated and we were on our way to Albania. Now, the real fun.....Montenegro and Albania are emerging nations....their roads are not new and not well maintained. Plus, they are mountainous nations. Add sour stomachs, dehydration, and bouncy bus ride on curvy mountain roads and you have 5 hours of driving that were very difficult for us all to handle. But, we did survive! No sightseeing, just getting to our hotel, though our guide did tell us some Albanian history, which actually helped keep our minds off of the weird feelings in our mid-sections. As a nation only recently (10 years) emerging from a totalitarian dictatorship into the 20th century, Albania is very "behind the times" and struggling to catch up. The country only became a NATO member this year and has only been friendly to Americans for a few years - WE were the enemy that they built 700,000 private bunkers to protect the Albanian people from! As a result of Cold War tensions, we will be the first Americans many of the Albanian people will see or meet...it will be interesting! But a bit of food and rest are really all we need for now......