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art, trees, art, turbines, building a nest.

And the journey continues

My flight was delayed from IST to Frankfurt and I missed my connection and had to stay overnight. Friday I got a plane to Indianapolis via Chicago. I'm here in Indiana now and will fly back down to South Carolina later this week and move to Charleston next week. Thanks again for keeping up with my blog... I'll now try and wrap it up with a few more photos.

Cappadocia

Monday night I took an overnight bus (12 hrs.) to Cappadocia with Nicole and her boyfriend Benni. We had breakfast and checked out the town of Kayseri and then took a mini-bus to Ürgüp. After haggling with some car rental and tour places Benni had the idea of hiring a taksi for the afternoon. Nicole bargained with him in Turkish (she´s German, but her Turkish has gotten quite good since September). İ sealed the deal when İ pulled out $10 less in cash than he wanted-- but the sight of money was enough. We visited several places in the area and saw lots of cool rock formations and homes built into the sides of cliffs, though we didn´t get to any of the underground cities. We took another mini-bus to Nevşehir and walked around a bit before getting another overnight bus. The got off in the capital city of Ankara and İ arrived back in İstanbul by about 7:30 a.m. Luckily İ was able to sleep on the bus each of the past two nights so İ am feeling pretty good today. İ´m about to go to İstanbul Modern (art museum) and will meet some friends for dinner and some more live music tonite. Flight home tomorrow should arrive in D.C. by 8 p.m or so... İ love coming the other way-- actually get to arrive on the same day you left. İt´s been a great trip. Thanks for keeping up with my blog, İ hope you enjoyed it... check back next week for some bonus photos.

like i never left

İstanbul has been great so far. İt has only been about 3.5 months since İ left and it feels like just yesterday. My friends are great and İ love this city. My school was having their spring festival so there was lots of great live music Thursday and Friday. Saturday İ got to play frisbee with my old crew and have dinner with Faik. Seeing my old friends has been really great. Fun to celebrate my birthday here. Perhaps to central Turkey this week or perhaps I will just hang around here. To the States on Thursday.

knights are cool. better than pirates at least.

the once famous, now infamous bridge/ waterfall in Luxembourg and a church in Haarlem, Netherlands

my pentax (r.i.p.) had a cool background feature... my aunt Rhonna and İ thought this was pretty hilarious. yep, that is a diamond lined heart. haha. we had a really fun time in the netherlands.

Yep.

where i had lunch on tuesday--- the alps, liechtenstien.

mountain biking

i wasnt sure ı was going to be able to get my bike through the narrow rock passage in the above photo (tilt your head to the left)

Final Destination

After a flight delay, waiting for someone to sell me a visa so I could enter the country, waiting for the bus, rush hour traffic, taking the metro and an hour time difference (that i forgot about), I finally made it to central Istanbul. That might sound frustrating, but i´ve developed a certain peace of mind when traveling that doesn´t allow me to get too upset or anxious about these types of things. Same thing about the mountain biking/hiking and dropping my bag in the river-- hang-ups only allow for better stories, more vivid memories, new opportunities and experiences; not negative thoughts. Plus, İ often enjoy the traveling as much as the destination.

I´m happy to be here in İstanbul now... it has a certain feeling of home. I am looking forward to getting back to the States though, where the U.S. dollar is worth a dollar and where İ can attempt to get settled. I may make a trip up to Indiana to see my grandmother who is in the hospital, but then it will be on to Charleston (hopefully i will have housing lined up by then). İ get to play Ultimate (frisbee) tomorrow and summer league starts May 22nd. Plus I´ve got a lot of work to do on my Master´s terminal project.

ok... stay tuned... gonna attempt to post some photos now...

Welp...

I stole 'welp' from my friend Skiles... i like it as an alternative to 'well.' Did i mention that i have had perfect weather... one afternoon it rained in the netherlands though... and in luxembourg it rain about 15 seperate times that i was outside... but for just a few minutes and then it went right back to being sunny with blue skies... so i couldn't have been luckier... except that ill be sweating like crazin in Istanbul because no one wears shorts there and summer is in full swing.

I opted for hiking instead of biking in Liechtenstein because bike rental was $22... i made a good choice... i walked nearly across the entire country... i climbed an elevation of 1000 meters... 3280 feet (i think). and walked at least 25 km i think... i was off the map a lot and there wasn't a scale on the one i was using... at one point i was walking knee deep in snow while wearing shorts and a t-shirt... that is how nice the weather was/ hot the sun was shining. i've def. got a tan now. the best part of the day was drinking from a mountain spring with water so cold that my hands turned bright red, like they do in the winter after being out side for a while. the water must have been snow not an hour previously....

Got to munich this afternoon and have been walking around. Tomorrow i will have breakfast here and then fly to istanbul. I promise to post photos by saturday.

LUX / Mt. Biking

Wednesday I rented a mountain bike in a small town in Luxembourg on the German border. I had an awesome map and confirmed my route with the guy at the hostel... I had a destination in mind... a bridge with a waterfall underneath it. Welp. Turns out that i'd picked a hiking trail and a quite intense one at that... after hitting the trail i spent the next 20 minutes trying to see how many beats per minutes my heart could beat/ walking my bike up a hill. Lots of steep hills, steps and rocky, rocky slopes had me carrying my bike on my shoulder more than riding. I used to mt. bike in h.s., so it eventually came back to me and i was able to ride down some of the slopes and stairs later in the day. After about 4.5 hours I made it to the waterfall only to dropp my bag (w/ passport, 2 cameras, etc.) into the river as I was exhausted and careless... so, i had to jump in after it. It wasn't deep, but i sure got wet... my little silver camera was the only casualty. THANKFULLY the memory card was undamaged and the camera is insured... so no huge loss there. I got what i think were some pretty good photos. I took a road route back to the hostel... had a long uphill (20 minutes in 3rd of 24 gears)... but my reward was a few minutes downhill at speeds prob. up to 50 mph. fun.

I then headed to Luxembourg City. Thursday I did a guided city walk and went to some museums, including one designed by famous Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei and then took the train to Düsseldorf where I met Jan. Friday he showed me around town & i tried many types of german meats, including a few raw varieties of pig and cow. Saturday I expored on my own and went out to his tennis club to see him play a match. Today I've been reading, catching up on internet/e-mail/etc. Tomorrow I will spend most of the day attempting to reach Leichtenstein (a tiny little country between Switzerland and Austria). Tuesday I hope to bike around, Wednesday I will head to Munich for one night before I fly from there to Istanbul.

brugge, luxembourg

sunday i hit museums- saw madonna and child statue from michelangelo-- one of very few of his pieces outside of italy... monday i biked to the north sea coast and tuesday i left for luxembourg by train and then took a bus to this tiny town... my hostel is on a lake and today i will mountain bike and then head to luxembourg city... museums/old castle tomorrow and perhaps a late train to germany to meet Jan, one of my roommates from chas. last summer.

some photos finally.

i just pulled some randomly from my memory card... a sampling of stuff. tulips, canal/bikes in amsterdam... my new obsession with photographing numbers, art imitating life-- me inside a huge piece of art/statue, from a belltower in brugges, and my obsession of photographing signs/ symbols... i think it is a really neat commentary on how everyone speaks different languages, but everyone can understand simple drawings/symbols. enjoy.

Belgium

I departed ways with Rhonna and Nori on Saturday morning and got dropped at the Amsterdam train station, got a rail pass and 4 hours later I made it to Brugges, Belgium after changing trains in Antwerp. Now in 2008 the borders within the EU are much more open... I havent had my passport looked at since I arrived in Copenhagen. This city is gorgeous... lots of canals and old architecture... the European capital of culture a few years ago i think. went to museums today and climbed the bellfry... 366 steps. tomorrow, i will bike to the coast, tuesday to luxembourg.

M, T, W

This week we have visited a few national parks, went inside a working windmill and toured tulip fields and gardens. All very cool... I hopefully got a few great images of tulips... so much color. The old windmill was really something too. Today we visited a museum with 90 Van Gogh's and a painting or two from every other famous artist you can think of... picasso, monet, manet, ceazane, rivera, gaugain, etc. etc. This place was in the middle of no where... a super rich family donated their collection and old hunting lands and it is now a national park. Anyway... tomorrow morning I am going to attempt to post some photos... so check back.

Amsterdam

After arriving on the train i took 1 1/2 hours to wonder to the hotel and was just leaving a note for Rhonna when she and Nori, her friend, arrived. perfect timing. we hit the Van Gogh museum, the home Anne Frank hid in and another museum. All very cool. The next day (Sunday) we met the CountryWalkers tour group and did a guided walk around the city and had lunch overlooking a canal. Beautiful city, so much water. We then drove to Haarlem and walked a bit around the town before having a delicious dinner at a local restaurant.

15:34 hour train

I like riding trains because you get to see countryside you may never see any other way... this one was a long one though (from copenhagen to amsterdam) . the amazing thing to me was that it was exactly on time... 15+ hour train arrives 2 countries over in exact time. Met up with my aunt today and we saw anne frank's house, the van gogh museum and another museum. Yesterday i took a train over to Malmo, Sweeden for a little day trip from Copenhagen... cool place-- saw and old castle, went in an old submarine and saw some other cool exhibits. The day before, thursday i think (can't remember if i have written about this yet), i rented a bicycle and rode around Copenhagen. very cool. saw some art exhibits, the mermaid statue, some wind turbines from afar and just rode around a lot... and got lost some... ive gotten to be pretty good at following a map walking around citites, but doing it on a bike is much, much more difficult... but that is part of the fun... i wasnt really lost because i wasn't going anyplace in particular most of the time. thats it for now...

copenhagen

welp, i made it safe... extremely exhausted... got in at 7.15 a.m here (1.15 EST) didn't get much sleep on the plane, but trying to stay up so jet lag won't be bad tomorrow. will try to post photos soon. sorry, that's all for now.

Departure

Greetings... I depart tomorrow, 15 April for a month journey in Europe. I'll spend a few days in Copenhagen before meeting my aunt Rhonna [thanks for making this trip possible] in Amsterdam for a week in Holland. I'll then travel to Belgium and Luxembourg. Next I'll visit one of my roommates from Charleston in Germany and will eventually probably fly back to Istanbul to see my friends there. Take Care, Brian