Turkey, anyone?

We have arrived safely ın Turkey, having found it difficult to say goodbye to Romania. On our way to Turkey we went via Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria which proved to be a hidden gem in our itinerary. İt is yet another charming medieval town (you would think we would be getting tired of those by now, eh?) set dramatically on limestone cliffs carved out by a river (see couple first pics). Some say it is the 'the next big thing' in Europe and it likely will be given it´s dramatic landscape, friendly people, good food, and cheap prices (1.50 for a beer ın a bar, about .75 in a market).
Despite some brief issues at the Turkish border (getting absolutely ripped off for entry visas), Turkey so far is nothing short of amazing. We were met at the train station by our freeloaders host, Serkan, and his friends Hakan and Sinem. They have gone completely out of their way to help us and make us feel at home: hooking us up wıth 'football' tıckets on Saturday night, giving us tips about the city, taking us to some really good bars, and of course giving us a place to sleep!! They are great people who truly reinforce the image of Turkish hospitality.
Yesterday we saw the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofyia (a Byzantıne church cum mosque cum museum) which were both absolutely stunning in their grandeur and imposing presence. The dome of Aya Sofyia is supposed to be the greatest in existence and İ believe it!
Today we will go to Topkapi palace and the Grand Bazaar if we have time (which means I must go!).

Regards from İstanbul
Nıck

Romania the beautiful...

WOW!!!! That's all I can say for now of Romania. It has been an amazing opportunity to visit this country, meet the extraordinary people that live here, the delicious food (not for vegetarian I have to precise...), the incredible landscape (rolling hills, snow covered mountain), etc....I have to admit that it is hard to find computers that are not turtle speed so our blog has been suffering a little, sorry about that! We will post pictures again when we can but I've been taking lots!! One thing that is crazy here is all the gypsies that are around begging for money. When we arrived in Sighisoara, a little medieval town stuck in the last century, we've been surrounded by them. They can be very insistant and annoying, tugging on your shirt for money...you just have to shoo them away...sometime quite not nicely! Ah well, it's all part of the experience. We are often cheering to good fortune when we have a drink since our trip has been without misfortune so far. Hope it continues that way. We are staying away from any live poultry (market, poultry tranformation plants, droppings, etc)...especially the Danube delta where Bird Flu has been found so don't worry, we will be okay. Except from that, we are taking it quite easy, we actually treated ourselves to a nice meal yesterday with some wine (got to do it once in a while I guess) so now it's back to budget travelling! Lots of things are closed here on Monday so we might end up staying a little longer in Dracula's country to be able to see everything we want. We've seen Suceava, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu, Sighisoara and now Brasov so far and every city has been very different from one another, even if they are all in the same country! We are planning to get to Bulgaria then Turkey by the end of the week I believe. We'll see if that works! I think our favorite city so far has been Lviv in Ukraine for the small narrow streets, the untouched by tourism appearance to it (we were the only tourists there that we could see), and of course the outdoor music concert that happened to be there that week-end with some good Ukrainian Pop music! Anyway will stop for now and try to organize some picture is some kind of order so you guys don't get lost in translation...
Isabelle

From Bearded Babushkas to vodka shooters

Sorry for the delay since the last post....we've been busy!! We finally said "Goodbye" to St. Petersburg after debating whether to stay another day or so, but Moscow was calling our names too loudly for us to ignore it! Moscow is nothing short of ginormous, to say the least - 10 million people (that they know of, not including the 2 million est. or so living there illegally) and very expensive but also very vibrant and interesting. We saw the Kremlin, Red Square, and St.Basils (onion domed multicoloured church in middle of Red Square)and went to a Banya where we sweated and beat out bodily toxins with birch twigs like the Russians do... and that was all interesting enough, however the highlight of our visit to Moscow was meeting/staying with Zhenya, our host through GlobalFreeloaders. She and her boyfriend, Dima, went out of their way to proudly show us their city, driving us around to the country-side, taking us to bars, making sure we were fed well, and making us a home-away from home for a couple of days. Thank-you Zhenya and Dima!!! We are now in L'viv (Ukraine) and it's one of our favourite cities so far (beautiful and so cheap! Our hotel is only 20$ a night for both of us!). Tomorrow we start making our way to Romania in search of Dracula in the Transylvannian mountains! Internet time is running out so I have to go. Will post pics as soon as I can! Nick

From Tallinn, Estonia to St-Petersbourg, Russia

Talk about landing in a totally different world!!! Before we arrived here, we stopped for a short visit in Tallinn, Estonia. Very much like Riga except that there is a souvenir shop every 5 meter in the old town. Otherwise very beautiful. We stayed with Raigo, an Estonian who lives in an old soviet style apartment. It is difficult to imagine that a whole family used to live in that small apartment only over a decade ago when Estonia was still part of Russia. We then took an overnight bus across the Russian border (no problem but no sleep) and arrived in a Russian world! Very hard to read since everything is written in cyrillic. We got there at 6:30am when it was still dark outside and tried to find our hostel...1.5 hours later with a heavy backpack on our back, we finally found it and settled in for a well deserved nap. I (Isabelle) woke up with the start of Strep. throat infection and Nick's sinuses are still full, but we enjoyed what we've seen so far. We are staying in a pretty nice hostel name "Nord Hostel" where people speek English a little better so we are able to communicate. I guess the most dangerous threat here is water. You have to drink bottled water or boil tap water for 5 minutes if not you may catch....Giardia!! (Hey Penny, bring back memories?). Anyway, seems like we are doing okay for now, we'll let everyone know if we catch anything like that! Good conversation subject, isn't it? Anyway, sorry for the long gap between the last post and this one but it is sometime hard to find a computer. The two first photos are from Tallinn, the most right one is from the Church of the Spilled Blood in St-Petersbourg. We will stay another few days in St-Petersbourg and head to Moscow next. Cheers with a shot of Vodka!!!

Riga, Latvia

Wow, I'm really lucky to have access to a free computer at this hostel. I can stay on as much as I want! We explored Riga, the capital of Latvia (Lettonnie for my french friends) and the houses are simply magnificient! Rustic charm of an old city I tell you. The oldest three stone houses left are from 1629. I believe one of the brick Church was build in 1249. We also visited the central market which was like a giant flea market. It still reflects the pre-Latvia independance period. Lots of fruit and veggies, 1980-style clothes and shoes, jewels, etc... Food is awesome but not for vegetarian. They love their meat!! (and I do too;) So the pictures I posted are a view of old Riga from the St-Peters Church, St-Peters Church itself and a beautiful view of one of the pitturesque street in Riga with its cobbled-stone pavement and beatiful old buildings. Appears that Nick is taking a break on the stairs!

In between London and Latvia

Hello everyone,
Well we just arrived in Riga, Latvia 4 hours ago and already we are having a great time. Met a lot of Aussies here surprisingly (well, they own the hostel where we are staying at I guess!) We are looking forward to visit the old city tomorrow. yesterday we met with Nick's brother, Shawn, around noon and went to visit King Henry the VIII residence (Hampton Court Palace) and it was absolutely fantastic! To think that everything is dating from the 16th century period is just incredible. We got a tour from a dressed up lady who pretty much told us to recreate it the way it would have looked like (paint on the ceiling and walls, golden and silver tapestries, etc) 500 years ago! Of course it looks older now but... Abyway we did that during the day, went for thai buffet for supper and Shawn very nicely offered us tickets to go see a musical in Central London so we went and saw "The Producers". Shawn, thank you very much, it was exceptionally good. I (Isabelle) recommend it to everyone. Anyway, we'll post more after a few days in Latvia. The picture you see is from Hampton Court Palace.