Accomplishments on the last day of my bar trip:
• Drank a glass of freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice.
• Successfully blew a smoke ring (really proud of this one).
• Had the Kanlica yogurt guy offer me his daughter for marriage.
• Saved $20 by not sleeping and getting to the airport super early for an 8:20 am flight. I’m starting to regret this one. All I can think about is being in my own bed in less than 24 hours. That, and Mexican food.

Anyway, as always, here is your reward for reading through my ramblings. Sorry that there are only two, but all of the smoke ring pictures are on my real camera. The next post will be infinitely better, with Flickr highlights from the entire trip!

Splurged for a dinner on Zach’s last night. Food was okay, view of the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sophia was incredible.

My second time in Istanbul is off to an amazing start. I met up with my friend Jessica this morning and we spent the entire day exploring the city. Since we’d both seen the touristy stuff, we tried to venture out. The day included getting ripped off for lunch because we were tourists, drinking tea in a currency exchange booth, smoking nargile in an adorable place near the Grand Bazaar, meeting up with Jessica’s boyfriend to drive all around Istanbul (both European and Asian sides), eating amazing yogurt with sugar while watching the sunset, arguing about what causes colds (Sevan insists that it’s going from hot places to cold places), and drinking lots of Raki. It was a pretty incredible day, and I hope we get to hang out again before they leave for vacation on Sunday!

Fortunately, the Sumela Monastery was worth the time, expense, and hassle of splitting off from my friends. Unfortunately, it’s one of the few places where my iPhone paled in comparison to my DSLR — you’ll have to wait a bit for better pictures of the artwork.

The monastery is a surprisingly small space — especially since most of it is closed off — but the cave of Greek Orthodox paintings were incredible. Most of the artwork within reach has been graffitied, but you can still get an idea what the scenes originally depicted. Below I included a picture of the cave’s ceiling (or what I could capture of it).

The way down from the monastery provided some beautiful scenery and a much-needed opportunity to hike around. Three weeks of vacationing has left me feeling pretty sluggish. But you don’t care about that; you care about pictures!

Today started with Jay, Zach, and I catching a 2:00 AM ferry from Mykonos to Samos (on our way back to Turkey) and ended with me alone in the eastern Turkish city of Trabzon.

After two ferries, two buses, and ten hours, we arrived in the boring-but-sizable town of Izmir. Jay and Zach decided to visit the Black Sea towns of Safranbolu and Amasra, while I wanted to check out the old Greek Orthodox Sumela Monastery near Trabzon. I had researched flights but wasn’t able to book online, so I just took a shot and went to the airport in Izmir. It’s Turkey, so of course I first had to wait an hour for the right bus. Evidently not every 204 bus goes to the airport — only the ones that feel like it. Fortunately, I was able to book the flight (and a return flight to Istanbul tomorrow).

19 hours after I left Greece, my journey finally ended with the pleasant city view you see above. Of course, no restaurants were open so I walked to the nearest grocery store for a filling meal of bread, cheese, and Fanta (my first meal in over 24 hours). Pictures of this deluxe cuisine, as well as 15 hour and 19 hour Ryan can be found below! Check back tomorrow for some hopefully awesome pictures of the monastery.

Three days in Mykonos cost about as much as two weeks in Turkey, but it’s definitely worth it. The cities are beautiful — everything is in the traditional white stucco that you’ve probably seen in postcards — and the nightlife is even fun for someone as grumpy and misanthropic as me.

The highlight of Mykonos, however, was renting two 4 wheelers and exploring the island. 24 hours only cost 20 euro and we were able to make two trips out of it (one yesterday afternoon and another brief excursion today before we had to return them). The picture below is the only one I remembered to capture with my phone, but it gives you an idea what some of the cool lookouts were like.

You’ll have to excuse me skipping over Ephesus pictures (of which there are many), but I’ve been too enthralled with our excursion to Greece. We took the ferry from Kusadesi to the nearby island of Samos, where my mother’s godfather was born.

Let’s start with the obvious: Greek food wins. We had the most incredible lunch of Greek salad, saganaki, fried zucchini, pork and chicken souvlaki, lamb, and sausage. It was the best meal of the trip so far.

We spent the day lounging on two beaches in the town of Kokkari and then watched the sun set in the main harbor. Here are a few pictures!

Tomorrow we’re off to Mykonos!

Pamukkale doesn’t offer much day or nightlife, but boy does it make up for that with its main attraction. The ancient ruins of Hierapolis are massive and relatively well-preserved. We even got to swim in a hot spring pond (caused by an earthquake) that is filled with roman columns! The real attraction, however, is the white travertines that line the cliff on which Hierapolis stands. Since this isn’t North America, you get to climb all over them and even swim in some of the natural pools. They’re one of the best things I’ve seen on this trip.

We just finished three days in Antalya, a beautiful little town on the Mediterranean coast. Incredible. We lounged on the beach, met locals at a bar/concert, and visited the ruins of Perge and Termessos. My only regret is that I didn’t take better pictures with my phone (only my camera), so for now this must suffice.

I’m currently on my post-bar trip to Turkey with some friends from law school. Two days ago we woke up at 3:30 AM to go on a hot air balloon tour of the Cappadocia region. The volcanic rocks were pretty awesome, but the best part was the thrill of being in a balloon 700 meters off the ground.