Spring Break: Istanbul, Athens and Santorini

This Spring Break experience was really incredible.  I traveled with 6 girls and then another joined us in Greece making a group of 7. Usually that is hard to do, but I would say it worked out surprisingly well. We first trained to Rome where our flight to Istanbul takes off, and we made a plan to sleep in the air port. 3 of us took turns staying awake. Of course I got the worst shift ever of 4 am and got to witness the hobos digging through the trash around us...but man was that an interesting experience. If I can help it it won't happen again for me, but it could've been worse! Plus we saved a lot of money by not staying in a hostel.

We then started off in Istanbul, Turkey which I must say is so far one of my favorite cities. I loved the architecture, the tile, the Mosques, the food. Everything. I had no idea how massive of a city it is. Fortunately, our hostel was located 5 minutes away from the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace. On our first day in Istanbul we did the Bosphorous Tour. So we got on a huge ferry ship and got to see Istanbul at all ends. We were a bit confused where the Asian side was, but it was really beautiful. Lots of picture taking! We then had lunch on a little city right off the pier and enjoyed fresh fresh fresh sea bass. It was so delicious. We had to dig the meat out of the actual fish.

The majority of the city is Muslim so we would be eating lunch, or sleeping in our hostel at 4 am and we could hear them saying prayers into the microphone throughout the whole city. Even though it disturbed my sleep, it was really really interesting to be around. I loved the tile inside the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. It was incredible and definitely my kind of style when it comes to art and architecture. There were also a lot of mosaic pieces. When we visited the Topkapi Palace we could tell we were the only people there who didn't truly understand the history. There were huge lines to a few rooms, once we got in there were really amazing jewels. Lots of people around me were getting in trouble for taking pictures. But again, it was hard to fully understand what we were looking at without knowing the history. But we tried!

We had some really great street food when we were there. Highlights were a special drink, yup that's the name of it...that they sold on the street especially when it got cool out. It tasted to me like tapioca pudding (not the texture) with nutmeg and cinnamon. Really delicious and probably God awful for me too. Apple tea was everywhere and really great. Kebabs, and lots of baked vegetable and meat dishes were the most popular. I tried what looked like a sesame bagel that they sold on the streets. We were hungry, it was cold out, and the man was yelling "hot hot hot hot" so we thought how perfect! It wasn't hot, but it still tasted pretty good. We had lots of Turkish delight which were surprisingly good. But now every time I saw them in the airports or in Greece it made me feel sick because of how many samples I tried. The pastries in Turkey were also to die for. They were thick and dense and way more filling than Italian croissants. A lot had chocolate, nuts, and apple. They were a definite breakfast food, we had at least one a day when we were there.

Two of my favorite things were definitely the bazaars and the Turkish Baths. The two Bazaars were the Grand Bazaar that has jewelry, ceramics, clothing, bags, everything...and then the Spice Bazaar had mainly tea and spices. I definitely got my barter on (sometimes I was really awful at it) and came out with a decent dent in my wallet, but everything I bought is definitely worth it. Turkey was a great place to buy gifts. I had a really great lentil soup there with warm pita at the Bazaar too.

The Turkish Baths were quite the experience. Our hostel kept recommending an affordable one, but sometimes we are hesitant they are getting a deal for telling us that. We did it anywhere, just because they offered us a ride! Man o man I still can't believe what we saw. Old, overweight, toothless, Turkish women topless everywhere with their panties hanging off their butts. We didn't fully understand the concept of a Turkish bath. We knew you were naked, and we knew water was involved. But most of us thought we would be getting into hot tub like pools. Nope. We walked in the room with our thin gingham towels around us and walked into a huge open space with only large sinks filled with hot water. One of my friends unwillingly got her towel grabbed off her by an old lady who was demonstrating to us how we were supposed to do it. We had a good laugh then clapped and told her she handled herself well. It was really hilarious. We were shy because of how out in the open the baths were, but we later got the courage to strip down and jump in the cool pool that we found.
We flew from Istanbul to Athens. We landed in Athens to a snow storm...and we found out the Acropolis was closed which was probably good and bad news in the end. Our ferry the next day was also canceled, and we did not want to be stuck in Athens (which none of us were fond of anyway) in the snow storm. So we did a bit of a last minute splurge and hopped on a 30 minute flight to Santorini. The last Sunday of our trip we headed back to Athens and enjoyed major sunshine and the Acropolis. Athens almost redeemed itself at that point.

Once we got to Santorini there was sunshine, but there were also flurries and rain. We thought oh crap, did this flight for nothing. However the next day, it only rained a little bit and was overcast so we enjoyed a wine tasting and tour of a winery which was really interesting. From that point on out though, everything was smooth sailing. Every restaurant we went to we were given free ouzo, limoncello shots and desserts. We definitely got the spoiled treatment because tourist season hadn't started yet. Everyone was really kind to us, it was nice to experience small town people being friendly. In Greece we ate lots of Mousakka a potato, beef, and bechamel sauce dish. We also had some really great fresh cod, greek salads, gyros and lamb dishes. The Baklava was insane as well. It was oozing out of our mouths, best I have ever had hands down. We tried to order everything as Greek as we could. I fell in love with the food! It was so delicious. Every meal we kept saying "wow that is my favorite yet".

My favorite part about Santorini had to be renting an ATV and riding the whole entire island. We started off and saw the red sand and black sand beaches which were BEAUTFUL. Everything was so picturesque. I really couldn't believe my eyes. Way way way better then Mexico. People must go to Greece! Then we ended our day watching  the famous sunset at Oia by 5 pm. All of the buildings, the water, the beaches, the cliffs, in Santorini are so unbelievable. This is definitely a place I want to go back sometime. We then took a ferry back to Athens and like I said before finally enjoyed the Acropolis and Olympic grounds.

All in all Spring Break was a HUGE success. One girl I was with found out her debit card number was stolen in Florence, another got her wallet stolen in Athens during the last 30 minutes of our vacation, and the other accidently booked the flight that left Saturday instead of Sunday and missed her flight by a day...but hey a week of traveling and a total of multiple train rides, 5 flights, ferrying and metro-ing everywhere we didn't fail too badly.