Monday, August 30, 2010

THE ENDING

Today is our last day, of our amazing, long being with family the WHOLE time, two months, summer vacation, trip. While my parents were planning the trip, they started so early, so I thought this trip would NEVER come! But, it has past so fast. During the weekends my parents were always planning! Planning, planning, and more planning.But this trip has been great, and so many new places to see.
We travled in Europe, first to Italy, Germany, then Turkey. In Italy, we travled first to Rome, the Sicily. Germany, just Berlin. But turkey, turkey has been the most different from the USA. The culture is new, the language is completely different, meaning that in italy and germany, you sort of understand what they are saying and the rhythym of the language is much easier. In turkey, we first came to Istanbul, then to cappadocia, then Izmir, Lake bafa, Kas, Cirali, Antalia, and now back to Istanbul. So many new places, and we had a car there so if we didnt like the place, we would just move on! The worst place were we stayed was Lake Bafa, the lake was dirty and smelly, the hotel was horrible, and the people were these German Turkish weirdos. Our trip has been a real good experience for me and my brother. I have loved it.
Were i am right now
I am back in Istanbul, lying in my bed, wrighting the last blog of this
trip. I just cant believe its almost done. I will always remember this trip, and another one will come in seven years!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Cirali, turkey, august


We went to a place in turkey called Cirali. The day we came we were from Kas and we drove 3 hours to get there. While we were there, we had really great times. The first night we went to the beach I pretended that i had a candy shop and a made al this fresh candy out of rocks! To the right is a picture of me wearing a big mask at the beach. The second night, we went to see the eternal flames on mount chaymera that the olympians took to mount Olympos, were the twelve greek gods live. The flames were shimmering in the dark light, and it was a grand and powerful sight, and to me, thats what it felt like. My mom said this place would be super relaxing, but no. The hotel we stayed at was Grand Aygun and It was so bad. I would rate it 1 star becuase there are 6 bad things about it.
1.The people are not nice to kids (the older man was always telling me to move)
2.There are roosters and chickens all over that poop everywhere
3.On my bunk bed, the stairs to get up are metal bars so it REALLY hurts my feet
4.There are ants all over the room and the last night there were ants crawling on my parents bed with them in it
5.The breakfast is not for kids its just rolls and chillie peppers and hard boiled eggs
6.It is 86 Euros which is 172 Turkish Lyra for our uncomftorble room
Then, there is a beach close by and it is SO hot in the day we only go at night.
We meant to stay at the Bad Grand Aygun for five days, but after two nights with that, we had enough and went to Anatolya. Anatolya is one of the biggest and largest population in turkey. Our hotel is in the old part of Anatolya. The day before my mom made a resorvation at the White Garden hotel which is 120 Turkish Lyra per night. Before we got there, we looked around to find a less expensive hotel, and we found one that was the same price but it had a beautiful garden and the stairs are exactly like the stairs at our real house in brooklyn so we choose it. The feeling is great. My mom got twenty Turkish Lyra off so now we are paying 100 Turkish Lyra for a great value! After we settled in, we went to a beach. Before we got there, we looked at one more hotel and it was 60 lyra per night!!! That is a great deal and it even has a pool. But Ninova hotel that we are staying at is better. At the beach I collected some really awesome rocks. For dinner we went to a Italian restauraunt and the girlfriend of the man who was the chef talked to us about her travles. She is a great story teller and you can listen to her for a long time. She speakes in a great way while her voice is full of words and volume, the sound moves UP then down, and we listen and laugh.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Kas!

We stayed in kas, turkey for four days now.
A few days ago we went on a boat ride.
In kas, it was 103 degrees so it was so hot,
so we decided to take the boat ride that day.
We got on the boat and went to our comfy
spots that where mats that are coushins.
We rode the boat and the wind was so
nice and there was a lot of breeze. We swam
five times and the day before i got my own
snorkeler to use and we saw a sunken city
and a lot of fish. After the baot ride me and
my dad ate some iced almonds! There was a
iced almond stand and we love almonds so
we tried them and they were really good.
They were as whight as scalla de turkey,
which are theese white white white rocks
we saw in sicily, italy.
Yesterday we
spent the day at the beach.
At the beach,
there is this run and jump thing
that i did
and you run off a plat form, that

is really high and jump in the water.
Me and my brother met a spanish lady from barsolona,
spain and we played backgamen and checkers
with her!











Friday, August 20, 2010

Pamukli turkey, august 20

We have reached pamukli, in turkey. We are staying at luxorious hotel melrose. It is luxorious because the people are nice, the room is great, and the food is yummy.
Yesterday, we went to a ancient city. We didnt see much of it because we were heading to the pools. They are not man made and they are these rock pools filled with natural water. We walked in the cool misty air in the water. It was a PHENOMANA! We also swam in a gas water pool, were athena the greek goddess swam in. We were swimming with ancient collumns.
For dinner we went to the melrose restauraunt and had the most best trout fish and roast chicken, pasta and rice.Today we are going to go back to the pools and swim!

My brother romans story!

Thromanic
By roman lafia
Once upon a time, I was waking up on my bed. Then, I went for a hike camping. One day, on my hike, I met a horse named thromanic. Then, I went home with him because I loved him so much. I love thromanic so much because he made me crabby pattys. Later on, I was camping with my horse thromanic. I was also camping with my grown up irena, and my big sister lola, and we all rode my horse thromonic. And I found another horse on my other hike and I named him banana. Then, my big sister and me were riding on the horse banana. And my grownups, irena and marc, rode on my other best horse named thromonic. Later then, when we got to the campsite, then, right away we roast marshamellows. I love marshamellows because they taste so good with grahm crackers and chocolate. Then I rode an airplane with my pets, banana and thromonic. Then, I fed them some horse food. They liked it a lot because they were hungry from riding the airplane and the ride was so much fun. Then, I went to a museum with my pets, and they really liked the one painting of a horsie chewing bubble gum. My favorite painting was the picture of two horsies hugging. Then, I went out of the museum. Then, I bought my horsies ice cream! Then, they licked it all up. Then banana gets a party. They get to sit in a chair next to eachother. One time I like my horsies so much better then 1,000,00 times. I love my horsies, banana and thromonic.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Cappadocia Turkey

Cappadocia reaches out to us, invites us to its heat, caves, and people. Amazing caves, and from ancient history we learned that people used to live in these caves. Amazing wonders approach us, walking inside tall, pointy caves, and seeing gravestones, carved into the rock.

We did a lot of marvelous things in cappadocia. First day we went to the open air museum. The open air museum has fairy houses and old churches all built in caves. In the churches people were buried in these deep, stern holes. There were also faded paintings from olden times. A fairy house also looks like a giant mushroom. We also ate at a restauraunt that had a band playing Turkish music and they sounded beutifull. It was a mandirin player and a drummer and the music was so calm and light. It was great. We took a hot air ballon ride one morning. That was great. We got up at 4:50 in the morning to catch our ride. When we got up into the air, when we looked down it felt awesome. There were so many ballons out. We got to through down paper airplanes that we made. This is the best vacation!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Istanbul, turkey, august 11

As i told you, the day begun wonderful. And so the day was a wonderful holiday day. After we take our wonderful fun bath, we got dressed and went on the bus. The bus was SO hot, but roman and I had fans. In turkey, half the people are wearing pants, coats, and head dresses, that I just don't understand how they can stand it. They believe in allah which is the musulim god and they are not allowed to make and complaints. After the burning hot bus ride, went to the tram and luckley it was cool. I cleaned my parent glasses and I earned 1 turkish lyra,(that is the curency in turkey). When we go to the right stop, we found this little place and my parents got a turkish coffe (that was served in these pretty metal cups with some turkish delight candy) and a baklava and roman and I shared this delicous foundou that tasted melty, creamy, and like the best thing in the world. We then walked to the bascilica cistern, and on our way we got five postcards for one lyra. Good deal. One lyra is like 75 us cents. As we walked into the bascilica cistern, it started to get quite. The cistern is under ground and is very cool in weather. I felt like i was walking through a jungle, because it is very dark and only has a few lights on. The water is shimmering and glistenning under me, and there are tons of fish. Walking through the cistern is mysterious, and cools you off from the wonderous heat outside. As we aproach the end of the under ground walk, we aproach the medusa. The are 2, one is upsidown and one is side ways. The reason for that si that when medusa stares at you, it can turn you to stone, so this trys to stop her from looking at you. When we finished our walk, we got a picture taken of us all dressed up looking like sultans, sitting on royal chairs. That was really fun to do! Then we went out and i got these old colectible turkish coins and my brother got a traditional turkish hat!

Bath ride! august 11

This morning Roman and I took a bath in our outdoor tub that is round and big. We filled it up so high and started spinning in it. As we slid in the tub, we spun each other around. We glided through the tub as if it was a spinning tea cup ride. We went around and around the tub, laughing and shouting, oh combawa! We made that up together and we felt like that word described what we were doing, because combawa seems happy and exciting. We splash on eachpther like this is the best thing in life! This is the start to a wonderful day.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Lunch & topkapi palace, august 9

The lunch
At the restauraunt we went to today for lunch, the women who is the bread maker quickly lifts her hand in the air and flicks it in the flour. You can see she has been doing this for years. She is slightly sweating, but doing her work with happiness. Her head scarf is loosely rapped around, starting from her neck around her face and back around the neck. Her body is fully covered except her feet and hands and face, she must be hot. The oven is a round, circular metal piece, and the lady quickly places the pancake on top of the hot metal piece. As she waits a little for the pancake to be cooked, she starts pounding other dough in the flour. The first pancake she made was served to me, with a yummy potato cream.

Aribic writing
Swift curves of the letters. Its like a drawing, as each letter looks different. Then you start to notice the gold color of the letters, and each symbol for each sultan looks unique and royal.

Topkapi palace patterns
The patterns that I see on the wall, are blue and green, patterns of flowers, triangles and hexagons, all shapes and curvy lines. Some red, but again blue and green keeps repeating. The royal thrones. The precious tiger skin, on the soft black and white marble wood throne. The encrusted rubys and dimonds on the gold throne are outstanding, but the tiger skin throne is more for me. The darker color makes it more mysterious, makes it royal in a way that is not greedy, such as the gold one, which may seem royal and of course it is, but a bit to shiny and the look seems a bit greedy. It seems greedy because it is like sucking the riches out of the world, just for one person, not shared.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Turkey is hot! august 7


Hi! Today is our first day in turkey, the third chapter of our trip! Turkey is moist and humid, which makes the heat sticky heat. :( We can not believe we only have three weeks left, because the trip went so fast! Our first destination in turkey is Istanbul, the most ancient place in turkey. In our apartment, as well as outside, is burning hot! Both the air conditioners are broken! Ughhh! It is soooo hot! We have this big size tub out side so we fill it up with cold water and take a cooling, refreshing cold rinse before we take a nap. We have to take a nap because our flight yesterday was at 2 in the morning so we didnt get much sleep. Outside on the huge deck, there is the most amazing view of the bosphorus river which separates Istanbul from the asian side to the european side. In the view you see the river between the two sides of Istanbul. In the river there are a lot of boats and last night, there were cruise ships going through with lights and music. On the other side is a lot of green that you can see. The view is amazing! Then when we took our nap, we barely slept because the morning sun is almost unbearble! Then me and my mom took a bath together and scrubbed eachother! It felt good! We started our day after that. We went to the Grand Bazar! The grand bazar is the local market of istanbul! We also went to the spice market and spelled really good tea spices, lemon tea, apple tea, and cinnamin tea. We discovered a pomagranite chew with pistachios that was really yummy and a chocolate caremal with nuts! For dinner we went to the bambi cafe which was disgusting and they didn't evan giv us the right food and everything was yuck. We were still hungry because we barely ate enything so we got a shwarma, which is a wrap with chicken our meat with vegitables. And, that was yummy and with the meal we had orange lemonade!

Last day in germany, 8-6-10


Today we spent the day at the lake house! We had breakfast at cafe muskat, and me and clara sat together and talked and made up really funny things! This lady said she would give us a free ice cream! Clara shrieked at the breakfast for fun, but her mom said she couldn't have one. So me and roman shared ours with her. Did i mention that charlie is clara's younger brother? So then we got in the car and drove the 1/2 an hour drive to the lake house. When we got there we right away jumped into the river! the water felt do good! it started raining so we quickly went back to shore and stayed under the porch! It was a major refreshing day! we also covered up in cherry juice!

Monday, August 2, 2010

August second

Me and my brother wolk up, and then we went back to sleep. When we wolk up the second time, antje and clara were awake. Clara is antjes daughter! She asked if we wanted to go to breakfast and me and roman said yes! we got our raincoats on because it was drizzling, and went to a cafe. We had eggs. They taught us some german and we taught them some italian! Later, we are going to go swimming!

Go to Germany! august 1st

Hi! We left ITALIA! And went to germany! We had a traveling day. For breakfast, we had this yummy granita! Granita is flavored ice. We packed our car and drove to palermo, the capital of sicily, and went to the airport. Finnaly, our plane came in and we boarded! We had to fly to milan first. milan is another part of italy. We went to milan, and when we got there we ate dinner and I got a kebab! When we got on the plane, we said good bye italy! And then, we were off. In the flight we slept because it was 10:00pm. When we got there, we went down the escalater to the baggage claim. Me and my brother love to take the luggages off the convearbelt. When we got there, we met our german friend named antje! We all gave huggs and said hello, and we gave her some italian chocolates called baci! they are really yummy! We are in the capitel of germany, berlin. then we went back to antje's house!