greetings from turkey!!

ok! so i managed to sign in despite the fact that the homepage headers were not in english! yay!!

we arrived last night after a verrrrry long day of travelling. turkey is great, very eastern european thats for sure :o) but totally cool. apparently lines on the roads and speed limits don't matter much to the drivers here, especially our taxi driver! got to our hostel, which is right in old istanbul, called sultanhamet. from the roof terrace we can see the hagia sofia (church converted to mosque, built in 537AD) and the blue mosque, one of the most famous mosques in the world, probably 3rd on the list or something like that! we awoke to the sound of the first call to prayer at about 5:40 this morning, and managed to hear all five today. its an incredible sound. usually the blue mosque starts and then the other mosques join in until they are all chanting aroud the city, overlapping each other, its really hard to describe. tomorrow we are going to go up to the terrance and listen to it and watch the sun rise :o) its pretty chilly here, about 8 i'd say, but we were walking all day. ate some good turkish lunch (lamb kebab) and then had a nap. we might head out for a quick bite to eat before heading to bed - trying to ward off jet lag and tiredness. today we went to the blue mosque, the hagia sofia and topkapi palace - took a ton of pictures. its really different here than 'normal' europe, way more eastern influenced, very cool.

tomorrow we are going to go to the hippodrome and then the grand bazaar and probably take a night bus to the south east of istanbul (in asia!) to see some cool pool formations and ruins, on our way to marmaris from which we will catch a ferry to rhodes. had quite the scare today when one travel agency told us that there were no ferries running in greece at all right now. but then we checked with another place, so its allll good :o)

don't really know what else to say, having a great time so far, jake just kissed my ear - which is good, means he doesnt hate me :o) my travel book, though big, will prove invaluable, and i'm writing in my journal every day, and will try to get to the internet as much as possible.

so yeah, turkey is cool :o) i like europe, this will be a great trip!

jake found this on the ny times website: In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/27math.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
pretty cool, eh? oh yeah, we saw that today!! woot!

so im not sure if anyone can comment on these posts, but would be great to hear from peoples!