Bulgaria, Romania and Sickness....Then the Recovery that came in Budapest!

Hello All!

I bet you thought I was having too much fun to keep in touch. Quite the opposite let me assure you! Just a day or so after the last time you heard from me I became sick. Something I suspect I picked up in Turkey; it probably laid dormat in my body for a few days before it reared it's very ugly head as I was leaving Bulgaria. I have done a search of my symptoms and concluded that it's mostly likely a common traveler's disease for people that visit there. So here's how it went for me...

The first day I just thought I'd eaten something off, then it became much worse. I started limiting my diet to only short sips of water and soft bread or plain things. Eventually, after we reached our second city in Romania, I was not eating at all. If I ate I got sick and when I was sick I couldn't eat. So by day 5 or 6 I was starving and majorly dehydrated, even standing on my own was a problem because I was so weak. Megzi was gem enough to be very patient with me. She went to the shops and bought me rehydrating fluids to mix with water to replace my body salts lost from the sickness. I forced myself to eat as much as I could in small spurts but it was mostly to no avail. The sickness remained in my stomach and I never had more than 20 minutes without feeling that I might need to curl up and die. I then decided to consult two of the smartest women I know about this problem: Mom and my Swiss Host Mum. Advice all around and I tried to follow it all or most of it...still nothing. But, thanks to one of my Dad's well-traveled friends we got a really strange solution that seems to have done the trick. I denied myself everything for about 14 hours, food and drink, and then I ate as many fresh almonds as my stomach would allow and chased it down with 2 glasses of uber cheap red wine. Apparently my Dad's friend has had this sort of problem a few times in the past and it's always worked for him. The almonds soak up the "poison" sitting in there and then the wine aids in flushing it all out. I won't say it made me 100% immediately, but it made an immediate difference. I was/am a new woman. Please please try this quirky solution should you ever find yourself in this situation. It saved me from going home, which I was plotting when Mom and Dad handed over this remedy. I'm so glad I didn't though...too many great things to see!!

But, on to the real bit you're reading this blog for...you probably want to know what we have seen or done. I have to warn that this post is quite depressing. I was so looking forward to these countries and the sickness ruined them for me...I must go back!

We arrived in Bulgaria in a blur, truly. The bus that was supposed to let us out at the city bus terminal at 5 arrived instead at about 3:30 and let us all out in the middle of nowhere! We had no Bulgarian money, and no idea where we were. We did have a reservation at a hostel for the next night but how was that supposed to help us with hours even before sunrise?? Thanks to the kindness of a wonderful Bulgarian woman we were ushered into a cab and taken, what turned out to be only, 2 blocks or so to our hostel. She wouldn't hear of us giving her any money, not that we had any Bulgarian money but still...she was just one of the many angels we've met along our way.

We were in the city of Varna which is on the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria. It's supposed to be a great tourist town and resort place but we didn't see much of it. We laid low and just wandered the streets. We posted some items home, I'm still saying prayers that they will arrive...who knows how well the Bulgarian post system works. It took us far longer and was much more of a hassle than we'd anticipate that it would be. And finally we made our way to the beaches to touch our feet in the mighty Black Sea. To me, it was just like any other.

We were plotting our best way to get into Romania and discovered that it would help us alot to just stay in a city along the border, Ruse...so that's what we did. We slept at a lovely English Guesthouse there, it was owned by a quirky Brit who thought he was the funniest thing this side of the moon, quite entertaining! And it was there that the first signs of trouble came for me. The next day we were set to take a bus to Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and as we were headed there I felt a funny rumbly in my tummy (Winnie the Pooh would be proud of my lingo now!)...never a good sign!

But we did make the bus and we did make it to the capital city, and might I add with more fresh stamps in the ol' passports! Bucharest is a scary place. It's big and noisy and just doesn't feel right. Maybe it had something to do with all the stories I've heard from others having trouble there or maybe it was my own gut feeling, who knows, but we left there in a hurry. Took the first train out to Brasov, the main city in the Romanian province of Transylvania.

I've been aching to go to Transylvania for a few years now. Finally my chance!! We stayed in a lovely hostel and met heaps of people, but our motivation for seeing "things" was waining fast. We had hit that point that all long term traveler's talk about. It's around the month mark and you suddenly only want to sit around and watch a movie...you don't want to look at your camera or guidebook or think about organizing a tour...NOTHING!

We made ourselves leave the hostel on day one to have a look around Brasov. It is such a beautiful place. Transylvania is said to have the most concentrated amount of Gothic architecture of anywhere in the world. We even got to see the most narrow street in Europe, one no car would ever fit down! It was rather disappointing that most of the tourists sites (two very important churches) were closed and we could not go inside, but on the whole it was a great day.

On day two in Brasov we opted for the 3 castles tour ran by our hostel. We were taken to Rasnov, a ruined fortress sitting high on a transylvanian hill. Then we went to Bran Castle, Dracula's Castle as written in the Bram Stoker novel. However, there was no mention of the blook sucking vampire anywhere except for the capitalizing junk stands at the bottom of the entry road. It was very beautiful but I was hoping more for scary and goosebump producing this time!

Then we went to Peles Castle. I think I'm right in saying it's the most modern castle in Europe. Built only about 100 years ago, the interior is spottlessly beautiful, it was occupied by the last king of Romania, King Carol. There are impressive rooms, large collections of weapons from all over the world (both old and really old!), and the coolest bit to me...an electrically retractable glass ceiling in one room. It was apparently very modern for it's time with running water, electricity, and even central heat and air. If you ever find yourself in Transylvania and can visit only one place you should definitely skip Bran Castle and opt for Peles instead, you won't be disappointed!

After all out castle adventures we headed back to the hostel to retrieve our things and head to the next city in Romania, Sighisoara. I was also excited about this city, but by the time we arrived I was so sick, I was in need of a day in bed. So I never got to see the city, I saw the inside of my hostel and that's all. I laid out for a day of starvation and sickness while Megan went out with a few people we'd met to see the sites. The day after that we had a flight to Budapest. After making our way to the really small airport (2 flights for the entire day!) and being ripped off by a taxi driver in the process we were on our way to a somewhat familiar city and what turned out to be 4 days of nothing but rest.

Budapest has to be one of my favorite cities in Europe. Not just because of the earlier memories it holds for me, going there with my girls in March '07, but it is a truly beautiful place. We'd seen the sites already so we found a hostel and just did nothing but take walks and I began what was ultimately my recovery there. We met some interesting people and went on one less-than-worth-it bus tour but other than that, nothing!

I'm sorry this post is so sporadic. I wanted to catch you up on everything but I guess that everything was more than I thought it'd be. Hopefully the ones to follow for the last bit of our journey (we have about 3 weeks left now!) will be more up-to-date and less chaotic.

Love you all...thanks for reading!

LuLu

Athens, Back to Turkey, and the Joys of Airport Sleepıng...oh, and Istanbul!!!

Hello all!!

I have been trying to stay in touch but this past week has been hard for me. No internet on the ship and when we found it on some islands it was just really expensive. So I wanted to catch you all up on my last week...

Last Saturday we were in Athens, Greece for the day. I find that people aren't lying when they say that's all the time you need there. We went on a cruise-organized tour which was hardly worth the money but we went to get an initial feel for the city. They drove us to the Olympic stadium, built for the first modern day olympic in 1896, it's supposed to be exactly like the ancient stadium. We were taken to the parliament building, where the tomb of the unknown soldier is...and they have a changing of the guard there. In my travels i've seen a fair few guard changings but this one was the best...they do such funny high step moves and wear short skirts...hehe...after that we were taken to the Acropolis. I thought that Athens was the only city with one but acropolis is just a high hill so alot of greek cities have one! From there Megz and I made our own way around, leaving the group. We didn't go up the acropolis to the Parthenon because we didn't feel like we had enough time for that...but we got some cool pictures from around that area. Then we walked into the large Athens flea market for some adventure and found our old trusty McDonald's for lunch...we just needed something familiar that day! Then back to parliament to see the guard changing, wasn't included on the tour and then back to the ship...

I'm sure there are other cool things to see and experience in Athens but we were mostly satisfied with our time there. One interesting thing I did learn is that the Athens metro system is kind of like a museum. Everytime they dig for a new line or a portion of a line they find more buried artifacts...so the digging stops and the archeologists come in...and then when they resume building and make a station some of those artifacts are displayed there...such a cool concept!

After Athens a good number of our friends from the ship disembarked and we were left only with a few familiar faces. The next day we were supposed to visit the island of Kalymnos (sp??) but due to high winds we weren't able to port there so the captain steered us in the direction of Kos again and we spent another lovely day there.

After Kos the next day was Bodrum, Turkey again and our point of disembarkation...We were so excited to get a place to put our stuff and organize our bus to the airport for a really early flight...instead, due to the bus schedule, we opted for sleeping in the airport and, in the end, it wasn't as bad as you would think.

So we hung around Bodrum until the last bus of the day to the airport...we didn't really do a dang thing. We were hoping to the ruins of the Tomb of Mausolus which many people call the Tomb of Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Halıcarnassus is the ancient name for the city of Bodrum and Mausolus was the governer of the province...for all you weird knowledge people, like me, you'll be interested to know that this is where we get the modern day word mausoleum. The Tomb of Mausolus is, I am told, the largest tomb ever built...All that's left now is ruins, of course...and unlike the Temple of Artemis they are blocked off and you must pay to enter...it wasn't open the day we were there...I was majorly bummed out!

So skipping ahead again...we did sleep in the airport after making the major trek to get there in the first place. We took turns sleeping while the other read, for us it worked well and in between "shifts" we would each walk around a bit and use the facilities...by sunrise we were delirious and in major need of a pillow but we held out and boarded our plane around 8AM for the hour flight to Istanbul.

It was quite an adventure finding ourselves in Istanbul...it is, afterall, a city of 15 million people. We wanted to stay in a particular area around the Blue Mosque, the area is called Sultanahmet. So we took a bus, then a ferry, then a tram, and then we got ourselves REALLY lost on foot. The other problem was that we hadn't made a reservation for a room so once we did find it we had to weed through the many hostels in that area to find ours...the Orient Hostel!

The people here are quite nice but hardly any native English speakers so we've not made many close friends here. The first day we arrived we slept for a few hours to catch up from the airport experience and then headed out to see what we could see.

Day two: we made our way to the famed Grand Bazaar...and wow...it is grand! It's such a maze and not as cheap as I thought it would be. Then on to the street vendors (man, I've spent alot of money in this city!) where I bought a new, beautiful, scarf...and just in time...right after that we went into the Blue Mosque. It was AMAZING...more beautiful than I could have imagined...and we had an ex-tourguide offer to show us around and explain some things. The building itself is comletely impressive but what interested me more was the history of the place. Click on the attached link to learn more for yourself.

Day three: Megan made her way to Gallipoli, an important area in Turkey for Australian military history...I am embarrassed to say I don't know that much about it. She took an all day tour while I stayed behind in Istanbul to see some more around here. I ended up taking a 4 hour Bosphorus (the river that separates Asian and European Istanbul) Cruise and I was able to see so many palaces up and down the riverbanks. I also saw the miliary hospital that Florence Nightingale worked in.

Day four: Megan was back...yay (I was getting a bit lonely!) and we went with a few people we met to the Prince's Islands, just south of Istanbul. It was oke...a rather lazy and long day. When we returned to the mainland we went over the the Taksim side of town and walked up an enormous hill to the main shopping street, nice but too expensive for me! On the way down we took the short metro down the hill...my guidebook lists it as the oldest subway in the world...pretty cool!!!

Day five, leave day, today!: We woke early to take care of last minute things. Packed up all our stuff again. We headed out to the Grand Bazaar to buy a few things we were longing for and then on to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar for a quick walkthrough. On the way back to the area where we are staying we randomly ran into a girl we spent time with in Selçuk, which was great! After a quick chat with her we went on to the best bit of Istanbul, in my opinion! The Aya Sofia!!!

The actual name is the Hagia Sophia (not sure why we call it differently...). It is the oldest church I've ever been in. Not sure when the original church was built but the one that still stands today was built around the year 532AD. Commissioned by the emperor Justinian, the church was originally Christian but fell to the Muslims in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. Back in the 30s it was converted from a mosque to a museum and many restorations have taken place to bring out the beautiful mosaics from its Christian past. It is the most impressive thing I've seen in all of Turkey and I can say without a doubt the most wonderful church I've ever been in. The mix of its past over its 1500+ year life span is amazing to see.

Well...that is all for now from me. We board a bus for Bulgaria in just a few hours. The bus ride to Varna, a city on the Black Sea, takes 11 hours so we'll be on overnight. Unfortunately the computer I'm using now won't work fast enough for me to upload all my pictures for this post. You'll have to check back later to see them all...sorry!

Hope this finds you well...love you all!!

LuLu

A Ride on the Geri Cruise

Hello All!

We are currently sitting in port at a little Greek Island named Paros. We have been on our cruise for 2 1/2 days now and we are liking it a lot. For the money we paid, we feel that it's an excellent break from traveling every few days with our massive packs on our backs! However, we thought for sure there would be a great amount of people our age on the cruise...there's not! Instead Megz and I have taking to calling it the Geri Train because of all the older people on board.

Don't get me wrong, they are absolutely lovely! We have met such nice people but the average age is probably 65 where we thought it would be more around 25....hum....They are really taking care of us, even though we've only been on board just over 2 days we know most of the other guests by name and where they are from. They all take time to talk to us and ask our story. Our favorites so far are Becky and Frank from Arizona....we ate dinner with them last night, it was a great enjoyable experience!

Let me backtrack just a bit. We left Selcuk early on Monday morning to make the bus to our port of call, Bodrum. The bus did not come on time and was, instead, an hour and a half late...we were not impressed! I even had one smart mouthed kid come up to me and say "your God help you" when I asked him if he thought the bus would ever come...hum...

But it did come and we made our way to the port and to the boat. It's an old Russian boat which first sailed over 20 years ago, I think. You can tell it's definitely budget but Megz and I are happy with our small room and even smaller bathroom because it's just ours for the week! As we arrived on the boat, the first moment we walked through the door, we met a guy named Andrew who is from Michigan....interesting guy! We've spent a lot of time with him so far but during the day, at the different ports, Megan and I have just done our own thing and loved it.

Yesterday we were in Kos (a small island just across a narrow bit of sea from the Turkish mainland). The old town was very nice and we walked and shopped and window browsed for hours. Then we had a gyros pita for lunch and made our way, quickly, back to the ship because we thought it was leaving in the afternoon...and of course we were wrong. It left this morning super early, but we used yesterday's extra time to sit on the upper deck and read and just relax.

So now we are all up to speed, I'm in Paros. It looks great but our first stop was this internet cafe so I can't tell you for certain just yet. I hope to blog more this week but the internet is not working on board so we'll have to wait until we can find another place to use it.

Hope this post finds you well!

Talk to you soon....

LuLu

What Was Once Great and A Visit at the Holy Mother's House....

Hello All!

We are currently in Selçuk which is a city near the Aegean Sea in Turkey. We left Egirdir around noon two days ago and have been here since. It is so great to be in a tourist city again and I'm getting my fill of the backpacker experience! The people here are just wonderful to us, most speak some English and they are so inviting and friendly and very giving of their time to help us when we need it!

Yesterday we went to the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. It was more than I thought it would be. Amazing. Though most of what is there has been reconstructed after excavation of the city, it is definitely a sight to see! We sat in the reconstructed ampitheatre there, this is where Paul gave a sermon and was later lead away to imprisonment at a fortress you can see from the ruined city on a nearby hill.

Afterward we walked around the markets. It was market day and there were so many people out and about looking at wares from the local vendors. Then we spent some time at the hostel (which is amazing, by the way, mostly Aussies and so much fun!). Last night there was a BBQ here, the food was awesome, and we enjoyed swapping travel stories with all the other boarders...

Today we left early for the House of the Virgin Mary, which is actually a small church built over the ruins of where the house would be. This place is where many people believe the Holy Mother spent her last years on earth. It is widely believed that she moved here with John the Apostle after the death of Jesus; it says in the Bible that Jesus gave His mother to John and him to her as her son, because of that it is believed that she moved here with him when he came to Ephesus. It was such a moving experience. Just a small background about the discovery of this place:

The place was discovered in the 19th century after a German nun, who had never left Germany, described perfectly from a vision the mountain area around the city of Ephesus. After her directions where given explorers came to the this area and found it exactly as she had described and came upon this church built over the remains. She also described where the Virgin is buried, but that spot has still never been found.

From the house we had a driver drop us at a place called the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. Accounts of this place vary but most believe it to be this: 7 youths left Ephesus to escape persecution because they were Christians. They fled to the hills and slept overnight in this cave; however, they actually slept for 112 years and upon their awakening they came to know that Christianity was at that time now widely accepted.

We slowly made our way back from the Cave on foot, the walk was about 30 minutes. Along the way we stopped by the ruins of the Temple of Artemis, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. All that remains of it are a few pieces of marble and a reconstructed column. However, in its day, it was the great temple; in fact, the largest temple ever constructed.

Needless to say we were quite exhausted after all this walking and time in the sun...so we headed back to the hostel for a bit of relaxation and ended up in a rain storm. After the short shower we walked up the small hill within the city of Selçuk to the St. John's Basillica where which was built over the apostle's grave. It is also in ruins but well worth the entrance fee as you have a great view of the city from there.

You know how you sometimes read a book or see a movie and you've been to the place where the story is set? Well I feel that way about the last 3 days. I feel like these are places I've read about my whole life, both in the Bible and also in history books, and I'm finally now visualizing them all!

It has been excellent being in Selçuk. Being with other tourists and enjoying meals with other English speakers. We leave super early tomorrow morning on a bus to Bodrum, Turkey where we embark on our Greek cruise. Should be lots of fun! But, we don't know if we'll be getting much internet time while we are on the ship, there is supposed to be an internet connection on board but we'll see if it actually pans out!

Thanks again for reading!!

LuLu

ps-interesting fact: did you know that the word for lion in Turkish is aslan?? For all you C.S. Lewis fans this is a small tidbit of interesting stuff...

Conservative Konya and on to Egirdir...

Hello again!

We are now in Egirdir, a city situated along a beautiful lake here in Turkey. We left Goreme so early on Tuesday morning and did a 4 hour bus ride to Konya. We even rode by a massive volcano, I am still trying to figure out which one it is and if it is active, so cool!! It is supposed to be a very conservative city but it was not so much that way, in our experience.

Konya is home to the Whirling Dervishes. We are still learning about this special religious group but we were able to go to the museum about them and the mosque nearby. It was my first mosque experience and I can say I was very nervous, though now I do not know why I was. I am very curious about this religion and their traditions. We entered and were required to take our shoes off and cover our heads with scarves to show respect. We were able to see the burial site of the man who´s teachings and writings were the beginning of the Dervishes.

Still on the streets most girls were covering their heads, though some were not so we only felt moderatly out of place. This morning we caught the mini bus to the otogar (bus station) and hoped on a really nice bus to Egirdir. We were having some troubles finding the right mini bus and the nicest old man helped us. With our combination of broken German and barely Turkish language experience we made it well before our bus left!

The bus ride was awesome. We rode through the country to our destination and were met along the way by many a tractor on the road or families heading out on their donkeys. I was surprised to see that amide such poverty and homely living many houses are equipped with solar panels that provide their heating and maybe for some their electricity.

So we made it to Egirdir and walked what seemed like forever to a place we had read about but did not have a reservation at just yet. We met the nicest lady who spoke no English and we negotiated a price for a room and breakfast tomorrow. We are hoping to do a fishing trip on the lake tomorrow, we will see how that goes!

Tonight we are just relaxing by taking a long walk by the lakeside and catching up on some reading out on their terrace. We are hoping desperately that we can find a cash exchange. Because Ramadan (the Islamic holy month) ended last week alot of places are closed for festival thıs week.

I am adding some pictures from Konya and a few of the lake that I just took outside. Tomorrow afternoon\evening we will depart for Selcuk, a city near the ruins of Ephesus. I apologize for any weird characters you find in this post. I am using a Turkish keyboard and it is not agreeing with me mostly! Teşekkur ederim (teh-sheh-KOOR eh-DEH-rim), thank you, for reading up with my experiences on this journey!

Love you all!!

LuLu