on the eve of the new year - well, in australia at least, we still have an hour of the 30th to go here in dubbers - here i am perched at conor's breakfast bar, updating the blog. we are spending the night here after a day trip to newgrange. it was amazing. just looking at a structure like that, imagining how it was built and how they managed to get all that stone across from 80 miles away, looking at the design and thinking it looks like something that could have come out of an architect's office last week... it's just amazing, it's also so green and lush here, it just takes your breath away, so does the cold wind when you're standing atop a hill gaping at the surroundings, but it's well well worth it.
i have uploaded more pictures, shots from amsterdam and venice, christmas day and general dublin ramblings so far. tomorrow, new years eve, we are planning to go to a rugby match (leinster versus ulster if anyone's interested), then will most likely go to a pub in dalkey for drinks after. dalkey and killiney are towns next to each other, and bono and enya live in killiney apparently, so you never know who we might bump into down the bar... yeah right!
have been losing my voice for the last week but it's hanging in there - we'll take it hour by hour at this stage, because if i get vocal at the ruggers... typing will be my only form of communication!
have a wonderful and safe new years eve everyone, and don't worry about the resolutions - it's all in the doing, not in the saying-you'll-be-doing. have a great night and don;t forget the beroccas!
xox

venice to dublin

hello again. it's the day after the night before, and let me tell you - it's not easy being irish. been having a ball here, and today i will spend in quiet contemplation... until night falls, maybe. around here, anything could happen! let me backtrack a bit and fill you in, though.
venice was lovely- you know me, i'm a sucker for a ferry-ride - so many trips on the canals of venice were always going to be on the cards. we did not, however, go on a gondola ride. i couldn't justify the expense, and it was a little chilly out there, so the vaporettos suited us fine. on the first day though we just walked around the island and surrendered ourselves to the alleyways and cobbled streets. we got lost several times but just kept wandering - it's an extremely dreamy city. we somehow managed to find our way back to where we started from at the end of the day, though. we stopped for a drink and to rest our feet, mark had a hot chocolate which was like drinking a mugful of the sauce from a chocolate self-saucing pudding - not bad in the cold weather, let me tell you.
on the second day we went back into the island and took the vaporetto to saint mark's square. the water in the canal was a beautiful shade of blue-green - made me go all poetic and a little snap-happy, as you'll notice from the pictures at the album online when we finally upload them (the address is www.picasaweb.google.com/sakhil just in case). st mark's square and the basilica were lovely, again weird to be standing in a spot you've seen so many times in postcard pictures and posters. very nice. on our last day in venice we decided that no matter how cold it got, we could not leave without having some gelati. so we went to the peggy guggenheim museum and saw some lovely art, then wandered around more, had some gelati by the water and meandered back home. it was a beautiful, slow-paced visit and it would be really nice to go back in the warmer weather. it wasn't too crowded though, and i can just imagine how packed those little streets could get when it's high season.
now, trip from venice to dublin. i thought we had experienced delays getting to venice, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. getting out was a mammoth task. we got to the airport early, around 6.30pm, and our flight was to leave at 9.35. checked in. our plan was to get to gatwick by around 11ish, maybe get a cheap hotel and have a good night's sleep, then catch our next-day flight to dublin around 10am. but no such thing was going to happen. our flight was delayed 3.5 hours, and we finally flew out of venice at a quarter to one. when we finally got through to gatwick airport, there were more delays - it took another three and a half hours for our luggage to get from the plane to the baggage hall. so, by the time we got our bags and got out, it was 6am. so we went directly from arrivals to departures and checked in mega-early, then joined the hoardes of people in the departure lounge, staked out a piece of carpet, and tried to get some sleep. well, mark did - i couldn't bring myself to sleep on the floor in such a public, well-lit environment. so instead i wandered around shops in a sleep-depped haze, because every time i sta down my whole body just wanted to shut down. perked up a bit after some food, then got out my notepad and jotted some ideas down. at least i'll get a piece of writing out of that experience.
arrival in dublin went without a hitch except we somehow managed to walk straight past conor at the arrivals gate! i have had a guinness since we've been here and it really does taste better in ireland! christmas was lovely, all full of family and fun, and st. stephens's day (boxing day to oz) was great fun. there was a snooker tournament at the house across the road and mark entered, i was score-keeper (for the first half of the game at least). mark and his partner were unfortunately knocked out after the first round... the host and his daughter were defending champs. she introduced herself as (phonetically) 'eifer;. i commented that it was an interesting name, and asked her how it was spelt. she paused, smiled, them said 'a, o, i, f, e'. so i was not really that enlightened. apparently it is a common irish name, but i had never heard it before... anyway. we came back across the road to the o'farrells around 4pm, then the dreaded sleep seemed to hint at taking me over again... i fought it though, and glad i did. met some more family and friends, then around six-ish the neighbours all came across after the tourney was over. and then ensued much hilarity and silliness, with tony at the keyboard and all of us singing and larking about. the volumed got higher and higher - it's good to know your neighbours! we then all went off to the local pub and downed a few pints and had more of a sing and a dance. we didn't get up till midday. tomorrow we go on a 'wicked wicklow' tour that mark and i were gifted for christmas from conor, tina and karyn. now, though, i think i need to go stare at a telly for a bit. hoo-roo!

lightning re-cap

yes, it happened again, and again i was disheartened - i wrote this whole huge blog entry and then it just disappeared. so i had to walk away from the interwebs for a while and cool my head. now i am back with a highlights-package recap of the goings on since the last time i typed to you. here goes -
- cairo: we went to see the pyramids. they were amazing, the sheer size of them was overwhelming. under-whelming, though, were the crowds of men, women and children all trying to sell you souvenirs. it took some getting used to, but i learned to ignore them in the end. kept wondering what it would be like if ayer's rock were like that... also saw the sphinx. i'm almost ashamed to say i was a little disappointed, it seemed a lot smaller than what i expected - felt better again when i was informed that apparently that is a common complaint. cairo itself is crowded all the time - for example, a road that anywhere else would be considered a four-lane freeway does quite nicely for six cars across, including people crossing whenever they feel like it. also, no one drives with their headlights on because their use is reserved strictly for 'yelling' at the car in front - if you're really angry, you shoot them with the high beams. for all you internerds, it's like the difference between this and THIS. no one likes to be yelled at.
- istanbul. we went back to sultanahment for a couple of days after cairo to catch up on all the sights we couldn't make because of the pope's visit the first time around. we saw aya sophia, the basilica cisterns and topkapi palace. gave the blue mosque a miss because we ran out of time, and we saw its brother in cairo - the mohammed ali mosque there is an exact replica of the blue mosque, architecturally. istanbul is such a beautiful city, we loved every minute we spent there.

- amsterdam. we decided to check out amsterdam, original plan was to stay there for three nights (more on that soon). we went to the van gogh and rembrandt museums - rembrandt was my favourite by far. went to a 'coffee shop' and partook, then wandered round the red light district. the cabin ladies were quite confronting - i don't know what i was expecting, but it sure wasn't some middle-aged lady standing in her underwear lit up all red and having a good scratch at her bikini-line. also, it takes a bit of getting used to ignoring men who lean in close to your ear when you walk past them and whisper 'cocaine?'. donòt worry mum(s), we did not partake.

then the drama - we booked a cheap flight on ryanair to get to milan from where we were going to catch a train to venice. it took us 2.5 hrs to get to the airport (their version of avalon, i guess) by bus. we were early so an hour later we checked in. then we niticed the fog that was around all the way over was getting thiscker. and thicker. and then they made the accouncement ' all flights out of eindhoven airport were 'delayed indefinitely', but ours was special - it was cancelled straight off. we booked into a new flight to pisa for the next day, and spent the night at a nearby hotel. later on that night, at dinner at the hotel, it looked like everyone in the airport ended up at the same place we were at.

so, we catch our plane to pisa tuesday afternoon, and having lost our money on pre-booked train tickets, we begin our journey to venice - first to pisa centrale, then a 3.5 hour trip on to venice. but then the venice train was delayed for 30 mins... 45 mins... 1 hour 10. we finally got here to venice well past midnight, but are now happily settled in our hostel and mark is at the laundromat as i type this. we are here till friday. weather is clear and crisp, and i am not sure whether we will takje a gondola ride as they cost 67 euro.

have a glorious christmas and new year - our next stop is dublin for my first ever 'very o'farrell christmas (an new year)' - will try and update you from there.

take care all, and have some seafood and trifle for us, okay. ciao!

from gurpinar to giza

our visit to gallipoli was very moving, as expected. we first went to zeynep's parents place in the village of gelibolu, where the westernised version of the name comes from. it was great to be able to get a sense of the place from a local's perspective - not sure that many australians that go there get to have that angle on the place. actually it's been great like that everywhere we have been so far - because it is not the height of tourist season, we feel like we've gotten a glimpse of reality. anyway, back to gelibolu.
we arrived around eight-ish, and after dinner and a few drinks, we retired for the evening. the next day, steve took us out for the day to visit the memorials. the land is so beautiful and peaceful, that you just can't imagine what horrors it saw back in the war. steve said that apparently local villagers and farmers can't put a shovel in the ground without turning up something from the war - this was made apparent when we stopped at a museum full of artifacts. there was a collection in one glass case that really took me ages to get over (we have a picture of it in the web album)- a collection of bullets which had been hit by other bullets mid-flight. can you imagine how thick with lead the air was? there were spoons and forks used by the soldiers. there were buttons off their jackets, and spent bullet casings, shrapnel. letters from the soldiers to their mothers and friends were gut-wrenching - in all the anzac letters that were on display, not once did they refer to the turkish soldiers with anything but respect - one letter described them as 'fine, big men'. there was this one photo showing turkish and anzac soldiers standing around together, and the caption explained 'on a day of ceasefire, turkish and allied forces unite to bury their dead'. it just breaks your heart. there was this statue showing a turkish soldier carrying a british soldier, and a plaque explained the situation - the british soldier had been wounded and was lying on the ground between the to fronts. in a situation like that you'd expect him to be shot by a turkish soldier - instead one turkish soldier waved a white flag and firing ceased for a moment - in which he climbed out of his trench, picked up the soldier and returned him to his own trench. then he turned around and went back to his own trench. once he was in there, fighting resumed. just drives the futility of war home, really. we saw anzac cove from a distance as the road to it seemed closed - but we have a lovely picture of the sea spotlit by the sun through the clouds. it was a full day of wandering and contemplation. i signed the guestbook at the lone pine anzac memorial for mark and i. the lone pine memorial is a large rectangular shape, and originally there there were parallel trenches along its length. The soldiers from each side would jump out of their trenches, run across to the enemy trenches, and attack with knives and bayonets. the ages on the tombstones ranged from eighteen to thirty Ã?– average age was 25. what a waste of life... it was a very emotional journey.
on sunday we had a little drive around the town of Gelibolu before we headed back to gurpinar, and steve pointed out some local landmarks; a beautiful open air mosque, some old turkish baths, the tree under which he and zeynep got engaged. it is a lovely town by the sea, beautiful and peaceful. i could have sat on the wall and watched the view from behind the open air mosque all day. on the way back home we stopped at a little zoo behind a service station, that's run by the owners of the service station. they had an interesting array of animals, but i couldn't help but wonder how he managed to procure a zebra, a camel and a babboon, all the way out there. wonders never cease.
monday night was curry night, and by all reports it was not that bad at all. there is a new boardgame we've learned called 'okey' which it took me ages to master; i finally won a round monday night. today mark and went for a little walk in the local area, then chilled at home, for tomorrow we go to cairo. zeynep's sister has a friend who conducts tours there, and he'll be able to give us some pointers when we get there. we've booked ourselves into a hostel in central cairo and will book some tours from there. i'm looking forward to it; we are there for five nights and return on the 11th. we will probably head back into istanbul after cairo to check out the stuff we missed out on first time around, then jet off to berlin or amsterdam maybe. we have to be in london by the 23rd to catch our flight to dublin for christmas.
i can't belive i thought that thirty days between turkey and dublin would be enough; i have a feeling we won't be seeing the eiffel tower this time around (not that i'm too worried about that). i am enjoying so much what we are doing now, discovering places i had never dreamed i'd see. so we'll take it as it comes, and report from wherever we find ourselves.
oh, and on another note altogether, more photos are up now, including the ones of mark's zombie toes. don't say i didn't warn you!
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okay, it's been a while between writing and posting of this blog entry - steve's laptop doesn't seem to like blogger at all, but that's cool - we won't hold it against him! we are now settled at our hostel in egypt. here's the story so far:
we got zeynep to call us a cab in gurpinar to take us to the airport. he arrived bang on time and we were off - the quietest cab-ride in history, given we didn't speak the same language. the driver tried to make conversation at one point by miming an areoplane taking off with his hand and making making enquiring noises, but he didn't seem to get it when we said 'egypt'. frustrated silence ensued, then he offered us chewies, we accepted and said 'teshekular', and he seemed quite pleased with that. only one wrong turn late we got to departures with plenty of time to spare, and he saluted us goodbye before driving off.
at the departure gate we were treted to two seperate sceaming matches - one between the the lady at the aircraft gate and a man whose handluggage bag was too big - he got really heated and animated, then once all the steam was let out of him he calmed right down and behaved himself. the other screamers were walking past our gate-lounge - three besuited men who obviously disagreed on some point. you should have seen our fellow passengers leave what they were doing and flock toward the window. ah well, at least it made the wait seem shorter. the flight itself was uneventful till just before landing wwhen we had to do a few air-blockies above egypt due to increased traffic - the weather was a little grumpy so the ride was bumpy, which we all know shalini just loves. a few deep breaths and i was fine though.
at the airport we were met by the two mohameds - friends of zeynep's sister fidan, they are tour guides and our new best friends in egypt. we went from the airport to a coffee lounge and had our first go at sheesha pipes - yes, i said 'we' because mark had a go, too. we smoked apple-flavoured tobacco. it was quite nice to sit there in this lovely open-walled cafe as dusk floated in behind the fairy-lit trees, watching the rain fall and puffing cotton-candy clouds. yes. we're in egypt.
then the mohameds took us to our hostel. it is smack-bang in downtown cairo - sounds like blaring horns, smells like damp. full of people even as i type (it's 10.30pm on a wednesday here). the entrance to our hostel is between two shops, through an arcade of sorts. the mohameds looked a bit unsure, and since i booked this place off the net, i was too. the lift is an exposed one - not in a nice glass-walled kind of way, more of a no-walled thing happening. we rode it to the fifth floor and mohamed 1 strode in before us and began sternly chatting to the proprietor before we got the key. turnsout there was no need for worry - the room is big enough for a small family, the bed is nice, the net is free, and it's sparkly clean. we'll have to take pictures. if anyone's coming to egypt, stay here - the luna hostel - around $35AUD for a room with an ensuite and breakfast included. so, we checked in and went out again to a restaurant where a friend of mohamed 2 works, and the food was great. these guys have not let us pay for a thing so far. we need to get an early night tonight because we're off at 7.15am tomorrow on a tour that mohamed 1 has organised for us at mates rates.
i am so excited i can't even imagine what it's going to be like.
i am so excited i don't even care if it rains.

tea, turkish delight, and a club called peyote

hello again!
mark and i are just readyng ourselves for our trip back to steve and zeynep's place after a couple of days in taksim by ourselves. it's been really nice, and we have a sneaking suspicion we'll be coming back here for a longer stay after we get back from the next side-trip... but more about that later. let me fill you in on what's been happening from the last entry to this one.
mark's toes are almost back to normal, they went through the full bruisey spectrum and are now just a little red around the edges. all the walking has been helping them heal, we think. anyway, on tuesday he decided to stay home and veg while i went to work with steve. he's a grade school teacher and is at one of the private schools there. it was an interesting journey - the kids were very cute and precocious, just like kids anywhere i guess, but there were a few marked differences - they were all learning english as a second language, and most of them had never seen a brown person before. steve was introducing me as his cousin, and this confused one little boy so much that he asked why i was darker. it was cool, as a turkish teacher gave the class a little talk about how everyone is different, and the kids got it and got on with it. actually seeing and hearting steve converse so easily in turkish is quite amazing - he's obviously a local now. in contrast, i keep wanting to say 'scusi' instead of the correct 'pardon' (in the french manner) when trying to get attention. don't ask me why, cause i have no idea! also, i have found when i use turkish words it elicits a turkish response, to i have stuck to the general niceties - i no longer ask 'ne kadar?' (how much?), but am liberal with my teshekular's (thank you, phonetically).
on wednesday we caught a bus, a train and a tram to get to istanbul city. it took around 2 hrs and cost less than a fiver each - rue you, melbourne, and your zones one, two and three! apart from some dramas re: accomodation (which all worked out in the end), we are loving it here. we're staying in an area called taksim, on a winding and steep stone pathway. there are music shops galore on this street, and further up on istiklal cad. (street), the street gets wider and it's miles of shops and people. we were wandering around one night and like a floating signal, i heard bjork in the air and we discovered a club called peyote. great place, we went back there last night. sightseeing wise we have not been as active as we could have been due to a man that here they call papa - the pope is in town and there have been many street closures and access has been limited. but that's cool - we knew that was going to happen, and that's why we're in taksim and not enimonu - listen to me, like i know it all. it sure pays to know someone who has excellent local knowledge!
yesterday we had the most interesting brush with the pope's visit. after visting the spice bazaar, we decided to go into a travel agency in sultanahmet to plan our next leg (which i will reveal later - haha!). anyway, while we were in the travel agency (which was just across the rd from the blue mosque, closed because papa had pre-booked it), we notice the street outside filling with cops. and cops. and more cops. in riot gear, in plainclothes. they cleared the street, and we were told to stay in the agency till the whole thing was over - so we were in there for maybe 2 hours. we booked our tickets, broke open the box of turkish delight we bought at the spice market, took some photos and made some new friends. we were starving by the time that was over! took some amazing pics though, and actually saw the motorcade. never seen so many police in one place before.
we're heading back to gurpinar today and then at five we all take a road-trip to galipolli, where zeynep's parents live. should be an excellent weekend. then monday is laundry day, tuesday is curry day, and wednesday we're off to......
egypt!