Monday, April 7, 2008

Travel

Right now Im in Amasya Turkey which is as random as it sounds. This blogpost also wont feature commas or apostrophes because I cant fınd them on this keyboard-it also mıght feature a lot of i s that look lıke thıs ı because Turkish keyboards suck. Ok-heres what ive been up to.

Aquaba-Pretty much Sarasota Florıda in Jordan mınus any scantıly clad women but wıth equal the old people.

Petra-one of the sickest places I've ever been (sick I found the apostrophe button.) I don't want to be one of those "omg you have to go here people" but if youre ever randomly ın the Israel or Jordan area it's worth the trip. It' s basıcally an ancıent cıty carved ınto these sandstone slot canyons and once you see the maın cıty there are plenty of hikes in the area that give beautıful vıews and get you away from the multitude of tourists.

Amman-Not the most excitıng place in the world. I spent 3 days here-mostly on daytrips to surroundıng areas. However I dıd meet some interestıng people:

1)Ben-I met Ben on the minibus coming to Amman from Petra and we split a taxi to downtown. You know the tall sort of fat kıd from hıgh school that was always ırratıonally opinionated about stuff in social studies class. That was Ben. Unfortunately I had already agreed to go to this cheap hotel he knew about before I figured thıs out (wow that sentence looks really gay.) So for the whole day I was forced to listen/see things like this:
-watching him argue with a shopkeeper over a keychain of Israel that had Palestine written on it
-watchıng him buy an Iraqi flag hat and then where it throughout the city
-hearing him talk about an alcohol promotion company he suposedly started in San Francisco and then sold in exchange for a lifetime percentage of the profits (he was 25 and had just graduated from San Francisco State this winter because of "time off" for the aforementioned company)-im almost positıve this is a lie
-listening about how he picked up his current girlfriend at starbucks by slipping her his business card

2) so suffice ıt to say I was glad when I saw that someone else had moved into our dorm later that night. The new guy's name was Sam and he was a 2006 graduate of Brown. He had lived in Israel the past few months and was probably the most stereotypıcally looking Jew I had ever seen in my life. He was also a pretty big hippy-he had played on frisbee team-smoked lots of pot and was into organic food. However he liked sports and travelling and was overall a pretty cool guy so we got along pretty well. Also moving into the dorm was Steve who was Britısh and as he later dropped into the conversation had served in the British Army for 10 years including an advance force into Kosovo and in Iraq. In addition to this he had travelled around the world for a year and had a loaded girlfriend who was Jewish (huge plus obviously.) Anyway the point is thıs guy was a huge baller.

The last night in Amman I got pretty drunk for the first time in a while (I know the opposite of what's supposed to happen on study abroad.) The three of us went to this bar hidden in a bookstore. You walk in this small bookstore on this abandoned street and theres a security guy standing in front of what looks like a closet door. Except when you go up the stairs you enter this really upscale looking bar/lounge with a lot of uncovered and relative sluttily dressed women (huge plus in the Arab world.)

Istanbul-2 days ago I flew from Amman to Istanbul. Istanbul is really modern-essentially completely European. Aside from being really pretty in general-it had a sick pedestrian walkway with tons of bars cafes and restaurants. There were so many people walking down it that I literally thought I had stumbled into a demonstration. Im looking forward to coming back there in a couple of weeks.

Ankara-I took a bus here yesterday. The landscape was really cool-rolling green hills. I also saw random patches of snow on the ground in some of the higher parts. This doesnt bode well for my trip further east wıth towns at 6000ft+ since my only wınter clothing is a rainjacket. Downtown Ankara is really nice and has a really energetic vibe to it. Unfortunately the cheap hotels are in the sketchy northern section. For the still absurdly high price of 15 bucks I got a shared squat toilet-a Turkısh business man busting into my room at 630AM to ask if I had any shampoo (or I think thats what he was motioning for with his hand gestures and this was partially my fault since I forgot to lock the door)-and was afraid to walk in more than a 2 block radius from my hotel for fear of being mugged. This morning I visited Ataturk's (the founder of Turkey) Mausoleum. It was creepy. The museum was essentially pictures of him in heroic pose accompanied by what I can only describe as Nazi march music.

Earlier today I took the 6 hour busride to Amasya and now I'm here for another 2 days. Then I head East eventually flying back from Van on April 15th. Or at least that's the plan.


Sam

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So Ben didn't slip you his business card too?