Turkey Part 2

Merhaba all!

So... I'm back home after my 2.5 months of nomadic vagabonding... and I miss it. For some reason, I almost felt like crying all the way home from the airport in Boston. Now that I'm bakc I'm happy to be in America, but I certainly miss Europe (and the bit of Asia I saw in Turkey).

Not much more to tell about the rest of my time in Turkey. We took a plane to Istanbul, then stayed in the Yunus Emre hotel, owned by friends of my dad. They have an adorable daughter named Yasmine who I had the pleasure of meeting. The first day I ended up taking a six hour nap, then going out to dinner with a British friend of my dad's who now lives in Turkey.

The next day we went to the mosaic museum--quite cool! Mosaics from the byzantine times with roman influence. Then wandered around looking for Christmas presents. The bazaars were closed because of byram (spelling?), a religious holiday of sacrifice. A lot of sheep were slaughtered the morning we arrived in Istanbul, and the meat given to the poor (I think). Then everyone didn't have work or school and said "iyi byramlar" (happy Byram). I guess it's kind of like christmas? Except about a week long.

Flew back to the states on Wednesday, stopping for about an hour at CDG, which I am quite familiar with by now. Since then I've gotten in the habit of going to sleep around 7 or 8 because of jetlag, haha. Still haven't unpacked.

Here are some statistics:

Countries visited:
France
Portugal
Norway
Belgium
Turkey

Airplanes taken:
13

Time away:
September 24-December 10, about 2.5 months

Languages spoken:
English
French
Portuguese
Flemish/Dutch
Norwegian
Turkish

That's about it!
Now it's time to get ready for Christmas and New Year's. After that, who knows! Once I start doing more exciting things I'll take up updating this blog again.

Tchau for now!