Turkey anyone?!

Last time I was in a country that spanned more than one continent I only stayed on one continent, this past weekend I was in Istanbul, Turkey and was able to visit Europe and Asia! (For those of you who are curious Chile has land in South America, Antarctica, and Asia.) Istanbul (or Constantinople if you'd rather) really is a cross cultural place. While Turkey is a Muslim country, and that is very apparent, there are signs of other cultures, but it isn't the hodge-podge of cultures I was expecting. It has it's own unique culture but I wouldn't really classify it as a mixing of cultures. Istanbul is a pretty city and the people there are all really friendly. It's also a massive city with lots of traffic, but we managed to get around using the metro, ferries, and walking. We saw all the main sites including the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the Egyptian obelisk, the Gala Tower, the Basilica Cistern, the palace, the Grand Bazaar, the Egyptian Bazaar, etc. We took a ferry ride (which was the same price as the metro!) across the Bosporus and spent a few hours walking around the part of Istanbul located on the Asian continent. There was a board-walk type thing on the Asian side that was great for running/walking and there were also benches so you could just sit with a beautiful view! Another highlight was the Turkish baths. They were very different from the baths I went to in Budapest. The Turkish baths were primarily a large warm room (like a sauna) with marble areas for laying on. There were also 2 small pools you could lounge in, but the main area is the marble. We got bubble scrubs/massages that were incredible!! So relaxing! While we were there we also got to meet up with a family friend from the States who's family is living there for 2 years. We went to dinner with them at an amazing Asian restaurant on the Bosporus with a great view overlooking the city at sunset; it was spectacular!

All of the food we had in Istanbul was good! Some notable food we ate included: kumpirs- they are basically a stuffed baked potato but they are huge, seriously a dinner for 2 not a snack; kebabs and black tea of course; and the ice cream was a performance. The ice cream had xanthan gum or something in it because it had a chewy feel to it, not like bubble gum but similar. All the flavors tasted the same, except for the lemon which has some sort of "woah sour" ingredient that none of the other flavors had. But you don't get ice cream from the stands in Istanbul because you want ice cream, you get it because of the show the ice cream scoopers put on! The scoops they use are really long metal sticks basically and there's a bell at the top of the stand they constantly clank with the scoop. Because of the xanthan gum in the ice cream they can also preform tricks, like taking all of the ice cream out of the container and pretending to put it on your cone- and it stays there while your friend can pull out a camera and snap a picture! They also turn it around, upside down, etc and make you think you've dropped it, hand you different/empty cones, etc. It really is very entertaining!!

While in Istanbul we also took overnight buses in order to visit Sofia, Bulgaria for a day! We had to stop to go through passport control/customs around 2am each time, but other than that the overnight buses were a great way to spontaneously add another city/country to our travels! Sofia was great, but I'll have to go back to Bulgaria to visit the gorgeous mountains in the country! Sofia's main sightseeing stop is the Alexander Nevski Church (the only picture from Sofia I've posted, the rest are from Istanbul), but others include the Banya Bashi Mosque, Hagia Sofia, the Parliament, Culture Museum, lots of parks, etc. We also had some ice cream in Sofia, and it was absolutely delicious! Made from real fruits and so good!! Another really cool thing about Sofia are the mineral springs. They have mineral springs all around the city and there are fountains all across the city where you can get water! We used it several times to fill up our water bottles, which was nice considering how it's starting to get pretty hot over here now. 2 countries, 2 continents, great food, views, and people- it was truly a great weekend!