Reunion in Israel

One more post before I head off again- in a few hours I will be on a plane to Spain so getting this one in just in time! I have downloaded an app for my phone and will attempt to blog while on the go, but not too sure how well that will actually work. I promise to give it a try AT LEAST once though.

Anyways, after dying in the heat in Greece, it was time to do the same in Israel. So far I have been lucky enough to average visiting Israel approximately every 2 years, but most of these trips have been in winter, and what a difference it makes! The first time I actually went to Israel was in a summer, and I am pretty sure I came home from that trip never wanting to go back again. How things have changed, and I arrived for trip number 5.

Having been before, much of this time was spent catching up with friends and seeing Liron (my brother) again after six months, rather than sightseeing and shopping, and of course who can ignore relaxing on the beach! I spent a few nights in Jerusalem staying at an old friend who moved to Israel years ago, getting my J-town on, before heading to meet Liron in Tel Aviv for the rest of my trip. While I was there for 10 days, it seemed to go so fast and next time would definitely want to stay longer. Being my first time in Israel not with a tour group or on a program I thought I would have so much free time to do what I wanted to do, but the days seemed to rush by so quickly that I need to plan a return some time soon.

A pizza shop named in my honour? And not even in Italy!

Besides seeing my brother again, I got to catch up with some other friends I hadn't seen in a while. When I finished school I was a youth leader (called a madrich- for a boy, or madricha- for a girl) on some of the camps for the grade 9s-11s, and I met up with one of the Israeli leaders (a group of Israeli madrichim are sent each year to help out with the school camps) who I worked with a few years ago for a quick dinner. It was also fantastic to see one of my best friends from school, Nadav, who had the weekend off from the army while I was there and managed to come out to see me and we spent the afternoon and night catching up.

I seem to have plenty photos of my friends, but none of my brother...
Oops?

Best moment of the trip (other than seeing people- hi to those who read this!) was while I was at the Kotel, and saying one of the prayers, I bowed and managed to avoid being pooped on by a bird. Instead, the girl behind me who decided to launch herself over me to touch the Wall ended up getting hit. Hysterical highlight of the day! Perhaps I need to pray more often?

Rockin' Rabbis in the streets of Jerusalem

Off to Spain now, so will try write again soon!

Hitting up Greece!

I have been looking forward to going to Greece for a while now. Not only to meet up with my friends, but the idea of 10 days of relaxing on beaches WHILE spending all night bar-hopping with friends sounded amazing. I was right- Greece was awesome!

After endless hours of travelling and sleeping in airports, I finally made it to meet up with the girls in Santorini for a few days of relaxation and intense gossiping. We certainly annoyed a few couples at some of the restaurants we visited and there were numerous occasions where we were "shushed" by staff and patrons alike. But either way it was fantastic to see the girls again and catch up, explore the different coloured beaches (even though none of them have sand!) as well as see the beautiful sunsets that Oia and the Island of Santorini offer. For those who don't know me well, I love a good sunset. In fact I am pretty sure that if you were to look at any of my computers, phones or other devices that call for a background or screensaver you would be able to spot a sunset from any country I have been lucky enough to visit!

While we did not make it to the volcano, or ride a donkey (although I dodged enough poop to last me a lifetime), Santorini was still fantastic and I wish we could have spent more time there. Next time I go back to Greece it is definitely on my stopover list.

Five hours on what was supposed to be a 3 hour ferry later, we arrived in Ios to meet up with the rest of our crew, and some other friends that we bumped into along the way for what can only be described as alcohol fuelled fun. The drinks around Europe, well especially Greece are a lot cheaper than we normally get at home, and quite a few of the bars have promotions that call for you to buy a certain amount of drinks and you get a free shirt. By the end of the trip I, along with a lot of others, had collected quite a number of these shirts- at least I now have a new pyjama top collection! Don't worry parents, I wasn't drinking them all myself- rounds were bought and shared between everyone (and when there are over 10 of us all partying together that's a lot of sharing to go round).

T-shirt 4, or 5? I lost count at one point

While Santorini is a very relaxed island day and night, once we hit Ios most of the daytime hours were spent sleeping or laying beside a pool while the nights start late and you go until morning. Unfortunately I developed the famous 'Ios Cough' and felt like I was on my deathbed for quite some time, so I had to call time on my nights out in Ios, and also in Mykonos. Even so, Ios was definitely my favourite!

Having to make some adjustments to our accommodation in Mykonos meant that Jodi and I ended up spending a night in a nice and dusty 3-walled dusty shack, while the other girls were set up in a fantastic 5-star villa. As soon as we woke the next morning we were out of there and arrived at our new place and ran for showers- we didn't manage to find the bathrooms at the camp-site until very late the night before! It was definitely fun, and although pretty gross, certainly not the worst place I have stayed on my travels. For most of the time in Mykonos I was sick, so I didn't catch any of the big DJs or parties live, but could almost hear everything from the comfort of my air-conditioned room... Living in luxury! Even so, having the beach 100m away from our room, and lots of friends around to spend time with made the experience lots of fun.

Favourite sunset of the trip. So far.

My favourite alley in town. I kept getting lost, and finding myself back at this point

Saying farewells are always hard, but knowing the next time I will be seeing most of my friends will be back home made it "see you soons" and not "goodbyes." For the girls it was different as I was going to see Angie and Ash in Israel the next week, and will be travelling with Jodi soon too, but it was nice to be able to spend an entire day in Athens with Lara before we went our separate ways again.

People say that summer in Australia is hot. Absolutely nothing that I have experienced could ever compare to the days I spent in Athens. It was so hot that I would spend about 45mins outside before running to the nearest cafe or back to the hostel, just to get away from it. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you see it) I was able to spread the minimal tourist attractions and places that I wanted to see over the 3 days I was there, so as not to run around mad and die from dehydration! With Lara only having one day to spare we ticked off all the major places- the Acropolis, Parthenon, Changing of the Guard and the Ancient Olympic Stadium, mucking around and taking photos in one go, and my night was spent watching the opening ceremony for the Modern Olympics in Athens. Pretty cool story I reckon! This year I watched the Olympic games in 4 languages- Greek, English, Hebrew and Italian, and I can successfully say I understood bits and pieces of 3 of them. Better get working on my Greek!

Can you take these guards seriously?

Definitely loved Greece, and some of the places make it onto my top-places visited list, but I can't wait to see what else Europe has in store for me, with less than 6 months until I head home I have to try and visit as many places still on my list. Anyone with suggestions of places to go or things to see let me know!

Touring Turkey

Been a long time since I posted here, but it has also been a long time since I have had regular access to internet and a computer... So they kind of cancel each-other out! Had an amazing month or so travelling around the Mediterranean area, so a few posts will be coming in the next few days to recount some of the best parts of it, starting off with Turkey.

Coming back from freezing cold UK and then heading to Turkey was like jumping into a steam bath. Not only was it about double the temperature over there that I had just accustomed myself too, but for respect and dress-code reasons I was walking around in the boiling heat wearing pants and covering my arms- a stark contrast from the shorts and singlets that are usually my staples during summer. When entering one of the many mosques or temples that are all over Istanbul, women have to cover their legs and arms, and sometimes their heads. While I am used to the women at the Kotel telling me to cover my shoulders, I was not expecting to see the scarves and skirts being offered to women- and in some cases men too- at the visitors entrances to all the beautiful mosques. Having never been inside one before, often when I passed a mosque I took the opportunity (while I was dressed appropriately) to head in- especially the Blue Mosque and the New Mosque.

Blue Mosque

New Mosque

Being such an old city Istanbul has a lot to see, and I loved how many archaeological sites or museums or simply exhibitions were available. A visit to Hagia Sofia, previously a church, then a mosque and now a museum, showed so much change in Turkish culture and the Basilica Cistern, although no longer a functioning water source, has architecture so grande and intricate. Even their marketplaces are amazing, the Egyptian Spice Market and the Great Bazaar are these huge buildings with beautiful arches and domes for roofs. What I didn't know until a few days before I arrived was that Istanbul is the only capital city in the world that is situated on two continents- so I took a break from Europe for a few hours and hopped over the Bosphorus River into Asia, so cool!

One of my favourite things of Istanbul was seeing the men, and the odd woman, fishing off the bridges and bringing their catches to the restaurants underneath. At least you were guaranteed a fresh fish meal if you ate there!

It has been a long-time aim for me to go see Gallipoli, and it was partly my main reason for heading to Turkey in the first place. In fact, our tour group was made up almost entirely of Australians and Kiwis making their pilgrimages, as were many of the groups we kept bumping into throughout the day. From all the lessons we spent on Australian history in school I was expecting to see this huge expanse of dreaded land, and instead was presented with beautiful green fields and cliffs buried by trees and bushes- a stark contrast from the black and white pictures of my textbooks. It was pretty amazing to see the land that our soldiers fought on, and even though they did not make it that far into the Peninsula (in fact the Gallipoli campaign was deemed a failure after 8 months for the Allies), the entire site has been memorialised to all the ANZAC and Turkish troops who fought there. For any non-Aussies reading this, ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and the Gallipoli campaign is one of the most well-known battles fought by the ANZACs during WWI.

Lone Pine Cemetery

After seeing Gallipoli, the next day we headed off to Troy. I must admit I was a bit disappointed by Troy. Maybe I have been spoilt by the ruins of other places I have seen (Masada, the Kotel, Roman Forum) in which there are buildings, mosaics and full archways still standing, but I was expecting to see a bit more than what we did. Even so, I was impressed by the remnants of walls from all 9 cities of Ancient Troy (and that I learnt there were 9 cities in the first place), as well as got to climb up into the mock Trojan Horse. All in all a fun day!

If you can see the numbers, they range from I to IX

My quick trip to Turkey was lots of fun, and if I had more time I would have loved to have headed down to the sea and islands areas- and maybe next time I can go for a Turkish bath. But it was a quick 4-day visit then onto Greece to meet my friends- some of whom I had not seen for over 6 months!

P.S As always, more photos are on Facebook, let me know if you can't find them