Istanbul

This is my number one favorite place i have been in the last 6 months. I don't how many times i've professed this sentiment before, but those were all false statements.

We flew in quite late and took a shuttle bus, driving extraordinary speed to our hostel. We had booked a six man room for five people so we woke one poor sop up when we trundled in at 3:30 in the morning.

We were woken around 5 to the startling sounds of a city being called to prayer. The mosques are not in sync and so the echoing reverberations wind their way through the tiny back streets rousing the most insistent sleepers from their nights rest.

Several hours later when the sun had risen and the call to prayer had been replaced with sounds of bustling activity we got up, perhaps not refresh but indescribably happy to be where we were.

The hostel was a four-story townhouse and like most other buildings in the area had a large terrace type roof which served as both a hang-out area and the breakfast room. As breakfast was included with our hostel stay, we woke up every morning to fresh buns, cucumber, tomato and cheese, jams and nutella, honey, and either a hard boiled egg or cereal as well as olives... We could have as many buns as we wanted and like a lot of the other bread we found here, the buns were sprinkled with tasty poppy seeds.

This is our nice clean room, 3 sets of bunk beds and a collection of lock boxes were the decor. I think at this moment they were having some serious lock issues.... The boy rooming with us was a great guy, a Aussie(sorry) who'd been traveling Turkey for quite a while we spent a couple evenings together enjoying beer and shisha and we also went on the boat tour, more about that later....

The first morning we got our tourist pants on and headed out for a day of siteseeing. Our hostel was located very centrally, about a 10 minute walk from the Blue Mosque but since this was our first day we did a little exploring. We first walked down to the water on the side of the peninsula that faces towards the Marmara Sea. The fisherman were out, and all along the water were small two wall shelters. We could not decide whether the homeles maybe used the shelters or they were for the fishermen mainly.

Though the water looks crystalline, upon closer inspection it is rather filthy. This did not deter the one man we saw swimming that first morning though..... The weather was beautiful, not to hot, not to cold and definitely a pleasant change from the chill that Switzerland has been developing...


Relaxing by the water. Don't know if we really needed a break yet, we'd only walked down a hill...

We walkd up and around the peninsula and on our way we found one man who seemed to have set up a permanent camp and he had taken in a whole family of cats. I only caught three here but at one point six of them were up preening for us in the morning sun.


Rachel and Bianca, my swiss family, ha, enjoying a chance to wear the shades.

Shannon was waiting for the rest of us.


We walked through a very pretty park on the was up to the Topkapi Palace. On the way through the gate we were met coming to other direction by innumerable cop cars, the first of which stopped, asked us where we were from, said welcome, shook all our hands and felt one of Shannon's dreads.... We weren't sure what to make of it..


Shannon and Steve.

This was a fortune telling machine! We didn't stop but i tried to snap some stealth pictures as we walked by.

The main gate to the palace.

Once inside the palace, we purchased another ticket to enter the Harem, which proved to be a good idea, it was full of beautiful things....

Inside the harem all surfaces were embellished. Hundreds of different types of tiles and finishes, gold inlay, cobbled paths, stained glass and beautiful architecture were combined in this set of buildings in a way that i had never seen before.




Which one does not belong?



Bianca and Dave on a palace terrace.

This is not the Blue Mosque, but the one across the street from it. Also towering and beautiful.

The grand bazaar was a delight for every sense, possibly to the point of overload. There were people everywhere. Shop keepers legitimately hawking their wares. Only one man asked if I was looking for a husband, other than that Rachel Bianca and I stuck together admiring the craftmanship of all the beautiful things in that market. The uilding itself was huge and the aura spilled out into the surrounding streets which were also packed with everything from clothes to water pipes, turkish delight, leather jackets, really anything you could imagine.

This was one of my favorite booths, really catches and holds the imagination....

We were feeling a little parched after making it through the jewlery section unscathed and decided to stop for the very popular apple tea. It's very good. quite sweet. I'm fairly certain there are the real apple teas and then a lt of small food places just use a mix powder which is actually fairly toxic. those ones are very sweet.

Inside the courtyard of the blue mosque.

We were asked to cover our heads and shoulders inside the building. I had never been in a mosque before but the main dome is left open on the inside as a beautifully detailed, cavernous space.

Rachel, Bianca, Caitlin , Shannon and Steve.

The yellow building on the left was our hostel. Cute street huh?

These bread rings were everywhere, coated in sesame and only 60 lyra cents ie 40 regular cents. Very good treat. Mostly they were in little wheel around carts but we saw at least two guys like this one, the first of which almost got hit by a car while selling us one....

Day two we took a couple hour boat trip up the Bosphorus towards the black sea. The city scape was beautiful. Old buildings, the traditional waterfront homes and gorgeous towering mosques scattered throughout.



The crew, a little windblown but happy!


I felt that this one was well timed.




After about an hour upstream we were let off to wander around for about a half hour on the Asian side of the straight. Checked off a whole other continent that day.

We were in need of some sustenance after the boat and headed up to the Spice Bazaar to find some food and do a little more exploring.

Every spice and dried anything that oyu could imaginge could be found here. The colors were vibrant, the smells intoxicating and the bustle was quite a bit less intense than the Grand Bazaar.


Taking a break on our way back to the hostel.

The night we got to sit in an outdoor restaurant ( they made smoking water pipes indoors illegal) and watched one man demonstrate the whirling dervish.

Day 3 we got on another boat and headed out to the Princes Islands were we rented some bikes and di our own little tour. It was an incredibly touristy place and apparently the horse drawn carriages were the number one attraction.

This square held hundreds of horses. and as we made our way around the other side we found ourselves working our way in the wrong direction against throngs of eager carriage goers. I though it was a little ridicuous but maybe that what you do on the weekends there...


This girl was selling flower circlets to the passersby.


Dont' worry I asked before I took her picture.

On the water were we had the potential to bath but the intensity of green algea and the floating garbage proved deterrent enough.

The sunset on the way back from the islands.

Our flight home was a 3:30 in the morning arriving in Basel around 7. Rachel and I headed home to drop our stuff and then straight into Zurich for work. No sleep makes for an interesting work day, but i wouldn't trade Istanbul for anything.....

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest proved to be everything you've ever heard about it and more. This was one of the more popular intern trips as far as a group traveling together. Twelve of us went on the last weekend ie first weekend of october ( other groups had gone the previous two weekends) and we stayed a a camp ground called the Tent. It was PACKED with other oktoberfesters from everywhere. We met a couple other canadians who were really great to talk to. Some really really really dirty/inappropriate belgians. they were actually disgusting. A guy from isreal who was totally high on life, ect.
We left on a thursday night and spent the train ride sing, drinking and generally causing an uproar. we met a bitter swiss guy who kinda hung out with us but professed his hatred of canadians because he'd gotten his girlfriend stolen by one and now they are getting married......

Friday morning we got up really early because we had been told that in order to get a table in the beer tents we needed to be the before ten. we were. well before in fact.

This is one of the beer tents. Not the first one we went into but this one was a little more decorated so i thought i'd put it up. There are apparently 14 tents, couldn't confirm that but i'll take their word for it and the biggest one holds 12000 revelers. Another really interesting to note is that germany passed a law that only water barley and hops were allowed in the brew. when yeast was discovered it was added as the forth legal ingredient. this means that as long as you stick to german beer, the next morning you will probably wake up feeling mostly fine since there weren't any chemicals polluting your drinks!

The steins (they are actually not steins but i can't remember their name...) were 1 L. The barmaids in the tents carried an average load of 12 1L steins. I saw at least one woman wearing wrist brace.... It must be terrible for the tennis elbow. There were also MASSIVE platters of food moving everywhere at once. Roast ducks and chickens, sauerkraut, sausages, cheese, and of course bretzels!

This is a plate that Luke and I ordered to share. The menu was german so we had no idea what we were getting... it was pretty good, a little weird. I still don't know what that pile of brown mush in the middle was.....

This is the beautifully decorated inside of the previous red beer tent. On the left hand side obscured by the giant hanging horse was a rise dais used as the stage. While we were sitting in the tent the live band arrived on stage. there were about 10 of them. All but the drummer carrying a stein and to the beat of said drummer, the band to a man chugged his beer to the enormous satisfaction of the crowd. It must give them that little something extra, you know, improves their music or something. They then entertained us with traditional german music. Almost every song was followed by a german drinking cheer... No wonder people don't last in these places.

Bruce holding a couple steins, Luke creeping in the background.

this is the meal i shared with Rachel Wong. It was extraordinary. This weekend was terrible for shear quantities of ingested food. I felt the need to try everything...

This was an elevated swing in the fair ground, I had never seen one before. Didn't go on it but it did look like a lot of fun! I did hit up the ferris wheel, a smallish roller coaster and then a really twisty ride that ended up being my last ride because it made me feel so gross. I don't understand why people like those ones...

I was trying to get a picture of the fair grounds when these gentlemen stumbled into my path.

Post oktoberfest, just relaxing. Almost all the boys bought hats as souvenirs, Rachel got a bag, I got this really cool necklace.

Rachel rocking Bruces hat.

We went for a bit of a stroll after the beer tents but before dinner and came upon Munich's standing wave. Very cool to watch, these guys were good.



This is the famous Haufbrauhaus. We spent sunday morning before we left here enjoying either the beer mixed with lemonade (very tasty) or regular beer and a delicious apfel(apple) strudel as well as another dumpling like dessert.

This is the new town hall. There is a ridiculous cuckoo-clock type scene that plays out at 11 every morning up in the green jutting windows it with the bell performance is know as the Glockenspiel.

This is a May pole, apparently they are strewn all over.

The lovely miss in the barmaid getup was our guide, Heidi, for the free walking tour that we did. She was very good, funny and full of stories.

This is a giant lego tower that had been built near the center of town. I didn't figure out why by thought it was neat nonetheless.

Just relaxing on the streets of munich.

Last but not least, during the tour, Heidi addressed some of the history, it was brief but informative. This particular golden path runs along what is known as Dodgers Alley. It is a memorial to those who refused to pass a plaque mounted further down the street that they were forced by Hitler to salute to as the went by.

Munich is a beautiful city and I would gladly go back simply to see the sites. The reconstruction that was done after the war adhered as closely as possible to the historical blueprints of the buildings. The germans are also good engineers....

Lyon

I am so sorry this has taken so long to arrive! My only defense is that I have not really been home for more than four days at a time for the last month.......Terrible excuse I know.

Anyway, Lyon!

Rachel Wong had a day left on her EuroRail pass which was soon to expire so she inquired as to whether we'd be interested in a jaunt to Lyon, just for the weekend. We wouldn't even need to take any days off! Since the answer was a resounding yes, Rachel, Bruce, Dave and I found ourselves on the train on the friday evening, ready for 2 days of gastronomic euphoria.

Maybe I should explain, in case it's reputation does not precede it, that Lyon is apparently the culinary capital of France.

The gentlemen had the inspired idea to make our train ride a sort of wine and cheese and so, along with some extras added by rachel and I, we had ourselves a smorgasbord for the 5iish hours of training. Wine, bread, way to many cheeses, including some interesting fruit and nut cheese, grapes, cookies and good company....

We managed to pick a weekend when there was a transport strike on. This really wasn't to big of deal for the rest of the trip but be were a little late arriving that first night and everything was already closed so we took a taxi, i got to practice my french.

We stayed in a "do it yourself " kinda hotel. it was very cheap, private room but we didn't see any people who worked there the whole time we were there....... It was fairly central, about a half hour walk to the centerish of town. A nice walk too.

The first night we mostly cruised around our neighbourhood, visited the river, ect. Pretty low key.

Day one, we slept in. This was a theme for the weekend. Then headed out to grab a pastry and visit the Notre Dame de Fourviere, the basilica perched on what I think was the highest point of the city. It was pretty, don't get me wrong, but it didn't stand out too much in my mind. It was fairly large though.

For lunch we stopped at a quaint little restaurant and had beautiful food, outdone only by it's succulence....

Near the basilica, were the ruins of a Roman amphitheater which was very neat. It was huge! and head kinda been modrenised, I assume so current day theater could happen there. While we didn't get to see any theater, there were several small children and one old man(succumbed to the pressure of the children) who entertained us with short peom/songs.

We went out for dinner that night and had a set three course menu. These menus are all the rage in Lyon. dessert was phenomenal, the four of us pooled and got to try a little of everything. No I can't even pick a favorite.

That evening we planned to go to one of the party boats along the river. There are several of them but we had it on good authority that "The Sirius" was the boat to hit! It was a little ridiculous. There were dancefloors both above and below deck but if you go downstairs you are immediately soaked becaus eit was SO hot. Also there were lots of obstacles on the lower deck, weights were placed around the entire floor to keep the boat fairly stable I assume.... Wouldn't want the party to get out of control!

Sunday we cruised the old town, did a little shopping (of the window variety) and had a coffee for breaky. Immediately following our coffee we scouted a lunch venue and then began our treck to the train station.

At this point we got kinda stck by the metro and had to walk the second half. we missed our first train by seconds. we actually touched it on the platform but the doors were locked.... but it all turned out fine, we made the next one and we were home lots early!

Also I would like to site Rachel Wongs Photos, I borrowed 4 of them....

I been GOOGLED

So a handful of weeks ago Bianca was fortuitous enough to meet a Lebanese gentleman named Rami at an IAESTE function. Rami was doing a 4 month internship at the Zurich Google office. One thing led to another and two weeks ago the three Bergsters headed into zurich on a friday night to check out the mystery that is a google head office.

There was a bit of TGIF (thank Google it's friday) celebration going on when we arrived so we were presented with a lovely glass of white wine and schmoozed with some of the employees. Needless to say it was lovely.

The entrance of the private part of the building opened right onto a cafeteria with a giant metal slide coming down from the second floor. more about that later..... Apparently all food is free at google. you come in and are given a menu, they have vegetarian, fish and a variety of other choices and you simply have to pick whatever sounds good.

while i was in the building I had:

1 tub of Cookies and Cream Ben and Jerry's Icecream
1 chocolate bar
1 iced coffee
1 cookie
1 sandwhich hand made by me.
2 handfuls of Haribou Gummy bears
1 glass of wine

There are 7 floors in the building and each is decorated with a distinct theme. Each floor also has a "micro kitchen" stocked with coffees, a giant espresso machine, ceral and milk, loaves of bread and cheese and ham, assorted snack, dried fruit, nuts, yogurt, ect. anything you could want you can pretty much find, though you may have to go to another floor to get it. each kitchen seemed to have slightly different things.
My favorite floor was the jungle floor. the micro kitchen was filled probably 70% with massive tropical greenery. There was also a particulary nice room on the top floor called the sky lounge.

We visited the in building gym, the massage room and the water lounge. The picture of me in the foam filled bath tube was in the water lounge. It consisted of a darkened room with a series of massage and lounge chairs. one whole wall was fish tanks and there were bird sounds playing faintly (soothingly?) in the background. helluva break room is all have to say.

We spent a couple hours wandering he building then headed back down to the second floor kitchen, nicely located next to the ROCKBAND ROOM complete with two projector screens for those tournaments you've gotta have. we played for another couple hours while snacking. played a little pool, a little foosball. all in all i don't know how anyone gets any work done. oh we also saw lots of pets.

after we left the premises Rami took us out for a drink at one of his favorite pubs. one of the best fridays i've had in a while.

Oh i also forgot to mention we went down a firepole.

Ramadan

Last Thursday, after our lindyhop lesson, Khalid introduced us to some of the traditional Moroccan foods that they eat during Ramadan.

First i should mention that Khalid is Moroccan, and an intern here as well. We've all been hanging out toghether for the last few months and so we were invited to this feast.

Khalid's sister had come to visit him and brought all these goodies with her so that he would have them for Ramadan. What a sister!


I couldn't believe how much he brought! He had said that there wasn't going to be enough for everyone because there turned out to be 7 of us but there was lots!

First he made a huge pot of soup with lentils, chickpeas and a plethora of spices. One thing i noticed with Moroccan food is that everything has a hint of sweet in it. Whether imagined because of my association with cinnamon and nutmeg, or real like anise.



There was a big bowl of of authentic Moroccan dates, much better than the ones at home. He cut up a loaf of bread which we then dipped in a really delicious version of "almond butter" but instead had a mix of a particular type of nut oil, I tried to find the name but I'm incompetent, almonds, and spices. The consensus was we would all be perfectly happy eating it for breakfast forever. Then we moved onto waht was sort of a fried noodle, at least that's what it looked like, but they dipped them in honey and spices and sprinkled them with sesame seeds. Khalid also brought the traditional herbal tea which had a nice sweet lemony flavor. Finally, there were a half dozen "fish rolls" for lack of a better term. The were flaky pastry stuffed with shrimp, squid and fish again with spices and skinny little rice noodle type things. It was actually reminiscent of Vietnamese, which i havn't had in a while.

The whole evening was marvelous, Khalid was so generous with us! I'm glad I had the opportunity to try everything and have every intention of making my way to Morocco at some point to continue my gustatory explorations....