Mosques and Kebabs

Hagia Sophia

Mosques on mosques on mosques. Istanbul has a lot of mosques, amongst other things. But I’m totally okay with that because it was here when I started to realize that I wasn’t quite in Europe anymore, and this trip was taking me to other places in the world where the underlying culture can be much different. Technically, Istanbul is split between Europe and Asia, however, the culture here and the feel for the city is unlike anywhere in Europe, and it’s sort of nice to be out of Europe after traveling around that place for so long.

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I arrived in Istanbul. I knew it was going to be different, just not sure in what way. After an overnight bus ride from Sofia and one of the longer border crossings I’ve been through (they had to take an x-ray of the bus) I was slightly delusional when I arrived in Istanbul at about 6:30am. The weather wasn’t very good and I wasn’t entirely sure where to go from the central bus station so I texted my first host, Charlie, who I’d contacted through Couchsurfing of course, and he gave me just about all of the information I needed to get from the bus station on the European side to his place on the Asian side. He did mention that I should hit up some of the main sites on the way, since most of them are all on the European side and I was already over there anyways. In my half-asleep mind it was a difficult task to undertake, but I gathered myself and decided that it would be a good idea.

After some much needed Chai (Turkish tea), I was mostly awake to see some of these sites and made my way to the touristy area of the Hagia Sophia and Sultan Ahmed Mosque (or Blue Mosque). It was a Monday so Hagia Sophia was closed, but I went into the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, which was my first mosque, and it was really cool. The architecture of these things is really impressive and it was huge. I was definitely awake at this point, and after visiting that monstrous mosque I walked around a bit more to see what the rest of the area had to offer.

Istanbul is the largest city I’ve ever been to. There’s roughly 15 million people that live there and everywhere you go you feel like you’re in the city center. There’s shops, restaurants, and accommodation everywhere (and the traffic is horrible). It can be slightly overwhelming at first, but I was surprised at how quickly I got used to the craziness of the city and all of its people everywhere. I think it was just because I had been to so many cities already, I was sort of prepared to be in another one despite how much bigger it was.

More mosques!

I spent a few hours sightseeing, and when I felt like I’d seen enough on the first day I made my way over to the Asian side via ferry (which is a really good way to see the city if the weather is nice). It’s pretty cool how many ferries they have going to all of the different parts of the city, and I thought that was a great and efficient way to get around. I had to kill some more time on the Asian side before meeting up with Charlie since he leads a normal life and obviously had to finish up some work. We were able to finally meet up that evening, and we took a dolmuş (shared taxi van thing) back to his place.

Before we went to his apartment he treated me to some seriously good Turkish cuisine. Charlie is a big fan of fine dining, which I was totally okay with, and he was willing to take me to some decent restaurants to show me where all the really good Turkish food was at. This was a great introduction and I really appreciated him treating me to such a delicious meal. It was a quick walk back to his amazing apartment where I had my own bedroom and queen sized bed, which was far more than enough, but I’ll take it!

I spent my first four nights at Charlie’s place. I spent most of each day doing some sightseeing and going to most of the touristy sights in the city. There’s definitely a lot to see here and I started to get really comfortable in this place. I would meet up with Charlie in the evening and we would have a meal together or we would get breakfast together and then I’d be off. He was a really busy guy but I’m not taking that away from him at all. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that all of these people I couchsurf with are still leading normal lives, and it’s obviously important to respect that and work around their schedule. It’s pretty cool though because you get something of a sneak peek into someone’s daily routine, which is really interesting. You get a glimpse of how other people live on a daily basis and it’s actually comforting to see that most of the time their daily lives aren’t much different from my own before I took this trip. It’s kind of reassuring in a sort of inexplicable way, like “oh yea, this reminds me of what I was doing before I quit my job to travel, so I feel more normal about it.” I think that makes sense, but in any case it’s just cool to see how people live and that’s a really cool benefit you get from couchsurfing.

I really enjoyed my four nights staying with Charlie, and even though his apartment was a bit out of the way from the sites of the city it always made for a fun trek into the center of the city and it was worth having such a great place to stay in.

Grand Bazaar

I don’t really want to go into too much detail on the main sites that I saw in Istanbul since you could look those up yourself or just go there and see it for yourself. But one thing that I thought was pretty cool was the Grand Bazaar. This place was the giant market in the city center and it was HUGE. Small streets leading in every direction with small shops where you can basically buy anything. It reminded me a lot of the medinas in Fez and Marrakesh, but I felt so much more comfortable in the Bazaar in Istanbul. I remember being constantly hassled as a tourist in the medinas, with people coming up to me nonstop trying to get me to buy something or hassling me into some tour or “discount” or whatever. It made me feel really uncomfortable and I wasn’t able to enjoy it. In Istanbul, however, they have it more under control and there’s cameras and security guards at the entrances so there’s less people giving you a hard time and you can just cruise through at your own pace without having to really worry about anything. I was able to enjoy the Bazaar much more in this way.

I was contacted on couchsurfing by another Turkish person who was closer to my age, and we met up one evening and she also offered an accommodation for me to stay. The cool thing about couchsurfing in Istanbul was that I tried contacting individual people to stay with but it was actually the people that reached out to me, after sending out a mass request about my trip to Istanbul, who actually hosted me. So many people messaged me and offered to meet up or host and I actually had to decide who I wanted to stay with. Everyone was super open to just meeting up and getting to know someone from a different country.

I ended up leaving Charlie that weekend to stay with Laden, who was hosting for the first time but acted like she’s done it plenty before. She had a great little apartment in a much better location, closer to the city center on the European side. I spent 4 nights with Laden and it was great being with someone a little closer to my age who I could better relate to. We went out with her friends over the weekend so it was awesome to see some of the nightlife in Istanbul as well. Taksim is the area of the city with all the nightlife and it’s pretty crazy. Istiklal Avenue is a massive pedestrian street filled with bars, restaurants, shops, and most of all, people. This place was absolutely packed with people walking around all over the place, and I don’t think I’d seen a street with so many people on it before. It was a pretty cool and crazy atmosphere and made for a good nightlife scene.

From the top of the Galata Tower

At one point I met up with a Turkish guy I met in Belgrade at the hostel and we got a meal together which was awesome, and then on one of the nights over the weekend I met up with another person who contacted me through Couchsurfing and we had a few drinks, including some of the local Rakı, a Turkish alcoholic drink that tasted a lot like licorice. Each of these interactions was awesome, and I met so many more Turkish people than I thought I would during my 8 days in Istanbul. To me this is what it’s all about, and this is why I continue to travel. All of the people that I met and had interactions with were so nice, and it made such a big difference during my visit.

By the time I was ready to leave Istanbul I was honestly a little sad. I ended up feeling so comfortable there and I knew that I would end up missing that city. On the bright side, I would be back because I was going to Israel next which meant that I had to have a return flight booked :)

Boarding in Bulgaria

I knew I'd be going through Bulgaria at some point since I was planning on passing through it to get to Istanbul (it's on the way, in case you don't have a map handy). It seemed like now was going to be the time I did it, and before doing it I had absolutely know idea what the hell I was gonna do or where I was gonna go in this country. To be honest, I think I heard zero good things about Bulgaria. Everybody would ask me why I was going there and they told me that I shouldn't go there, but once again, popular opinion fails in the personal experience realm.

I only knew about one place in Bulgaria: Sofia, the capital city. It wasn't super far from Bucharest so I thought it would be a good idea to go there first. I didn't plan on spending much time in Bulgaria anyways but I figured it would be good to see at least one place while passing through, just to say I did something there. Actually, not long before heading to Bulgaria I did hear about one other place through my friend Zack, who I traveled with briefly during my trips through Croatia and Montenegro. His plan was to go snowboarding in Bulgaria because he heard the mountains are pretty good there and it was super cheap, so this immediately caught my attention. He was there boarding maybe a week or two before I got to Bulgaria so I messaged him about it and he gave me all the details. The name of the place was Bansko, and he recommended to me the only hostel in town, and he also mentioned that it only costed him $60 for the lift ticket AND all the gear; board, boots, jacket, pants, goggles, gloves, everything. This was clearly too good to be true, so of course I had to check it out for myself.

But before doing that I did want to see at least a little bit of Sofia before just skipping up into the mountains with pure joy and excitement. My initial plan was to do two nights in Sofia because I was arriving late at night on the bus from Bucharest, and it would give me a full day to see the whole city before spending just one more night there and heading to Bansko the following day. Then I would go to Bansko, get settled in, and do two nights there, obviously snowboarding during the only full day I planned on being there. Then I would head back to Sofia and take the night bus to Istanbul. Seemed like a pretty good plan, so let's see how it all went down:

Bus ride to Sofia went smoothly, taxi through sketchy part of town from bus station to hostel went smoothly, first night went smoothly. Next day was gonna be the free walking tour in the morning (you know how much I love those) which was great, and I felt pretty accomplished about everything that was covered during that. Had to check out a few more churches of course (at this point, I might as well just start sleeping in them instead of hostels or couchsurfing) and I was pretty much satisfied with what I had seen in Sofia by the afternoon. There's honestly not a whole lot to see in Sofia compared to the other heavy hitters in the Balkans, but to be honest the place has a really good vibe. I don't get this 'good vibe' feeling in every city, but when I do I'll mention it because it's a great feeling to have when you're just walking around aimlessly and being comfortable about it at the same time. I found the people here to be super nice too (as mentioned previously, that's huge). I got my haircut shortly after the tour by some old Bulgarian woman who didn't speak any English, and even though it wasn't the best haircut in the world (or the second best one...) it was still a cool experience, because another customer came in mid-cut who actually spoke some English and asked me a bit about what I was doing in Sofia while translating some of the conversation to the old Bulgarian ladies. They taught me the Bulgarian basics (which was fun and embarrassing, as usual) and we had some laughs. It was a great time, and I like to think that I just paid for the experience rather than the haircut :)

My first mulled wine in Bansko

That made most of my day, and I just hung out at the hostel for the rest of that evening. I was pretty excited for this whole snowboarding thing and I was really hoping it was going to work out weather-wise. I kept looking at the weather forecast for the mountain and it was looking pretty good for the one day that I planned on snowboarding, so I was just hoping it would stay that way. I took the 3 hour bus to Bansko the next day and arrived in the afternoon. After a bit of walking around lost trying to find this hostel that didn't seem to exist (a quick phone call resolved all issues) I found my way to the next accommodation. Immediately upon entering I was introduced to the owner, Steve, and Dallan, an Aussie (shocking, I know) who was another awesome boarder staying at the hostel. So far so good, and when I found out that there were three other guys staying there that were already on the mountain when I arrived, it started to sound like I'd have some friends to ride with the next day. After saying our hello's, Dallan and I went out to get some food and he showed me a bit of the town. He had been there for a while already, so he knew some of the spots and introduced me to the main drag. It was a cool little place (actually, the town was a lot bigger than I thought) and it had all the pricier restaurants and bars and clubs that you might imagine a profiting mountain town to have. There were plenty of promoters standing outside trying to make friends and give you the 'special discount' which was only slightly annoying (but at least it wasn't anything like Morocco). 

Dallan and I grabbed some food and a beer at one of the places when we were eventually joined by the other three guys who had just come down from the mountain and were getting some post-shred beers themselves. I met Dave (an American!), Hayden (yet another Aussie), and Joey (crazy awesome British surfer dude), and we all got along great real quick. All boarders, all here for the purpose of boarding, and just about all ended up staying longer than initially planned (there may be a hint of foreshadowing here). We went over what we were all up to and why we were here and blah blah blah, but the main idea was to just go snowboarding in Bansko. So it was a great introduction to the town the first day, and with the forecast looking awesome the next day we were all pretty excited to get some fresh Bulgarian pow.

Unfortunately, Dave had to take off the next day so it was me, Dallan, Hayden, and Joey (the Powder Rangers) the next day. I honestly got everything I had hoped for out of this trip on the first day. It had been snowing quite a bit the last few days and it finally cleared up on this magical day of epicness. I couldn't believe how great the snow was and how impressively huge these mountains were! The resort itself was top notch, offering all the same lifts, facilities, and snowmaking that some of the best resorts in Tahoe offered (at less than half the price!) so that in itself was something, but these mountains were the real deal and they offered some really good terrain that we had a great time with. It was honestly one of the best days of snowboarding I think I've ever had. Period.

Perfect day of snowboarding!

I was hoping for greatness but I was not expecting amazingness, and amazingness is what I got that day. I couldn't be happier, and halfway through that day I was already satisfied and everything else was just a bonus. The guys told me the first night that nobody just stays in Bansko for two nights, and after hearing about how they all pretty much extended their original stays I was not only tempted, but convinced to do the same after that first day. It was just too good. So I decided to double the stay and go for two more nights. The following days consisted of more shredding with fantastic snow conditions each day and enjoying time with the guys over some post-gnar drinks in the town. It was quite the dream, and we were certainly living it. It was really hard to leave and those guys were great company. The Powder Rangers will unite again. Shout outs to Dallan, Hayden, and crazy Joey for all the great times and freshies we enjoyed during our time living the Bansko dream.

The more I write about it the more I miss it, so I think I'm just gonna leave it at that, and after Joey convinced me to go on the mountain the day I was leaving before catching the bus back to Sofia, despite my body being destroyed, I did. And then I rushed back to the hostel, checked out, caught the bus to Sofia, hung out for a bit there, then caught the overnight bus to Istanbul. It was a crazy 24 hours but I survived, and Istanbul would be the next city on the list of what was to come.

Finding Dracula - Part II

Brașov Main Square

When I arrived in Brașov I had a host for the first night, Aurel, who picked me up and took me to see a pretty awesome view of the city by night shortly after I arrived. Aurel was another awesome host, about my age, and we were able to relate with each other really well. We went out for some dinner after checking out the awesome view of the surrounding area (which turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought) and had some great discussions. We got back to his insanely nice apartment and hung out for a bit more before calling it a night and getting up early so that he could get to work and I could head to the free walking tour of the city. A great tour meant another great intro to the city's sights and what it had to offer. 

After exploring a bit more on my own and killing some time, it was off to my next host's house to meet up with Uwe and George, who were some really great guys originally from Brașov. They had a great take on things to see and do in the city, and Uwe told me a bit of history about the house that they were living in which was extremely interesting. This was the same house that he was raised in and it's been in his family for quite a while, including during the period of communist occupation in Romania, which means that at one point you had everyone from Russian soldiers to homeless people hiding in the attic staying in this place at different times and sometimes all at once. I felt like I was staying in a museum and it was so cool to be able to be in a place with so much history. I realized after he told me about all of this history that in reality the same thing was happening when he was hosting people with couchsurfing, but from a completely different perspective. He was having all types of people staying in this very same home but under circumstances of peace, respect, and learning about different cultures and people. It was in a totally different light but it was still happening in this place, and it was a really neat thing to realize. I had a busy day the next day so we had another early night and I got ready to do some more sightseeing the following day.

I'm Dracula! - Just kidding

It's not really Brașov that has many relations to Dracula's character, but not far from here is the castle that most people consider to be Dracula's castle (actually named Bran Castle). Without going into too much detail about the whole thing, the entire association of Dracula and this castle is pretty funny because the only thing this place really had to do with Dracula or Vlad the Impaler was that it resembles the description of the castle in the original Dracula novel, written by Bram Stoker in 1897, who had never even been to Romania and who didn't actually use this specific castle as his inspiration for the one in the novel. But nonetheless, it remains famous today and known as "Dracula's castle," so there you have it. Good for Romania because it really does help with bringing in more tourists to visit this beautiful place, and I'm glad I went. It was pretty funny to see all of the Dracula/Halloween masks and souvenirs that they sell near the castle just to promote the very ambiguous relationship that exists with this place and its relevance in fictitious history. But it really is worth a visit, and although much smaller than you might imagine, the castle is really neat and it's situated in a beautiful area.

After surviving my visit to Dracula's castle I stopped at another small town called Râșnov on my way back to Brașov. Râșnov is known for its neat little fortress that's situated on a nearby hill which provides stunning views of the surrounding area. The fortress itself is really small and nice but the views were pretty incredible. Sweeping sights of Transylvania and the surrounding Carpathian mountains was amazing, and spotting all the little villages scattered throughout the valley really accentuated the landscape. That place was also worth a visit and was a great way to top off the busy and exhausting day of exploring the outer-limits of Brașov. Some more great talks with Uwe and George (and their cats) that evening and it was time to call it a night and wake up early yet again to catch a train to Bucharest, the capital.

Peleș castle

Before getting in to Bucharest (NOT Budapest) there was of course one more castle I had to see (I guess two, technically). But this castle was Peleș Castle, regarded as one of the most beautiful in Europe. It's located in Sinaia, almost halfway between Brașov and Bucharest, so it only made sense to stop by on my way south to Bucharest. Sinaia is a really nice mountain town with ski resorts nearby. It really had that mountain town type vibe which I really like. I spent some time walking through the town on my way to the castle, and when I got there I definitely was not disappointed. The place was beautiful, and I took advantage of the student discounts to get a really cheap tour of the inside. It was stunning, and a lot nicer (and bigger) than Dracula's castle. After that visit I checked out Pelișor castle which is right next door. Less impressive, but still nice and cheap with the student discount. It was a quick walk down the hill back to the train station, so I hopped on the next train to Bucharest.

I had trouble finding a host in Bucharest so I resorted to booking a hostel. I originally wanted to try and couchsurf my way through all of Romania but I was happy with my hostel choice. When I arrived I quickly made some new friends (mostly Aussie's, of course) and we spent most of our days in Bucharest together. The first night consisted of a pub crawl (which is always a good time) and the next day consisted of recovery and rest (not always a good time). We took it easy the second night and after one failed attempt at the free walking tour the day after the pub crawl, we were able to catch the tour on the second day. It was another pretty good intro to the city and the sites but overall, Bucharest had a much different vibe to it than the rest of Romania. It was a much bigger city than the rest of the places I had previously been and the nightlife was much better. But in terms of sites and things to see it didn't seem like there was nearly as much (other than the parliament building, which is the second largest building in the world only to the Pentagon). I was partially okay with this after having a really busy week making my way through the rest of Romania, so it was good to take it easy on the sightseeing. I still spent plenty of time hanging out with new friends and constantly meeting new people in the hostel.

Palace of Parliament - Second largest building in the world

The two guys I hung out with the most were my buddies Minh (from Melbourne) and Justin (from Brisbane). These were a couple really solid guys and we had a great time hanging out together in Bucharest. We even got to watch the super bowl at one of the nearby pubs on our last night in Bucharest, and it was a lot of fun. I did not expect myself watching the super bowl in Bucharest but there was actually a pretty good turnout of people watching the game (mostly Romanians, I think – who knew they watched American football?) and a few really serious Patriots fans for some reason, so they were pretty happy with the result of the close game at the very end. But we had a great time and it was really the first American football game that Minh and Justin had experienced, so I think they really enjoyed it. We didn’t do much the last day since Justin and Minh were heading to Brașov and I was going to catch an afternoon bus to Sofia, Bulgaria. So we said our goodbyes and split up, more great friends gained with unknown possibilities of meeting up again somewhere in the future (which happens quite a bit from my experience).

I think that’s about it for my Romanian adventures but overall, I’m really glad I came to this country. I met some pretty cool people and I saw some really beautiful landscapes and castles. Now, the plan is to continue to work my way south through Bulgaria (and try snowboarding again on the way) down to Istanbul and Turkey, so we’ll see how things shake out!

Finding Dracula - Part I

Victory Square - Timișoara

After spending so much time trying to figure out where the heck to go next, it was kind of a relief to finally have a plan for a little while. I figured I'd be traveling through Romania for about 7-10 days before heading down to Bulgaria and eventually Istanbul. 

So, I hopped in another car to get a direct transfer from Belgrade to Timișoara, which was only about 3 1/2 hours. I had never heard of Timișoara before, but it was the closest large city in Romania to Belgrade and the easiest way to go from there and see the rest of the country. Turns out Timișoara was a really cool place - third largest city in Romania and continuing to grow pretty quickly. It also played a big role in Romania's independence and is a cultural center in Romania. When I first arrived I have to say that I was a little hesitant, mainly because they're doing a massive construction project on the city center and the central squares there. So a lot of the central streets and squares were pretty torn up and gated off, with construction equipment everywhere and what just seemed like rubble and dirt covering where the street would normally be. I was wondering what the heck happened here and how I ended up in this place, but trying to hold all judgments aside, I was determined to find something nice. I went to another square that wasn't under construction and it was really cool. A really long square with an opera house on one end and a massive Orthodox Cathedral on the other, lined with really nice architecture on each side filled with coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. This was beginning to feel more like a city now and I definitely started feeling more comfortable at this point. I had to kill some time before my couchsurfing host got off work to pick me up so I spent some time walking around the area and enjoying myself. 

When my host came to pick me up he reassured me that they were in fact doing a massive construction project on the city center and this was not the normal state of how things were. That was definitely a relief, and gave me reason to come back when it's finally complete. We went back to his place and I got settled in. Cristi was a really nice guy, actually the boyfriend of my original host, Raluca, who went out of her way to make sure I could crash at her boyfriends' place instead of hers because she didn't have room in her place to host me. This was a great couple, and when Cristi invited me to play soccer with him and his friends I hesitantly accepted with excitement. I made sure I gave him my disclaimer of being American and being horrible at the sport, but he tried to provide me relief in saying that he didn't play much either and it was just for "fun." It turned out to be a lot of fun, and although I was horrible, consistently embarrassing myself in front of some pretty competitive Romanian guys that played a little bit more than I did, I still scored a goal! I was definitely happy about that result, but other than that it's probably best that I just stop there with the rest of my soccer performance. It really was a great time though, and I was pretty happy I got to have that experience, regardless of how horrible I played. I should also mention how difficult it was to walk or stand the following few days after I had ran more during this soccer game than I had in maybe a couple years.

The next day was highlighted by one of Raluca's friends having a massive birthday party at the apartment that I was staying in. There was seriously about 30 people that showed up to this party and it was an absolute blast. I met so many Romanian people and had a lot of great discussions with them, learning a lot about their culture and way of life (and drinking) which was really interesting (and excessive :). Overall a great night, and I didn't get much sleep because the plan was to catch a bus the next day to the next Romanian destination: Sibiu.

But I do want to give a shout out to Raluca for giving me the opportunity to be hosted, Cristi for inviting me to play soccer with some competitive and much more athletic Romanians, and Raul (Cristi's roommate) for also providing me some hospitality and having some great conversations about what we're doing with our lives and this crazy trip. Thank you guys for a great introduction to Romania!

Sibiu

The next stop was the much smaller town of Sibiu in central Romania (Transylvania - we'll get to the vampires later) and took about 6 hours to reach by bus from Timișoara. This place really had culture, and its German-style colorful architecture made it that much more amusing (Germans had a big influence in Romania when they settled here during the Austro-Hungarian ruling of this part of Romania). I had another great host here as I tried to continue couchsurfing my way through Romania, and although Alex was busy working during the day she still made time to hang out and chat with me after work in the evenings. I had two quick nights in Sibiu, but it was enough to get a good feel for the city and get to know Alex and her roommate a little more, creating more friendships and connections with good people - always my favorite part about traveling.

It was another bus ride to Sighișoara, which was a super cool, super small town that is another great sight to see in Romania. Only a few hours are needed to see the old center of town, perched up on a hill with surrounding views of the outer city limits and valleys that cover this picturesque landscape. Another highlight includes the birthplace of Dracula! (well not really Dracula, but Vlad the Impaler - of whom the inspiration of Dracula's character came about). After a nice meal and a bit more wandering the streets it was time to hop on yet another bus to Brasov - one of the most visited places in Romania - because of its significance with Dracula's story.

Had to sneak in a pano of Sighișoara