Turkey

After most of the day spent travelling, I am finally back in Munich, and boy am I glad! Take my word for it and never go to Turkey in August. It is soooo hot and humid it is torture.
We spent a week in Istanbul first and I have to admit that most of the time I just did not want to leave our room with the lovely air-con. Istanbul was loud and super crowded. I suppose a city of 15 million people is bound to be pretty busy though. Also, I must complain that the food in Turkey was not the same as I was led to believe it would be like after visiting numerous Turkish restaurants back in Sydney. Everywhere we went there was lots of cafes etc selling the exact same food - lamb shish kebabs. I didn't feel like eating kebabs for every meal, but there wasn't much choice.
Above is the view of Istanbul, you can see the Aya Sofia (right) and the Blue Mosque (left).

This is the inside of the Aya Sofia. They are in the process of restoring it now. I struggled to be excited about it though, as now I am really feeling like I am sick of looking at churches and museums and palaces, that all try to out do each other. I had to constantly remind myself that the Aya Sofia is 1500 years old all the time we were there, it was just too easy to think of other places we have been that seem that much more amazing and dismiss this.

Opposite the Aya Sofia is the Blue Mosque, so called because of the abundance of blue mosaics inside. Our hotel was just behind this and we could hear the call the prayer throughout the day. One day we went on the (extremely crowded) tram and trains to this shopping mall, which would be a fantastic place for anyone interested in architechture to visit. So much better than Westfield!

A light shop at the Grand Bizaare. The bizaare was great to walk around looking at all the carpet and lights etc to buy, although we didn't get anything except a lemonade.

That was it for Istanbul! We flew to Kayseri and spent the next 2 days in Cappadocia. This was BY FAR the best part of our trip and if you ever go spend longer than 2 days here. We got to our hotel at about 11pm and we had to get up again at 4am for the balloon flight we had booked. Everywhere we looked people recommended doing this, and now I can really see why.

Watching the balloons heat up. The baskets are tipped over when the balloon is fully inflated.

Our balloon went first and you can see the 2 others below. Our company was great and we had only 9 people in our basket. Other companies packed about 30 in! You can see the Fairy Chimneys at the top of the picture.

The Fairy Chimneys up close.

Our balloon pilot took us down and around all over the place within a few meters of the rocks and the fairy chimneys. It was amazing.

Our flight lasted almost 2 hours and we went all over the Cappadocia region (there are lots of other rock formations besides the fairy chimneys).

When we got out of the balloon I saw this old farmer coming down the road with his donkey. The donkey was really cute and I patted him and gave him a flower to eat. The old man told me to send him this picture. I am going to send it to the balloon company and they will give it to him.

The soil is very fertile in this region and there are grapes and lots of other crops growing everywhere.

We got taken back home by 9am, but at 9.30 we were picked up again for the tour we had booked. We booked 2 tours, one for the south of Cappadocia and one for the north. Both lasted the entire day until 6pm. We were absolutely exhausted after this first day.

Above and below are pictures of a sort of town that was built into the rock by the first Christians in the 3rd century. Below the outside wall has fallen away and you can see how a room (a church) looks inside.

All over Cappadocia there are churches and schools and houses cut into the rock (that used to be very soft, but is now hard apparently). The churches were not just square rooms though, columns and arches, domes and alters were also cut and the churches were painted. Below is a church that has been preserved. You would never suspect that such a church could be inside what appears to be a big rocky hill.

There are also underground citys also cut into the rock. This one went down 8 levels and had a school and winery. It was lovely and cool inside. Cappadocia was hot, but not humid, it was very dry.

Different rock formations on day 2.

After Cappadocia we caught another plane to Antalya. Numerous travel agents told us that the only way here from C was via a 9 hour overnight bus trip but being the sneaky people we are, we found an ellusive flight with Turkish airlines! 9 hours turned into 1 and the price was about $10 more. Great!

We stayed out of Antalya at Olympos. Right now little baby turtles are hatching out of nests that were all over the beach. We got up at 6am one morning and found 2 baby turtles were making there journey to the water. They are not as speedy as they seem to be on TV, it took these 2 about 1 1/2 hours to trek from their nest to the water (about 5 meters). There are also not swarms of them. The owner of the place we were staying at was really surprised we saw these 2 since most of the time the turtles hatch at night and most of the time his guests don't find any turtles at all. We only got up this once and we were very lucky.

Almost there! This turtle flipped over going down a little hill and couldn't up for ages. It was so tempting to just pick him up and help him, but we knew that was not on. He made it eventually, poor little guy.

The nests are in the sand, but then the sand turns into rocks like this (like Nice), and then smaller pebbles at the water. It was another painful swim for me I'm afraid.

Finally there!!!

This is the beach. It looks great, but I don't think I'd come here again. It was stinking hot here (42/3 every day with high humidity) and on our last 2 days our aircon broke down. The water was also about 30C so it was far from refreshing. The owner gave us a room in his house to sleep the last 2 nights because it was just to hot to stay in our room.

There were lots of chickens around though who became my friends. There were pomegranets growning all around and I was picking them and sharing them with the chickens. They loved them!

I am really glad to be back in Munich, and we are now staying in a lttle apartment (up 6 flights of stairs, but at least it is cooler!) for the next 6 weeks. No more hotels for a while!

I hope this post makes sense, sorry if there are lots of typos, I am pretty tired now and I'm glad to be staying put for a while. I'll be coming back for more updates soon though, with things I have missed and life in Munich.

Vienna & Dubai

Vienna! I was looking forward to going to the opera for 3 euros, but apparently in July and August they go on holidays! The Vienna Boys Choir was on holidays until Sept too. I am going to try and see them when we are staying in Munich.

We were only in Vienna for about 4 days. 1 1/2 days before we went to Russia, and 1 1/2 days after, before we went to Dubai, so we weren't exactly bored though.

Above is the Hapsburg Palace, home of the Kaisers (emporers) - including Marie Antionette as a child. Around the palace are extensive gardens, similar to Versaille again. There are 3 mazes too, see the pic below, and a playground with lots of cool things in.

Chris found that he got shorter and fatter around this time.
I saw a squirrel in the grounds. He was very friendly, but very fast!
After we were left the palace we found a sports center and there we 10 trampolines that you could pay to use. We had lots of fun bouncing around for 1/2 an hour as you can see.
I have the skills to be on The Matrix. he he.



Chris can jump high....
But other than that...


...he is definately not as good as me!
I did try to teach him though.
After we saw the palace we went to a few art galleries and wandered around the town. There are lots of horse-and-carts everywhere.
We saw the crown jewels too, and they were very impressive.
There were lots of religious icons and bits of bone that were supposed to belong to saints, and bit of wood that were supposed to be parts of the Cross, that were inside glass, and decorated with gold and jewels. Some things were a bit freaky, like a mummified hand in a little glass case with huge decorations all over the place. Weird.

From Vienna, we flew to Dubai with Emirates. The passport queue in Dubai International airport was crazy and it took forever to get through. We finally got out of the airport at 3am, and the temperature was 37C! Yes, that was not a typo. The humidity was about 75% and it felt like I needed to have a shower asap after just walking 15m from the airconditioned airport to the hotel BMW that picked us up.

Our return flight to Europe with Emirates that we booked way back in January included 3 free nights (we extended for 2 more) at the 5 star hotel Le Meridian in Dubai and it really was 5 stars! The bed was SOFT, just like at home, and there was a TV! How I have missed watching my dear TV and all my favourite programs. Russian soaps, and Greek dancing/kissing game shows just don't cut it! I indulged and watched all the repeats of Law and Order and even Oprah and Dr Phil that I could. I went a bit TV mad.

On the other hand in Dubai it was impossible to go outside and walk anywhere. In the day time it was 45C, according to BBC, but the barometer at the pool said 51C. Combined with the humidity it was absolutely shocking. We did go outside for a couple of hours every day to swim in the pools, but we were breaking into a sweat just sitting in the shade doing nothing. They have to chill the water in the pools too so it is cool enough to swim.

We didn't take any pictures at all while we were in Dubai, just because there was nothing that looked good enough to take a picture of! The hotel was great, but I was not going to take a picture of the hotel room. Outside the sky was a dirty brown for the whole time we were there and visibilty was poor. We took a taxi to the Mall of Emirates, and the city centre mall near the hotel and it was not possible to see the sky line at all. We could very faintly make out the Burj once, but that was it. Take my word for it and visit Dubai in the cooler months.

Aside from that I think Dubai will be a fantastic place in a few years. Right now the subway has not been built and in the afternoons the traffic is impossible - it does not move in one direction. Maybe it was because you had to drive because it was too hot not to, but it was just shocking. On our second last day we waited 1 1/2 hours for the hourly shuttle bus back to our hotel (held up in traffic) but it was still faster than the queue to get a taxi! You should have seen the line!

We didn't do anything else in Dubai, because it was just too hot, but I'd love to go back there in November in a few years. There is lots to do.

Now we are in Istanbul and in 2 days we are going to Cappadocia, and then Antalya, and then its back to Munich. I am taking lots of photos now for the next blog!

St. Petersburg

Out of the EU and into Russia! The airport sure proved to us that we were indeed out of the EU. No renovations there for the last 40 years. We were picked up by our driver at the airport who had one of the biggest mullets I have ever seen in my life. He looked quite a lot like this guy I found on the internet, but older, fatter, and his hair was a little bit shorter, just down to the shoulders. We were rather excited to see that this is who we would be spending our time with for a week.
Russia must have been the most expensive place we have been to so far. You can't just go to Russia like you can to Germany or something and just turn up, you have to be invited, and after you have been invited you can apply for a visa which took us about 3 weeks. A hotel will invite you, but since we didn't really know what we were doing we used the Russian travel agency in Sydney to organise all this for us and to book us a guide for the 5 days we were there.

Anyway, our hotel (we could pick out of about 8, but we just went with the cheapest, that was still about A$220 a night!!) was really old and again, nothing had been done since the late 50s I think, including the beds and bathrooms. When we turned on the taps in the bathroom rusty water came out. I didn't want to repeat my Phi Phi island sickness so we made sure not to drink that water! I must say that was not exactly thrilled at my arrival in rainy and cold St. Petersburg last week after all this. Strangely 'Down Under' - by men at work, was playing on the Air Berlin flight we were on when we landed. I didn't think it was very apt at all.

Anyway, the day after we arrived we started on our tours. The morning on day 1, Monday, we were picked up at 10am by our driver, Vladim, and Christina our 22 year old guide. She was very nice although she just loved to say 'absolutely' and 'you can't even imagine' A LOT when she is talking about things, reminiscent of Fast Forward's Good Morning Moscow. She also said 'it's nice' quite a bit and sounded just like Borat, but we hid our smiles.

On day 1 we drove around the city and looked at the sights including the above Peter and Paul Fortress, the sight that Peter The Great choose to start building St. P. The church above is the tallest building in the city, due to swampy ground everything is only about 4/5 stories tall at the most.

On day 2 we were picked up at 10am again (same every day) and we went to the Hermitage Museam. It used to be the Tsars Winter Palace and it is just huge. It was built by Peter The Great to rival Versaille (remember my Paris blog). There is heaps of gold leaf everywhere.

The Hermitage is similar to the Lourve or the Vatican in that it hold a massive amount of pricess art. Below is a room full of Picassos. I was so surprised that many of the painting, including Monets, and Van Goghs, were displayed not behind glass or behind any rope or anything. You could go right up and touch them or anything if you had wanted to. There were a couple of bored old ladies around the place doing crossword puzzles who I think were supposed to be watching everyone though. Later that day on our own we went to the Russian Costume museum, and everything included old wooden bowls were in there own glass case and no photos were allowed!

The gold room.

Lenin pointing towards the future. We were at the Lenin train station.

This was the view from our hotel room on the 3rd floor. The church you can see on the left is the Church of the Spilled Blood that I have more photos of later.

We were absolutely exhausted from walking everywhere in St. P. Everywhere else we have been we get a tourist map and 1cm on the map is usually equal to about 100m or something like that, so we end up getting different things on the map fairly quickly. Not here! On our map here 1cm = 1km I think! The map looked just like Venice or Amsterdam did with canals, so we'd decide to walk somewhere, and then find that we were still walking 1 hour later. It took us 45minutes to walk to the church below from our hotel - when we were in a hurry. Distances are quite deceptive too, because we'd look and see that to get to the church we would have to got past 1 building, over a bridge, past 3 more buildings and through a park. Simple. Well every building is the size of a hospital and the bridges take 10 minutes to get across. The parks are like 10 football fields. Our hotel had 80 rooms just on our floor. When we got out of one of the 8 lifts available there was a huge empty space that you could have put a swimming pool in, then we'd have to trek down a looooong corridor to get to our room.

Walking around St. P is not really that easy since Russian drivers are absolutely crazy, you can't even imagine. The tiny smart cars are gone and the huge cars are driven as fast as possible. Vladim was a good driver, but even he would put his foot down where ever possible, and the slam on the brakes at the last minute. Pedestrian crossing have no meaning. Drivers never stop for you, even when you find a gap and are on the crossing you have to run to the other side because the drivers just speed towards you at 80km/h.

The bridge on the right at night.

Day 3 we went to the Summer Palace.

The palace. The pic above is of the end of the building.

One of the many fountains in the extensive gardens.

The Gulf of Finland that the Palace is on. For a Summer palace it was not very summery!

The view from the palace down past the fountains to the gulf.

A Russian Orthodox church near the palace. There are lots around and most of them have the gold leaf domes. Christina told us that to get the gold onto the domes the gold is heated with mercury and then applied to the domes. The mercury evaporates. Obviously this is highly toxic but prisoners did this job so it is not seen as so tragic.

The cars on the road are a mixture of old and extremely rusted old Russian cars - that are huge, and brand new mercs, audis, BMWs, and the most Hummers I have ever seen in my life. They were everywhere, stretch ones too for the many weddings trying to get some warm weather. I think there are a lot of super wealthy Russians around to afford such luxurious cars.

To save our feet from walking we got the Metro a few times, although stations are pretty far apart and we still had a 15 minute walk home anyway. Some stations are very fancy with ornate ceilings and lights. To get to the train you have to go down escalators that are about.... 10 times the length of an ordinary escalator you would find at the shops. Sometimes we'd be on an escalator and think that we must be almost at the top after such a long time, then we look past the other people and find that we were still closer to the bottom than we were to the top! Christina later told us (we were only with her until 1pm every day) that because of the swampy ground they had to dig really far down to get earth hard enough for a metro line.

A church we found on one of our walks around town. We were trying to go to the blockade museam, but it was shut. St. P was blockaded for 900 days by the Nazis during WW2, and that museum showed the way of life for people during it. Supposed to by very interesting.

Another church, this one commissioned by Catherine the Great for girls from noble families. We skipped Catherine's palace on day 4 in favour of getting driven around to a few more places. We really wanted to see the Diamond and Gold rooms in the Hermitage and finally, after 3 days of trying we got tickets. The Hermitage opens at 10.30am and before that there was a huge line of people waiting to get in and buy tickets. Christina showed us how to get in the Russian way. When the doors to the Hermitage opened at 10.30 the regular tourists in the line started walking in through the courtyard to the museum and ticket desk. The Russians on the other hand didn't bother with the line and once the doors open started sprinting to the desk and got there first. We did the same and luckily got tickets to both rooms. There were some really amazing things, but no photos allowed.

On our last day, Friday, we walked to the Church of the Spilled Blood in the morning before our flight, so called because it was where Peter the Great was shot and killed by an assasin.

Inside the church, now a museum, is spectacular. I think it is my favourite church of anywhere I have been. Every wall is covered in mosaics, showing the life of Christ and saints. The is lots more gold leaf. Everywhere I looked I just wanted to take a photo, but the photos just don't do it justice.

After the church we got driven to the airport and are now back in Vienna again. Tomorrow we fly to Dubai and I am looking forward to seeing some good movies on the plane.

I tried to get Chris to become fluent in Russian while we were in St. Petersburg by watching TV in the evening, but he is no closer to be fluent than he was on Monday unfortunately, although Russian is definately an easier language than Polish. We still had fun watching Starsky and Hutch dubbed over with Russian and Fear, or I should say CTPAX (Strach) as it was called there, amongst other programs.