<-- this is the first sight i had upon my arrival back in sofia two days ago. since then i've been rather lazy, sitting at home most of the time, thus evading the snow and the cold weather outside. i've more or less spent three days like this now, so it's about time i write a bit about how i spent new year's eve ;)
from the beginning. it started out with quite an exciting trip on the train during the night of december 28th to the 29th. as the train was coming from belgrade of course it was running late. i guess with my waiting time from less than two hours i can even be counted as lucky. anyway, with the train from belgrade came 6 serbs. one of them was marko with whom i had arranged to join them for the remaining time until istanbul. none of us had reserved a seat for the ride, so after having been told that there were no seating wagons until istanbul, we simply searched a free compartment and made ourselves comfortable -- so far we were going in the right direction...
first problems occurred at the last stop before the turkish border. there the seating wagons were dislodged from the train and instead there were new wagons which had come from romania, BUT only sleeping wagons. since we didn't have any reservation for a "couchette", we were forced to stay in the tine area between two wagons. including us there were about 10 people squeezed together (at least we didn't get cold this way) until the first train station in turkey. fortunately, it took less than an hour until we got there. in turkey, first thing, everybody had to get off the train and and buy a visa and/or get a stamp into their passport. apparently, germans belong to the few who don't have to pay 10€ for a visa (spanish citizens have to pay so it's got nothing to do with being EU member). anyway, having collected yet another stamp in my passport (it's a shame i'm getting so few of them!), i went together with the serbs to talk to the conducter in order to find out how we could reach istanbul more comfortably. 10€ per person to stay in a sleeping compartment, they told us. it was 4 am and i was ready to pay that, but...well, marko wanted to beat down the price. we ended up 7 persons together in one compartment for6 and two of the serbian guys were asked to buy some rum and that's it then....ha, is this corruption? if it was it didn't work in the end. they DID buy the rum but we still had to pay more later on. when the conductor came to take our tickets he refused to give them back (the serbs needed them for their return) until we had paid about 5€ per person. at least that's only half of what they had first asked for....and i was able to sleep about 6 hours more or less comfortably in one of the "couchettes" until we reached istanbul the next morning. i had been given a very good description of how to get to my couchsurfing host's place from the train station and though she lives almost an hour away from the centre i easily found her.
COUCHSURFING??? what is this? being an active member of both couchsurfing and HOSPITALITYCLUB, i know that some of you have already heard me talking about it. others even are members themselves. but many of you probably have no clue. so i will give you a short explanation. they are online communities (www.hospitalityclub.org, www.couchsurfing.com) creating a worldwide network of people who like to travel. the purpose is to contact and get to know other open-minded people whereever you go. you can look at their profiles ask anyone who seems nice to you, if he or she would be willing to host you in their home or to meet you for a coffee, to show you around town, go out to the bars and clubs where the local crowd hangs out. hence, you are never caught between thousands of tourists but get a real insight of whereever you travel. it is wonderful. i have with much delight both hosted and "surfed" other peoples' couches. and sometimes, actually quite frequently, some of these people get together and organize a meeting. it may be a smaller one just for the locals and their current guest- in sofia the people from CS meet regularly once a month - or a bigger one like the balkan meeting in ohrid or the winter camp in istanbul. in any case, you are sure to have a good time and to meet loads of great people!
well, enough of this. try it out, it's wonderful. since i joined the network i'm not only not afraid to travel almost anywhere alone and without a previously arranged hostel booking, i even often prefer to travel by myself, because this is the best way to connect with the people at your destination and getting to know your host really well :D
in istanbul i stayed three nights at gülsah's place. for the winter camp she also hosted two more girls: daniela from costa rica (currently studying in rome) and katia from dobrich, bulgaria. part of the little bit of sightseeing i did in istanbul i did together with them. and thanks to them i never had to return "home" all alone in the middle of the night as we were all part of the same huge party crowd ;)
did i write "huge crowd"? oh yeah, it really was a HUGE crowd. just look at the pictures: it seems like a demonstration, but it is just us, a bunch of CS'ers and HC'ers on our way to a boat trip on the bosporus. and us on the boat...
rumour has it that at the last party on new year's eve there were around 600 attending. i assume about a third of them were turks and the rest from all over the world. mostly europe, of course, but there were members from latin america, north america, australia, the mideast and asia as well...
the party on the night of the 29th i didn't enjoy too much, though. so gülsah, a turkish friend of hers and i left before midnight and we went to have some food instead. i had delicious clams filled with rice in the street called "fish bazar" - just count the empty shells and you know what you have to pay ;) later i discovered that at the same place they sell extremely tasty sandwiches filled with fried breaded mussels and a yummy garlic sauce - even better!
the next two party nights i enjoyed a lot more and i stayed longer. the 31st i started out with daniela and jorge (from madrid) making sangria - which we then shared with yet another two spaniards, daniel and antonio. 5 litres for 5 persons. perfect!
la sangría - antes y después
and an hour before the end of the year 2007 we went to the club (the organizers of the meeting had rented two floors)... at midnight with the 12 gongs jorge, daniela and i ate the 12 grapes as it is the tradition in spain. they probably were the worst 12 grapes i have eaten in all my life, but at least i can be sure now that i won't have 10 years of bad sex in front of me :P
daniel was too late to eat the grapes with us so he repeated it an hour later with the spanish midnight - don't know though, whether that'll count.... ;)
okay, i feel i have written enough for this time. i uploaded some of my favourite pictures taken in istanbul. here you go:
the blue mosque inside and out
at the spice market
my favourite
somewhere upstairs in a mall where they sell lots of electrical equipment
at the great market
istanbul, city at the bosporus....
