Roma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apart from sleeping in until 5.25am (our shuttle to the airport left at 5.45am) our last morning in Istanbul was good, we got our flight to London no problems however we hadn't realised that in London we had to transfer to a different airport for our connecting flight to Rome. We landed in Heathrow and had to collect our bags and get a bus to Gatwick, you need to allow 3 hours minimum to do this and we had 3 hours exactly from when one flight landed and the second took off so we were a little apprehensive. luckily it all went smoothly and was pretty easy to negotiate which bus to get on and how to buy a ticket. it was a nice break to be in an english speaking country for the first time in two months. even if it was only for 3 hours!
our flight to Rome was delayed by about an hour and a half, we were already sitting in the plane when we found this out so our plane stayed in London sitting on the tarmac waiting to be able to leave. it was all due to strikes by air traffic controllers in France.
We finally arrived in Rome about 7pm and luckily found a girl holding a sign with our hostels name on it, luckily she had no idea who we were and was actually waiting for someone else who was late and in the end never showed up. so whoever this person was thankyou! you saved me and ewen $80 which we would have had to pay for a taxi if we couldnt get the shuttle to our hotel.
we ended up having mcdonalds for dinner (i know, its awful our first night in Italy and we ate maccas) because we didn't check into our room until 9pm (there was a bit of confusion when we arrived at the hostel but it all got sorted out) so we were too tired to go to a proper restaurant or to cook a meal. the mcdonalds tasted pretty much exactly the same as Australia and the menu was even in english which ewen was a bit disappointed about because he wanted to know what a big mac was called in italian.
this morning we woke up early and got the shuttle to Vatican City and spent several hours exploring Vatican museum and the Sistern Chapel.
The artwork on the celings of the museum and chapel was ridonkulous!!! you spent the entire time walking around staring at the ceiling rather then the displays (well i did anyway).

we also saw some tapestrys or carpets not really sure what they were exactly but they were basically bigger than my entire house! i tried to get a photo but couldn't get far enough back to get the whole thing in.

i was lucky enough to touch the popes car when no one was looking!

we had our very first taste of Italian pizza... it was ok would have been much nicer if it was hot, they served them stone cold! weird!

we saw some pope dollars, a pope pigeon, the popes guards, who according to Ewen were out of sync with their marching.


We saw some of the old carriages the Popes used to ride around in and all the gear the horses had to wear.

for some reason their was a giant statue of a pine cone with peacocks either side of it, not really sure what that was meant to symblise.



We finally (after a lot of searching) found the Pieta statue well we thought it was anyway, i have just done some research and apparently the pieta statue is in St Peter's Basilica which we are going to on Sunday so i will get to see it then. the one we found today must have been a replica.

Russell Brand in a past life
the coolest arm band i have ever seen!
me getting up nice and personal with a sheep
after leaving the Vatican we decided to try to find some shops because we needed a new memory card for the camera. however after walking around random streets for ages we still hadn't really found any shops, we ended up stopping for a rest and our very first Italian Gelatos! Sooo good, i had lemon and ewen got strawberry.
after consulting our map we decided to walk back to the Vatican and go to St Peter's square on the way we stopped in some shops and i ended up buying a bag to use for our day trips (i really regret sending the other one home, now its not so hot it would be perfect) and got to test out some Italian (Gratze was about as far as i got hehe)
I started getting blisters from my thongs so we decided to head back to the hostel and continue our sightseeing tomorrow.
We got the shuttle back to the hostel and went to an electronics store opposite it and finally got a memory card so now we are free to take as many photos as we want again!
We celebrated by going to the supermarket and getting strawberries, pastries, wine (i found moscato! and asti!) and FONZIES!
At the moment we're just chilling in our room waiting for the washing to be done, for the first time in 2 months we are having to do our own washing! shocking i know! i took photos in case no one believed us.
the internet here is incredibly slow so i will add photos from Siena hopefully. I've got some really good ones so keep checking back to see them!!!

Second trip to Istanbul

we have spent the past few days in Istanbul relaxing and doing not very much at all. we arrived here about 1am on Monday morning (SUnday night depending on how you look at it). we spent our first day sleeping, skyping home, eating and going to the movies. we saw sex and the city 2 in Taksim. i was a bit dissapointed, parts of the movie were funny and the clothes ridiculous considering where they were meant to be. i have been to a spice bazaar and if anyone wore what Carrie was wearing you would even fit your dress down the aisles. but im glad i saw it, and even though i wad dissapointed no doubt i will probably watch it 50 more times over the next few years and up loving it.
yesterday we spent the day shopping in Taksim, ewen got a few books and i got a dress and two tops and lots of socks because all of mine have holes in them! we also got some souviners which we plan to post home today.
we had a disgusting dinner last night, we ordrerd two entrees to share, stuffed vines leaves and stuffed peppers (capsicums) we had never had the vines leaves before but we have had stuffed peppers lots of times... always served hot. this stuff was served cold!! stone cold!! like they either forgot to heat it up or possibly did it on purpose, they did seem kind of annoyed we wouldnt order main meals. anyway we had a couple of bites each (i only had one and nearly dry retched) and paid our bill and left, most expensive dinner yet!! (not really but considering what we ate it was) we walked around a few shops and then went home deciding not to eat a proper tea having been turened off by the disgusting peppers and vine leaves.
today we need to go to the post office, skype a few people and wer were supposed to go a hamam but im not sure if this will still happen as Ewen is still asleep and i dont know if i can be bothered. We woke up to a huge thunder storm about 7am this morning! the thunder was so loud it was setting off car alarms! and each burst of thunder was instantly coupled with lightning so the storm must have been right over us!
anyway i better get going, got to pack for Italy!!! We leave at 8am tomorrow morning!!!!
Fonzies and Duff beer here we come!

Awustralians at Troy & Gallipoli

To explain the spelling of "Awustralians" in the heading of this post you need to look at this photo.

This was what the guy printed on our bus tickets to Cannakale. This provided us with a lot of entertainment while waiting for the bus... kind of sad what amuses us these days :-)

So we left Selcuk at 8pm by a bus heading for Canakkale which is a town we were picked up in to go on our tours of Troy & Gallipoli. the bus was supposed to get in at 5am leaving us with 3 hours to sit around and have some breakfast before getting picked up for our tour. the bus got in early though, at 2.30am (!) we were dropped off in Canakkale. we stood around looking at each other not really sure what to do for a while then decided to get on the ferry to go to Eceabat which is where the hostel was we were doing the tours through.
we went to the hostel hoping to get a bed to sleep in for a few hours. they didn't have any free beds but luckily they did let us sleep in their reception on some benches for a couple of hours. we arrived at the hostel at about 3.30am and woke up at 6.30am to get ready for the tours and have some breakfast.
so that was our exciting night! i feel like a real backpacker now that i have slept on a bench... even if it was inside ;-)
So first tour was the city of Troy. us and 10 others set off in a mini bus for the 30 minute drive to Troy, on the way our tour guide gave us some information about the history of Troy and what happened there.
first thing when we got there was a look at the Trojan horse and photo opportunities. of course it is only a replica of the wooden horse.
we also saw the fortification walls and gateway entrances, our guide explained to us how to tell which era the walls were from, i wasn't really sure how to tell even after an explanation but Ewen certainly got it, he even got chosen out of the group to be quizzed and got all the answers right the little smarty pants!

We saw the Temple of Anthena and some trenches named after a guy called Schliemann who was possibly the one to discover Troy.
we saw the entrance ramp to Troy II which they built on a steep slope so as to slow down anyone trying to ram their way in the gate.
We saw a stage and seating which is called the Odeon and was used for musical performances back in the day.

and that was about it, most of the city has been destroyed, partly by an earthquake partly by Schliemann. this guy was supposed to be exploring the city, excavating it, however he was much more interested in finding treasure than preserving historical sites and he basically massacred partts of the town looking for buried treasure.

the difference between a wall excavated by a mad man and an archeologist

we drove back to Ecebat and had a lightning quick lunch so we wouldn't be late for our next tour. this tour was much more in-depth with a lot more to see, taking 4-5 hours instead of the two hours spent at Troy.
We had the same tour guide as this morning which was good because he had a way of explaining things which didn't make me want to go to sleep (which no offense to them but none of my history teachers ever had this same talent).
After an explanation of how the original battle occurred and been shown on a map where different things of the war happened we went to the Kabatepe museum where we saw clothing from the different countries armies, iv got to say i feel sorry for the french, their outfits were made from wool and had multiple layers, they would have been boiling hot in Turkey! We also saw some original war weapons including this gun with a large knife attached to the front of it.

we also saw bullets that had hit each other in the air, some had gone straight through leaving clean cut holes, others hot melted together, twisted around each other. there was a skull with the bullet still in it and lots of letters and photos displayed. one photo showed an Australian soldier giving some of his water to a Turkish soldier.
After the museum we went to Anzac Cove which is where the first Anzac soldiers arrived in Turkey.

You can still see the rock formation the Australian soldiers nicknamed the 'sphinx' and apparently this name stuck, even Turkish people now call this rock 'Sphinx'
This was a very sad place to see as our guide explained what happened here and that the sea was apparently red with blood after the battle that happened here. after only a couple of days of fighting the two sides held a ceasefire for one full day where they worked together to bury the dead from both sides. it was a very interesting war where each side respected each other and although they killed each other they only did this when both sides were armed apparently. our guide told stories of people hanging out washing or cooking and if the other side happened upon them while they were doing these chores they would not shoot because they opposed no threat unless they were armed. there are multiple photos and stories and even statues of each side helping each other out.
we saw several Beach Cemetery's and spent a while walking around the graves reading the messages and been astounded by the young ages of the men, most were younger than me and ewen when they died. many of the grave stones still have blank spaces for messages to be written if families ever find the grave.
We saw Lone Pine cemetery which is where the Australian memorial is and Johnsons Jolly which is what the trenches built by the ANZACS have been named.
We saw the view down to Shrapnel Valley where our guide told us about a man named John
Simpson who rode his donkey into the battle field several times a day to collect the injured and dead soldiers and carry them to the other side of this valley. once you see the valley you realise just how difficult this must have been for him! he was a bit of a legend among both sides of the fighters, considered the luckiest man on earth to manage to get in and out of the battle fields so many times without getting killed. sadly though he died on the 19th of May 1915 aged only 22 years old.
we also saw the New Zealand memorial (Chunuk Bair) and the Turkish memorial.
it was a sad but very interesting day. our guide was fantastic, we went through TJs tours if anyone goes to Turkey we highly recommend them! they really looked after us giving us a place to sleep, free breakfast, we went on two great tours, got a free lunch and they drove us back to Istanbul and right to our hostel door. very highly recommended!
(i'm having some trouble uploading photos at the moment so will add more in later)

Selcuk 19.06.10

we spent a couple of hours wandering around Ephesus this morning. Ephesus is an ancient Greek city and back in the day it was the second largest city of the Roman Empire coming in behind Rome itself. Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.
We got hats (there you go mum & pat hehe) before going in from a stall outside.
we got an audio guide to share and thank god we did because nothing was signed.all they had was numbers for which audio guide to listen to so the people walking around without audio guides or human guides wouldn't have known what they were looking at.
the most impressive building was the library which was probably the building in the best condition.

there was also a large theatre that was very impressive.

above two photos are of the theatre obviously.

i know this one was a bath and gymnasium because it was the first thing we learnt about when we got to Ephesus

i can't remember what this one was but don't those pillars look precarious

the amount of tourist groups walking around was crazy although still nothing compared to Angkor Wat.

some of the tourists

a mosaic on the ground, i didn't realise love hearts were so old school :-)

Ewen with the library in the background

Ewen was, as always, fascinated by the number of cats around. especially the one hanging out in the public toilet area.

Ewen attempting to entice a cat

"The latrina built in the first century A.D. are the public toilets of Ephesus. The toilets were ranged side by side with no partition between them. In the middle was a square pool. The floor was paved with mosaics"
we got the typical tourist photo of me sitting on one of the toilets, one guy who was there at the same time as us even pulled out a roll of toilet paper to pose for his photo!
the streets were very interesting, paved and lined with collumns and various statues. there was also a variety of baths and temples dotted around the place.

the above two photos are of roads in Ephesus

there was an indoor museum but it was an extra 15 lira each and we were a bit museumed out after yesterday so we skipped that section.

cannot remember what either of these buildings were, after a while it all started to blur together...

we took this sneaky photo (it took a few tries to get a good one) of the woman in the pink pants and pink top, she had taken her ticket and folded it over her nose like a beak... we assume to keep the sun off but who knows really... was very bizarre!!!

me standing out the front of the library
the theatre... freaking massive!!!

opposite the cafe we had lunch at was a shop giving away free donut like things and our waiter was nice enough to get some for us.

we went to a market this afternoon in Selcuk and got 6 plums for 50cents and a huge bag of cherries for $1.
we have spent the rest of the afternoon on the computer and playing backgammon (me-2 ewen-1) passing away the time until we get the bus to Canakkale tonight at 8pm.

tomorrow morning we will arrive in Canakkale at about 5am wait 3 and a half hours then join a tour group to go to Troy then that tour finishes at 12pm we have lunch then at 1pm we join another tour to go to Galipoli that tour ends at 6pm then at 6.30pm we get a bus to İstanbul arriving at 11pm what an exhausting 48 hours this will be! wish us luck everyone!