London MCM Expo

Me with a fully functional R2D2.

Rez and I went to the London MCM Expo today. We thought some of her friends from 6th form would meet up with us but it ended up being just the 2 of us. There were tons and tons of small shops set up in a manner similar to a market, though like most markets I've been too they pretty much all sold the same things. It was really fun shopping, Rez got about 5 DVDs or so and I ended up buying a couple daggers and a pocket knife. ^^;

Bananas in Pajamas!

There were a bunch of really good cosplays but for every good one there were about 5 bad ones. During lunch we even made a list of the ones that annoyed us most. Speaking of food, I found Astronaut Ice Cream (freeze-dried ice cream) at the convention! I bought 3 bags of it for £5 which was quite a bit cheaper than I was expecting. I also bought Rez her first Barq's root beer from the "American Food" stand which sold candy and soda.

Random booth at the Expo.

All the walking and standing in lines today has left my legs rather sore but it was definitely worth it. I got to meet some of Rez's university's anime club members since we bumped into them as we were leaving. We had some yummy dinner near her house and she took me back to 'Iceland' so I finally got my bag of chicken kiev! Overall it was a wonderful day and I'm really glad we went. Now I get to look forward to Favre giving away another Vikings game. 

Half-Term Break

Yummy Steak Dinner For Two.
For some reason on chrome the image doesn't appear correctly
when the large size is selected so this one is medium.

We've had all of this week off from school which has been really nice. I've stayed with Rez for a few days since she had her aunt's flat to herself. Her friends Hannah and Arami stayed over for a couple days as well. We did a lot of movie watching (Hannah and Arami went through countless episodes of The Wire) and cooked some yummy meals like the one pictured above. We went to this really good and cheap grocery store called Iceland that I've been trying to get Rez to take me back to.
Today I went in to the FIE foundation house and sorted out my transport situation. I'm getting my oyster replaced for free and the £2.80 I had on the card at the time is even being put on the replacement card. This is better than I ever could have imagined so I'm exceedingly happy about it. I should get it in 3-5 days. Until then I'll do pay-as-you go but the fees for that are nothing in comparison to what I would have had to pay if I had to buy my own travel passes for the next 2 months.
Hannah is throwing a Halloween party, so I've been trying to scrape some costume ideas that are also cheap but I'm not coming up with too much. I would have liked to have gone shopping tonight with Rez but she's busy with coursework. Also I finally got my phone topped up after going about 2 weeks with no credit on it (Rez had my top up card from when I went to Istanbul) so now I can finally make calls again.

Long Overdue Post

These satyrs were said to have been the inspiration for
Mr. Tumnus in 'The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe'

I’m sorry for not updating this is a while, I’ve been pretty busy and tired lately. I’ll give a brief description of as many days as I can remember since I’ve been back from Istanbul. I think I’ve been a bit too thorough so updating the blog with every single day’s events has become a bit of a chore for me. So from now on I’ll just be covering the more interesting or important days and events.

~Bowling with Rez~

On the first Tuesday (5^th) since I’ve been back Rez and I met in Chinatown after my internship and then went bowling. We got 3 games for the price of 2 so that was a good deal but by the end of the third game both of our hands were sore, but we had a good time. I made up for missing my internship on the previous Friday by going in on Wednesday since my class was cancelled. I ended up going in 4 days in a row (and needing to be up at 7:30 each day) so by the end of the week I was very tired. I did 28 hours at my internship instead of my normal 20 during that week. I didn’t get to see too much of Rez on the first week back but on that Thursday (7^th) I had a fun conversation with Rez and her little 5 year old cousin Zahra on the phone.

University Church of St. Mary the Virgin

On Saturday the 9^th we got up bright and early to go to Oxford. We were given a while to just roam around the town and get some lunch. Then at 1pm we all gathered together, split into 2 groups and took a tour of the town and many of the colleges. I don’t remember the specific college but one was holding fresher’s week events and a couple of us got bubbles and ‘fun snaps’ for free. We had a fun time playing with the bubbles. (Also I noticed that Oxford students are quite heavy drinkers, some of the people who were working at the events had already downed 2-3 drinks and it wasn’t even 2pm yet). After the tour I headed back to London and the station the train came in at was really close to Rezzy’s work and she was working an odd Saturday so I popped in to buy a few things from her.

Panlogic's office.

The following day was my first chance to sleep in all month so I took full advantage of that and didn’t get up until afternoon. Rez and I went to see the movie ‘Life As We Know It.’ We also saw a fox! I was a bit surprised to see one in the middle of London and tried to get a picture but it was too dark. I missed the last tube back and had to take buses so I didn’t get back until around 2am or so.

Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

Instead of having class on Monday the 11^th we went to the Globe Theater for a tour instead. This Monday was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. The day started off by waking up to Mustakrakish, and reading the paper on the way to the Globe. The weather was just gorgeous on this day too, it was sunny but still a bit brisk. We took our tour and we were free to go around 11:30am. Mutian and I went to get some sandwiches for ‘brunch’ and then did some grocery shopping before going back to the flat. Later on when cooking lunch (a mix of veggies and beef) Mutian added some Korean BBQ sauce to my dish and it was delicious so when I met up with Rez that evening we went to Chinatown to pick some of that up (she was a copycat and got some too) and do some other shopping as well. We also got some chicken buns and a strangle waffle-like treat that I can’t remember the name of. I napped a bit and woke up at 2am for the Vikings Monday night game at the Jets.

A view of St. Paul's Cathedral from across the Thames. (Just outside the Globe)

The rest of the week was fairly normal, except on Tuesday Rez surprised me and came to meet me after my internship in Richmond. I cooked her dinner at the flat that night. Late Saturday (16^th) afternoon I met Rez at Canada Water station and we went to a sporting goods store. We didn’t buy anything but we had a lot of fun just playing with the equipment there. I got her to try skateboarding and these odd skateboard-like things with only one wheel on each end. We also did some rollerblading, putting, cricket batting, and ping pong. Afterwards we saw Despicable Me in 3-D at the IMAX. It was a really cute film.

Greenwich Park behind the National Maritime Museum.

On Sunday Will, AJ, and I all overslept and missed the boat to Greenwich (note: we’re all roommates). Steven had even come into our room but didn’t bother waking any of us. So we took the tube and DLR to Greenwich a bit late and ate at a subpar restaurant before going to the National Maritime Museum where we were able to check in with Arnott. After the museum and Greenwich park we headed back. Monday after class I went shopping for a scarf for Rez since she was bummed that she lost hers last week. 

A silly sculpture at Oxford.

On Wednesday I met up with Rez for a little while after our classes and before she had to work. We went to Kensington Gardens for a while then to her work. After she started working I did some shopping there and at a tea store before going to head back home but when I got to Bayswater Station I couldn't find my oyster card. I went back to everywhere I'd been since the last time I'd used it and asked employees at all the stores but it never turned up. My FIE ID is in the case with it, so if a good person found it they would have no trouble contacting FIE and returning it, however I doubt that I'll ever see it again. I have a 1 week oyster right now and will likely spend over $200 for the remaining 2 months of travel.

Istanbul

Hagia Sophia from the hotel's roof on the first night.

Day 1 - Thursday morning everyone going to Istanbul (about half of the CSBSJU students and about 20 or so from other schools) went to Heathrow for our flight. Before we'd even gotten our boarding passes the flight had a delay. There was another delay while we were waiting for our gate to open up so the flight took off over 90 min behind schedule. The plane was really nice, probably the nicest I’ve ever been on. We arrived late in the evening, maybe around 9pm or so, not quite sure anymore. To buy my visa I needed to use either US currency or Euros which was problematic since I’d been told it had to be US or Lira. I tried using a traveler’s check seeing as I had no US currency or Euros on me but the woman at the booth looked like she’d never even seen one before. Luckily they did accept credit cards and I was able to pay that way. After dropping off our luggage at the hotel we were all herded down to a fairly nice restaurant nearby. It was a nice experience since we were dining on the roof, too bad there wasn’t much of a view from there.

Spiral column from the Hippodrome.

Day 2 - We had to be up early on Friday and Will never woke anyone up after he showered (the hotel didn’t do their 7:30 wake-up call like they said they would either) so the rest of us rushed to get ready and go to the hotel lobby in 7 minutes. We went down to the Hippodrome first (not much to say about it, just 2 obelisks and a spirally pillar), followed by the Blue Mosque which was quite pretty. Though after the first mosque it was a ‘seen one, seen them all’ type of thing. Next we went to the Hagia Sophia which had a number of mosaics that were interesting and the wishing column was something fun. You can see the mosaics and more pictures from the trip on my facebook.

Inside the Blue Mosque.

We topped off the morning with the Basilica Cistern but we were told we only had 10 minutes since we were behind schedule. It was very cool inside but I missed out on most of it since I was hurrying to be at the meeting place at the appointed time. Turns out even the FIE leaders on the trip (the ones who planned everything and designated the times to meet) were at least 10 minutes late so I could have stayed in the cistern for far longer. Next we took a boat ride over to the Asia side of Istanbul for lunch. They had an interesting yogurt and rice soup that wasn’t that good. One guy at our table tried a yogurt based beverage that pretty much tasted like salty cream cheese (most of the table sampled it). But overall the lunch was very good. Most people slept on the boat ride back to the European part of Istanbul and we then had a speaker that failed to hold the attention of most of the students (many more sleepyheads).

Inside the Hagia Sophia.

In the evening a bunch of the guys were going to go for a Turkish bath and go out to a hookah bar (the second of which isn’t really my thing) so I stayed back and wandered around Istanbul looking for a place to eat. I got to know the area around the hotel pretty well during this time. Eventually got some beef goulash, which was good but really expensive for such a meager portion.

Inside the Basilica Cistern.

Day 3 - We had to meet at 8:45am in the lobby again on Saturday but luckily I had time to shower and eat this time. Breakfast was up on the hotel’s roof which provided a nice view of the morning city. We went to the Topkapi Palace for the entirety of the morning. It was huge and a morning really wasn’t enough time to explore it properly. There was a section with holy relics, including the sword of David, that was very cool and the treasury which featured MASSIVE gems and a stunning 86 carat diamond. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed in these areas, so most of my pictures are merely of the buildings. Our tour guide wasted a lot of time saying redundant things and building up the things he was going to show us instead of just showing us. A lot of it wasn’t even telling us the history, it was just telling us how much we would enjoy seeing it.

Topkapi Palace grounds.

After the palace we had time for lunch and I went to a restaurant that I’d been eyeing the night before. It was really good but again the portions were small, that was an ongoing theme with all the food in Turkey. But this place was MUCH cheaper than the other one too, so it balanced out. It was probably my favorite restaurant in Istanbul. Anyways, in the early afternoon we had 1 more mosque visit which was short and uneventful. Then we were set loose on the Egyptian spice market and the Grand Bazaar. The spice market was much smaller than the bazaar but had almost all of the same things. I was really nervous about the haggling/bartering since I’m shy and quiet but it turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. I was able to reduce all the prices of things I bought to reasonable amounts, though I noticed that the girls were having greater success getting low prices than the guys were. I really enjoyed shopping in the bazaar and spice market, it was definitely my favorite part of the trip.

In the Grand Bazaar.

That evening Will, AJ, and I were all feeling rather a bit tired and like staying in so we ended up ordering a couple pizzas (with the help of the hotel’s receptionist) and watching Star Wars Episode 2 in Turkish on the TV. I was also missing Rez a bunch so I made a very expensive 5 minute phone call to her that night (£1.50/minute).

A picture from the restaurant that I grew fond of.

Day 4 – On Sunday we were able to sleep in 45 minutes later but I didn’t know that so I was up and showering at 7:30am like usual. After breakfast I went back to bed for a little bit. Our last excursion was to the Dolmabahçe Palace which was much more modern and luxurious than the Topkapi. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside the palace. The sheer amount of gold in the palace (much of it on the ceilings) is mind boggling and the chandeliers inside were breath-taking. I took the extended harem tour (private living areas) simply to kill time before we were supposed to meet up at the hotel at 5pm to go to the airport.

Dolmabahçe Palace, it's a shame we couldn't take pictures inside.

After the harem tour and lunch I wandered around a bit and found what seemed to have been a mini auto show featuring several 60’s Impalas however as I arrived all of them were starting to leave. I managed to snap a few pics though. I headed back to the hotel about 90 minutes early or so and found a lot of other students already waiting there. The airport went smoothly but the flight back was nowhere near as nice as the flight to Istanbul. I was hoping to knock out 2 movies on the way back but each seat didn’t have its own screen and remote like my previous 2 flights had. The seats were pretty uncomfortable too. Luckily I was tired enough to fall asleep for most of the flight. I was woken up somewhere over France to fill out the UK border patrol card. The airport went smoothly and we got a shuttle bus back to our flats since the second tube strike since we’ve been here began earlier that day.

An unexpected 64 Impala.