Emotional Turkey

The Teams final dinner together on a rooftop bar

Me infront of the Blue Palace

Firstly, sorry this blog has taken so long to come about. Hope what it becomes will be worth it.

Turkey for me (the little I saw of the country) was a contrast in almost every way to everywhere else I have been since away. It was also the place where I had to sadly say a lot of goodbyes and venture out on my own again. It truly made me realise how much I had come to rely on travelling with a group of great people and the relatively easy source of good company.

Istanbul which has about 16 million people is a city which appears never to sleep. When you are in the centre of it, it feels like you are surrounded by the 16 million people. This was especially the case at the Grand Bizarre and Spice Bizarre on a Saturday. What was also felt very fast is that women also appear to be subordinate to men. Men appear to view western women as objects and do not hide the fact they are eyeing you up so to speak. They are also very happy to call out to you with such comments. Walking in numbers especially with males certainly lessens this happening, but it is still there. Men hold all the jobs from hotel clerk, waiter to shop attendant to policeman. It was very rare to see a woman holding a position at times it was rare to even see a woman walking certain streets. It truly did feel that for every 20 or more men out on the streets there were 1 woman. When spending my time in Cannakle (closet town to Troy) which is fairly liberal and has apparently a high student population (though all I saw was naval men) it appeared to be a little more even say 10 to 1.

The food in Turkey is not what I was expecting. Firstly it is expensive in general for what it is. Not just because I had come from Eastern Europe where things are cheap. To my surprise there was no mention on any menus of fallafil, there was little mention of hummus and there was eggplant in or on nearly everything. The kabab's which we have at home are rare and are mainly the kebabs you have on a stick.

Turkey is expensive for motorist, not that this stops them from driving or making them drive smaller cars. Its was over $NZ3.70 a Lt. Apparently they have the highest petrol prices in the Europe due to having over 52% tax. They also have the highest electricity in the Europe to. This is why they have the no power without your key card in the holder in every hotel room.

Terrorists

Some of you may already know but there was a terrorist attack in Istanbul last Monday at the USA Embassy. This was kept fairly quiet from the tourist and I only found out by accident the following day. Apparently this is the first publicly noticed attack (and only because it happened outside the embassy) in the last few years. In general however there are attacks on police and soldiers nearly every week which most people just accept. The attack did result in more police and army personal being on the streets with their guns.

Palaces

They certainly know how to do their palaces here going by the two that I was lucky enough to see inside and the ones that I went past. While I could go on for ages about how amassing they are and how luck the Salton's had it, its best to show you some pictures I guess. Topkapi Palace had it for size and grandeur while Dolmabahce Palace had it for location being right on the Bosporus River.

Palace (Dont let the picture tick you it is impressive and it is huge)

Dolmabahce Palace

Gallipoli

Me at the NZ Memorial

After going I could simply say I have now done my dutiful pilgrimage as a New Zealander, but that would be kind of distasteful and not really honouring the true significance of it all. It was certainly interesting to hear the details from a Turkish perspective, especially after studying it at school. While there is was strange how Mr Gill my history teacher kept popping into my head. This was the same for another girl from my school who I randomly meet there. The place on the surface is so gorgeous with a fantastic view. Then you think about all the men who lost their lives there, the number of shots fired and the freezing winter all those who were there experienced and it takes the initial thoughts away.

One of the surprising things that you could not help but notice while there were the number of Turkish people who were there. There were buss loads of them. Apparentlty over the last few years the government has really tried to push the significance of this event. They to now have a day in Turkey which they remember.

Troy

Well I was lucky enough to hear both the story about the legend and the real thing. While there I was able to see evidence of the nine Troy cities that have been there over the last few thousand years. The cities had either be destroyed by earthquake, fire or battle. Apparently what has been uncovered to date only makes up about 10-15% of what they believe was Troy. It is amassing to think that it was only confirmed in the last decade that this city was in fact Troy.

The End of Easter Europe

So now that I am in Ireland my time in Eastern Europe has officially come to an end. Trying to look on the positive sides I'll list the good parts about this, which are

• There are no more traffic driving on the right hand side of the road. Though I had just got use to this.
• No more people wearing socks with their sandals (this is just wrong I think in any country)
• No more cars being parked on footpaths leaving little room for pedestrians.
• No more cars parking on corners making it impossible to see what is coming around the corner
• Being able to understand the majority of what is on TV
• Having Western breakfasts again - where there is cerial, porridge and bread can be toasted
• Sure there must be more, but I really cant think of any.