Its almost time....

to go home!
only like a little over a week left, that is so sad, but on the other hand iam looking forward to coming home as well!
It has been a great time here, i enjoyed it a lot, met very nice people and just hang out!

but its been 6 and a half month now , well actually a bit more! and now its coming to an end!
too bad the Qube closed that would be a great place to take Miriam,cause in the Qube there was always something going on!

Cause Miriam is here right now - visiting from Istanbul on her way to Diyarbakkir, very nice that she found the time to stop by and see Laura and me!
Becaue my tall beast Laurita is back home in Turkey as well!

And my flight back home is at 6 oclock unbelievable what time do i need to go to the Airport then? what about my farewell party if i have to take the airport shuttle at 3.30??? jeez that is so weird! and tonight is not even a concert, well iam just writing WIRR cant help it, waiting to go to the workshop and figured i just write one last time on my blog:)

ITs been awesome i love Turkey! thanks everybody for making my time here so enjoyable!!!

Antakya

One week Antakya for EVS seminar, was great! lol
like always! :D

Not the prettiest city but thats not the most imortant right?
and Lotta and i even, while walking on teh streets of Antakya met our funny busfriend from the first trip to Hatay again! ;)
didnt think we would see him again or want to see him again! but oh well you always meet people twice in life! :)

ok i´ll get back to writing about hatay later!!!

Syrien-was ne Reise

Why stay in Ankara?
IF there is so much more to explore? Thats what Lotta and i thought and decided spontaniously to join some volunteers from Antalya to go to Syria for a week or two.
Too bad i only had a week but in the end it turned out that going home would be the best thing anyways!
We left Ankara on January 22nd. The start was just like it would be - if travelling with us. We got on the wrong bus. ours was late and the same bus company also send a bus to Hatay like 15 min before ours so we put in our stuff and wanted to sit down but there was already someone in our seats so they kinda told us its the wrong one and we had to leave and teh poor steward had to dig out our backpacks. I was so nervous we would miss the bus, luckily there was a turkish guy that spoke english and told me "just relax" lol
well finally we managed to get on the right bus and fell asleep right away so the 10 hours didnt seem that long to us.
In Antakya we met the others from Antalya-it took them 14 h so we were lucky the trip wasnt that long for us.
We got on a bus, that took us to the border, hung out there for awhile to get the visa, iam so glad we had Sakaryya with us cause he speaks arabic and without him iam sure it would have taken much longer for us at the border.
So we got to Aleppo at like 6 pm, found the Hotel and it was rainy, what a start!
and i must blame it on my shoes too that i got sick and Rasmus was sick when i left Ankara so i might have cought my cold there . Well my shoes were soaked with water it was freakin cold but we went to eat Falafel so everyone was happy!
We started to calculate in Falafel Units cause a Falafel (apparently the best in town) costs like 25 syrian pounds which is like 30 cents. And we measured everything we spend with that unit! lol
The next days we walked around the old town of Aleppo - visited the castle which is like really cool and looks like its the film set for a Lord of the Rings movie.

So then a couple days later we wanted to go on to Damaskus and stop in Hama on the way.
Sakaryya and Petr wanted to stay in Aleppo and go to Latakia so we left them behind and were now 6 people.
In the lonely planet it says that hama is a charming city but there is not much to see, and well like almost always, the Lonely planet is right. The city is famous for its water wheels but since the river didnt hold enough water - they didnt turn. but we were invited to tea by a nice syrian guy and walked around the city a bit.
The thing about Hama is just- it is a charming city but due to the Massacre of hama in 1982 most of the old buildings and parts of the city were destroyed.
The story goes that a Muslim brotherhood from Egypt wanted to establish a branch of it in Hama and the government didnt agree so there was severe fighting and in the end nothing left.
Well we only stayed a couple hours and then went to Damaskus. All the nice hostels from the Lonely Planet were full so we kinda became scared that we would have to sleep on the roof which was not heated and kinda freezing. But Johannes and Jola managed to find us a nice and cheap hotel.
The next day we explored the old city and went to the Grant Mosque, the huge Bazaar and stuff. It was amazing and we ate very good Syrian ice cream, maybe Florida should go there and get inspired! :)
I even got a tea in this one cafe cause i was coughing so bad and the waitress felt bad for me!
So we stayed there for awhile until the others - while i was sick in bed - met a couchsurfing guy and he invited all of us in even though he already had 2 slowakian students staying with him. That was so nice, so we moved there. The bad part was just that Sophie and i just kept on feeling horribly sick so we stayed in the Appartment and Sam took good care of us. Making tea and soup and entertaining me. Later we went out to meet the others to take them back to the appartment but they called and said they missed the bus and were stuck in Maloula.
But i did have fun in the internet cafe, met some people from Jordan, a guy from Denmark starting a youth project offering Workshops for youngsters-doing research on that right now. A swedish guy that knew arabic and was doing an internship in Damaskus and a Lady from Michigan but who lives in London and is studying arabic language now here in Damaskus, she has a degree in islamic art and lived all over the world - including Afganistan-kinda cool :) and she said i still have an american accent -YEAH
So we went back and watched some movies. Sophie felt much worse than me she stayed in bed all day long. I just had some trouble breathing. And it is so nice i dont even have to feel bad that i went to Syria cause i discussed it with Nadav before i went and he said of course its up to me and no one can blame me because of the decisions i make and thats right i just feel so much better if i know that i didnt do anything horrible!

Well i think arabic sounds so cool, Sam quoted some poetry for me- it just sounds like the language the elbs speak in Lord of the Rings-so cool! i love it!
So the next day he went to work and Sophie and i, we basically watched horrible american movies on TV all day long and talked about this and that. And she told me plenty of stories about the other volunteers :)
Then everyone got home. Lotta was sick too. We stayed for one more night in the iraqi refugee quarter and then left the next day. First going to Aleppo but from there, there was no more bus crossing the border. Next bus at 5am. So this one guy from the bus company showed us around the city - looking for a cafe for 2 hours then we went to see his friend in prison??? dont ask me why, he was a bus driver from Turkey and waited for a trial. And appartently he didnt do anything wrong and was a nice guy - but i dont know.
So then we went to his house and met his family-nice people. his mother wanted Lotta to marry his son right away i dont think thats what Lotta wants to do though.
We slept for awhile on the living room floor-with lots of blanchets, pillows and we even got a pyjama. So nice, then we left for the bus at like 4am. Later it turned out that the guy we were travelling with and who took us to the border to help us, thought we were kinda retarted or just not very independent? i dont know. He didnt even feel like we could arange our blanchets, stir the coffee or order water by ourselves? come one, we are european, we learned how to travel alone years before we were of age? and he is telling us what we cant do on our own???
well Lotta and i were about to punch him in the face when we finally got out in Antakya. We got rid of him quite fast and then met some very nice people from Lebanon. One half italian, half Libanese, One half british, half Libanese, and an norwegian guy living in Beirut traveling together if we ever come to Beirut we can stay with them, So nice!
Lovely and very interesting people!

So at noon we got on a bus to Ankara and 10 hours later we finally arrived in Ankara - i´ve never been so happy in my life to come home. the way back from Syria was just kneppet!
But it was a lot of fun even though i was sick i had my good days too!
And next time i go i will see Palmyra!!! and the sun rise in the desert!

Zypern!

laura and i left for Cyprus last wednesday morning so exactly a week from today!

it was a nice one hour flight and we even got some food on the plane, well actually our flight was canceled but they put us without any problems on the other plane leaving for Cyprus, the least the could do!!!

We got to Lefkosa at like 4 then took a bus to our little town - Girne and found our hostel after some walking around- funny it seems like no one ever knows the way hehe

The first night we didnt do much except eat and sleep.

The next morning we slept in late, the hostel was quite funny, it was small and cosy and the entrance hall was the dormitory we stayed in at the same time just some curtains dividing it from the main room hehe but it was a very nice place to stay and so cheap! Just at night it was a bit cold because there was no heating!

But Cyprus wasnt very cold so it was ok. We even had like 20 degrees one day! and the first day was all rain that wasnt too much fun, but we only took a look around the city - walked around - walked along the peer and up to the little castle!

it was quite nice but then it started to rain and we went back to the dorm and read. Laura was totally focused cause she was reading "a thousand splendid suns" great book, if you havent read it yet, Khaled Hosseini is a Genius!!!

So the 2nd day we had much better weather and decided to go to Greece, we took a dolmus to Lefkosa to the border, crossed it - got a stamp and were happy! but then we had to work our way through the UN buffer zone- and you were not supposed to take pictures - we did it anyways but it was kinda scary- no one was there except for some military cars driving by.

We were glad when we reached the greek border after like 10 min and entered the EU once again :)

The first thing i thought was: what an ugly place! cause the part of the town where we got was not very pretty and we did follow the sign which said town center but never really got there except for a very expensive shopping street. so we send some SMS to our dear family and friends back in Germany since its only 13 cents per SMS cause we were in the EU.

Then we ate some ice cream after we solved the euro problem. We spend all the Euros we still had in the hostel cause he offered us we could also pay with euros and we aprrecitated it so we didnt have to change more money but when we got to Southern Cyprus we discovered that Cyprus. well the EU part has Euros for the past 2 years so changing money once agaiN!!!

After some time we didnt go that far because we were scared we would not find our way back to the border we did finally go back. The border patrol just had a smile for us. And then we were looking for the dolmus back. Walking around aimlessly. No clue where to go. A car stopped us. A car full with americans, asking us if we were americans too cause the driver had a bet with the rest of the people in the car! so too bad we werent!

Later that day we went back to the hostel but our dear manager send us a message he would be sitting on the roof and wanted to talk to us and we should come up and he was drunk he said so we didnt really feel like dealing with him and went down to the peer. Sat down and chew sunflower seeds and talked! Laura and i we can just talk for ages! so funny then later cause some guys came talking to us, we changed the place and went back to the fountain in the center of the town, where we have been sitting before, its a great place!

When it got too cold later that night we went home and to bed in the morning he apologized for sending those messages cause he send many more.

This day we went to Bellapais an old Abbey on top of a hill- which had a great view over the coast and the sea! we didnt really want to leave from there it was so beautiful!

But we did and had dinner in Girne at Yilmaz döner salonu where we went the first evening, the waiter that liked us so much and took pictures with us was there too!

lol

So after that we sat down at the peer again and chew sunflower seeds like all the Turks do!

and all of a sudden a guy comes up to us and he does not know Engl like always hehe so he is talking in turkish some things in understand but if i dont i just talk to Laura and pretend to be translating to her and even if i tell him i dont understand he just goes on with his little monolog!

WE thought ok let him talk. but then he leaves and comes back with his hands behind his back and says surprise with a horrible turkish accent. we were very confused and looked at him so he pulls out 3 bananas and gives one to each of us! so we didnt understand why but we took the banana but we werent allowed to eat it like this, he pealed his and let us take a bite he begged until we did so we all shared his banana for some reason- oh jeez what a dirty mind i have . well solater he took us to his friends , they were sitting a bit away and they didnt speak much engl either. But at least we figured we have a reason to go now!

so we left them there and went to the hostel!

So that was our little vacation- oh wait the next morning. we woke up at 5 cause apparently the shuttle to the airport should be leaving at 6.30 so we went to the bus stop and waiting and some guy came talking to us but then we told him we both have a boyfriend he left lol

so the guards from the casino next door were looking and kinda laughing at us so i went over there and asked them about the shuttle they said there is one at 9. so i thought . fuck that the tourist information guy gave us the wrong infos!

but laura and i we had fun anyways we were singing taylor swift songs-karaoke with my ipod earplugs in the ears - the song "you belong with me" and "an alle ladies " von den Ohrbooten were the hits ! well we say the town awake - sun raising - more people walking around after time passed and distracted and amused some car or motorcycle drivers with our singing!

so finally at 9 there was a shuttle and we left!

In the airport a guy was waving at us- oh who could that be? it was the waiter from our favourite little restaurant he has a band in Hatay and went there - he even gave us a CD lol

So that was it but we also met a turkish military guy that spoke german fluently and stayed in north iraq for a couple of month ! so lots of new people! and we did have lots of fun too but it was nice to be back in Ankara at 13 o clock sunday!

Lauras farewell party!

Her last weekend in Turkey! We did party a lot i must say! :)

We went to Telwe with some friends and had a great time, so many of them came and we were dancing all night long :)

it was amazing and i think Laura had a lot of fun too!

The only sucky thing was , that in the end of the night there was a bill at our table over 180 TL not paid, which would be 36 beers and we really asked everyone even the people that left earlier if they forgot to pay but we everyone said they did, so we finally came to the solution that the waitress just were too stupid to cross out what was paid that is the only way we can explain that, just too bad that others that didnt have anything to do with that were involved !

but no one is mad anymore!

ok back to our weekend!

Actually Lui wanted to come but of couse he didnt he is in Germany now and might come later in Feb. who knows. So Laura and i Went to a techno club close by and to Eskiyeni- where they were playing Ray Charles and old kinds of old stuff like that-great to dance!

and then of course tuesday night, in telwe we had lots of fun, the last party night with Laura!

and we even met the BERK! lol its was amazing even though some things kinda kept me thinking... oh well dont worry guys iam over it! :)

we finally made it home at around like 3 or something and went to bed without packing our stuff...cause leaving for cyprus the next morning lol

NEW YEARS!

I have a lot to catch up! so i just write really quick, what i did!

Laura and i didnt really want to stay in Ankara for New years, even though a friend of us had a great party coming up, but we thought there gotta be more to it than staying here.
So when Lotta told us she will go to Istanbul we joined her!

and Also a friend of mine (YFU friend) doing Erasmus in Norway was coming to Istanbul to see some friends , great opportunity so finally see her again!

So we took the Van gölü Express, great train, comes from Van, the farthest east it can possibly be- close to the Armenian border and takes like 20 hours to ankara or something lol!

So it only cost like 4 euros to Istanbul so we were fine with it!

But it was like really really slow. We went over night and it took 9 h. There where some strange people in our compartment. An old guy from Eskisehir that looked like he wanted to eat us right there-and then he invited us to his house, we could just go to Istanbul the next day, thanks but no thanks

and a little guy, just 18 but looked like 12! a barber from van but works in Istanbul and after the old guy left the little one couldnt stop talking but neither one of them spoke english so he was kinda entertaining himself and just threw words at us , like Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Fenerbahce and stuff .

Was funny in the beginning but then only annoying!

So later on we went to sleep finally! the compartment was overheated! we felt like in a sauna! aweful you couldnt even move because it was too hot!

Oh and there are no trashcans at least we didnt see any, so our "friends" just threw the stuff out the window-what the hell?

Ok so like the last hours we finally managed to get some sleep even though it was too hot! and that funny little guy ended up sleeping crawled up in my lap, whatever!

we got to Istanbul at 5 in the morning so we slept a bit at the train station then we went to Miriams house , got some more sleep, a nice breakfast! and then went to Lottas friends, but we didnt feel like getting stoned on Silvester so we took off too meet Miram and some friends that were invited for dinner by their coordinator!

We joined them it was a nice group! really enjoyed it, later we went to a party in Taksim but we didnt walk down iseklat , cause it was too crowded!

well i met this banker lol really funny but it was too boring so he ask me too leave with him but i kinda enjoyed the party and i was already quite drunk!

so i stayed and met some Americans that travel through turkey these days, and both of them were jewish and spend some time in Israel i was in heaven, so interesting to hear their stories!

So then some time in the morning we went home-to Miriams place with a nightnbus to the asian side ! it took us forever and i was drunk and was singing and talking about whatever shit came to my mind so Laura told me to shut up and i was really going on her nerves and iam really sorry about that!

but oh well i did shut up eventually!

we were sitting at the Bosporus for like half an hour then it got too cold and we went home to sleep on the floor once again, cause our stuff was still at Lottas friends house, we are just some geniuses!

So the next day we tried to pick up the stuff , first we couldnt find the house but finally we managed to get it and met my friends from Norway/Germany and had something to eat with them. then we took a bus to Sariyer to see Lui.

Had a nice evening with him didnt really do anything but watch movies and chill but that was just what we needed! and its always fun to be around him. So we actually wanted to only stay until Saturday night and leave that night but we decided to stay one more day and go back sunday night!

so we didnt have to hurry! we had a nice dinner on saturday and just enjoyed!

And Lui didnt even promise to come and see me in Ankara when hes back from Germany who knows if that is going to happen ?

So we left Sunday morning-went to the Bluse Mosque really quick, cause Laura has been there but not inside!

Then we were too tired and lost to find the Grant bazaar without getting on the metro agaiN!

so we took the ferry over to Kadiköy and met Miriam, ate some soup, talked and then she took us to the Trainstation!

The trainride back was a bit more expensive but still cheap like 9 euros, it took us awhile to figure out that we were in a sleeping compartment but it was nice! there was an old lady sitting next to me and without any prejudices or stereotypes she honestly looked like a witch, but she was very nice and shared the food her daughter in law had given her for the way with us and tried to talk to us, successless but oh well! it was still unbelievable hot in the train but we got to Ankara at 7 am so we were good with that!

Great TRIP! like always :D

How was Christmas?

That was certainly an interesting Christmas!

I guess we could have expected that, but still we were a bit disappointed that it turned out the way it did!

Ok i start at the beginning! We invitet some friends over to celebrate Christmas together with people from everywhere we thought that would be awesome, from Germany, Turkey, Algeria, Italia, Ungarn und co. but then all of a sudden some of our other volunteers burst through the door, totally drunk and tried to make the party fun in their point of view, well that did not exactly work cause no one really enjoyed them being there. So someone told them to leave which they actually did.

Still it did not feel like the perfect Christmas-we needed some time to get over that interuption and to establish a new Christmas spirit.

But in the end we DID have great food thanks to Laura and the algerian guy that wants to tramp to India lol, and nice music as well as a nice get together with our friends!

The tree did not stop blinking and tumbling over but since it was just an old plastic tree and no real candles it was quite funny! killed by a falling plastic tree that would be an interesting story to hear hehe

So we also drank some Glühwein and enjoyed that very much, it reminds the germans of our Weihnachtsmarkt just too much! So that was kinda great, i was surprised that i did not feel homesick at all, but i guess that i was in Germany 3 weeks ago is partly the reason and that it did not feel like Christmas as well!!!

Thanks to my parents by the way, i got the greatest Christmas gift ever!!! The will pay part of my ticket to Israel so i hope it will work out and i will be going to Israel to see my friends there and volunteer a bit in Spring :)

Ok our guest left around 2 o´clock, Laura and i started cleaning up right away and it did not take very long and now the appartment looks pretty again! Then we sat down with Fatih, the presents under the tree how its supposed to be and opened presents! And then it finally felt like Christmas and it was 3 o`clock by that time so actually it was closer to american way of celebrating that ours! hehe

Oh and i almost forgot before the party started, we went to a catholic church, owed by the Embassy of the Vatican and they even had a guest from Italy there yesterday some famous Cardinal or something, it was very interesting!!!

So we came too early and watched the choir practice for like an hour and then the service began!

Later that night after we finished looking at our presents, we watched LOVE ACTUALLY cause it is THE christmas movie and the best one ever, we already watched it 3 times but we planned to watch it again on Christmas Eve so we had to follow our plan at least once cause we always end up doing something different! but for once we stuck to the plan!!!

Merry Christmas-have a great 1.Weihnachtsfeiertag!!!