Ninjas Ate My Lunch…So I wrote a blog about it.

I’m trying this feature out. I emailed those of you who I know read, but if I missed someone please email me for the password!

Totally rocks. And, as it turns out, it is a delicacy to eat the hardened layer that is on top of the yogurt when you open it. After trying some, I agree.  I am contemplating a way to bring a crate full of it home with me, but I don’t think it will be less than 8kilos to carry on the plane.

More to be posted about my trip to Istanbul later, when I’m not enjoying yogurt and pretending to pack. Until then I leave you with a rare sighting of TURKISH GODZILLA attacking Galata Tower! Rawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

It is 2:09 am (what’s up with my 2am postings?) and I am laying on the couch in my cousin’s apartment in the middle of Istanbul. I’m traveling on this leg of the trip with my Mom and step-dad whom I met up with yesterday in Barcelona to spend the night before our flight this morning.

So far my time in Istanbul has been interesting and fulfilling, both emotionally and physically. This city is unlike Platja d’Aro in many ways, but there are elements that are strikingly similar. People out, bustling around, the energy of a city buzzing with sights, sounds, and motion. I love that about this place, and about where I have been in Spain as well. You can wander and feel alone but a part of something at the same time. This is something I have come to appreciate while spending time by myself, the ability to exist alongside someone else and share in an experience without actually having to interact.

I am spending the next four days in my cousin’s apartment which is incredibly comfortable and stylish and makes me want a place just like it. My mom and stepdad are sleeping at my cousin’s boyfriend’s place, walking distance away. Although it should be noted that walking distance here appears to always involve a hill of some sort. My butt has gotten quite the workout in the past three weeks.

Tonight for dinner my cousin made reservations at a kebab (literally, meat) restaurant that is popular with both locals and tourists. The area where we were seated was on the top floor of a building with floor to ceiling windows lining the dining area for full views of the Bosphorous and various mosques and other sites of importance that I will learn about. We ate our fill of appetizers (many including walnuts and pistachios in different forms) and then were presented with a huge plate of kebab pieces of lamb and chicken. My favorite had to be the lamb one with pistachios mixed in. It gave it such a yummy texture and flavor. This followed by a dessert of layers of thin filo-like dough filled with cream and pistachios and covered with sweet syrup and more pistachios, was incredible. And to think my grandmother used to say pistachios were only for, “little rich girls.” They are also for Turks of all economic classes and American tourists who happen to be slowly running out of money. Pistachios – the nut of the people.

I have rekindled my love of this sweet spread in the last few weeks, and boy, does it feel good. I realized that on my trip to Sweden Nutella was a staple of my diet, and I’ve brought it back in my daily food rotation. Last night after returning from a weekend trip to Talamanca I freaked out and ate my body weight in Nutella, peanut butter, and bread. I started to feel guilty about the amount of bread I was consuming, because really, all those carbs?? Come on now, let’s be civilized. That’s when I found myself at 2 am in my kitchen, barefoot eating Nutella straight out of the container from a spoon with a side of Special K. Much better.

Today marks 4 days of being sans travel buddy, and it has been growing on me. Slowly. I have been doing things that I like, even though most make me uncomfortable during some portion of it. One of the things I have done is sign up for Catalan classes to learn some of the language spoken here in Catalonia. It is different, but similar to Spanish, so I am able to pick up bits here and there. I found a Catalan woman who gives private lessons for 13euro an hour (about $18) and she is incredibly sweet. The first thing she said when we met was, “Oh! I thought you would be older! And taller.” I guess I write emails like a more mature, tall person?

Anyway, we have met a few times, and during our first meeting she took me to the tourist office in Platja d’Aro to talk about more excursions I should go on. It should be mentioned, at least to give an idea of her personality, that during that same meeting she brought me to a book store, to a shop where she bought her daughter a skirt, offered to drive me to some volcanos to sightsee and invited me to her house to meet her family and her dog.

One of the places she suggested is yet another beach side village called Tossa de Mar. It is actually quite close to where I am staying, so my friend said he could drive me there on Thursday, hang out for a bit and then come back to get me after he did other things. We headed there in the afternoon, around 2, and started off at the beach (this is becoming a trend that I love.) After he left I explored the city which quickly became one of my most favorite places I have visited so far. There is a medieval town running along part of the coast line which was built in like the 12th century or long time ago. At some point the town was walled off and a castle was built inside the walls as well. What is really cool is that you can walk through the town and also along the wall, very high up, and it gives an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea.

High up view of Tossa de Mar

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What does it smell like there?   seriously! -
This depends. My first day my nose was going crazy! There are good smells and very bad smells, and the beach and the sewer, and DELICIOUS food  (you know they are some kind of starch, oil, and salt), stinky people too close on the metro smells, exhaust, laundry, smoke, me after a long day of sweating (yum!), books, wind. So many!

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Paris has, to date, been the most sightseeing that I have done on this trip. Caro and I did some in Barcelona over a few days, but Paris was a condensed series of hardcore sightseeing opportunities. Museum after museum after park after cathedral after museum. It was overwhelming. To start off the trip, as I mentioned in a previous post, we spent the day at the Louvre. This, if you weren’t aware, is an incredibly large museum that I would have quickly lost my way in if it weren’t for Carolynn and her amazing ability to read maps. (Add that to her skills at changing in tight spots and you’ve got a great date . )

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