Istanbul

Moist Baklava, fresh salted pistachios by the bucket loads, vine-ripened figs and of course, what the locals go crazy for – rose water lokum (Turkish delight). Istanbul is indeed a food lover’s city of dreams.

After arriving into Istanbul and spending the better part of an hour in the police office with no word on what the problem was, only to be mysteriously handed back my passport and my ‘free’ visa in my Maltese passport and a carelessly drawn out ‘Enjoy Turkey!’ from the bored police officer, we made our way to our new home for the next 5 nights in the hip area of Beyoğlu. We didn’t have many expectations of Istanbul and this being my second visit to this wonderful city, we just went with the flow, each day exploring the huge metropolis that we’d stumbled into.

We started with a visit to the Istanbul Modern gallery, which we were told by a local was free on Thursdays, only to discover that, yes, it was free… If you were a Turkish citizen! After coughing up the dough, we ventured inside. For someone who doesn’t get too impressed with museums and galleries, I would have to say this small private museum of contemporary art did empress! Upon exiting the gallery we stumbled upon a cute little sheesha café, where we continued to pop in for regular visits during our stay. Our favourite waiter spoke no English, but still managed to teach us how to play, and slightly master, the rules of backgammon, one of the world’s oldest noted board games. We grew a liking to this strategic game and yes, we left Turkey with a board!

Istanbul was very special for us and the whole experience was very magical. This old Ottoman empire presented us with so many amazing surprises. We had an incredible feeling of being immersed into a Persian land of Aladdin upon exiting the tram in the district of Sultanahmet and being faced with the picturesque amazing marvel of the Blue Mosque, only to turn around and stand opposite the more ancient rival, Aya Sofia.

Needless to say, we ate our way through the many appetizing mezze choices in the almost identical stream of restaurants. We also checked into a day of pampering in the 1000 year old hammam and scrubbed away many years of dirt and grime, leaving feeling like a new man! We spent hours in the Spice Bazaar smelling and being tempted by the array of spices, exotic teas and tasty sweets on offer.

Finally, to top it all off, we spent the last day discovering a maze of vintage antique shops to perfectly end our short time in this city that was once Constantinople. Turkey I hope we will be back again one day soon!

Berlin Diaries Part 5 - Auf Wiedersehen

The time was approaching us and as it got closer and closer we had the drab task of packing our past year’s life into boxes and posting it all home. This was such a weird surreal feeling. I think it just felt as though we were getting to really know this amazing, intriguing city and now it was time to go! I think we thought we would be here a lot longer, but with the recent events that had occurred, we needed to be home to celebrate our new lives together with our close friends and family. And also time to be a grown up and stop gallivanting around the world (Not sure how this will work for me but I’ll try!).

When we got all the boring important bits out of the way, we were left with a few days to enjoy our favourite things about Berlin and go out with a bang and celebrate New Years with our Berlin Buddies and some friends who came over for the last hoorah!

Now New Years in Berlin is an oddity to us. The days prior (I think it was around 4 days earlier) shops pop up around the city selling legal fireworks to be exploded and let off on the day. The idea of this was very exciting yet I don’t think I realised the enormity of it until the day. I had this image in my head of random little kids randomly letting off firecrackers and you would hear a pop here and there – well, this was not the case! As soon as the countdown began we rushed downstairs of our friends’ apartment in the city suburb of Prenzlauer Berg which sits on the hill on top of the city, allowing for a great view of the firework display put on by the city. Once downstairs though, we realised that the streets had turned into mayhem as children, teenagers and adults all got involved and started letting off their personal stashes of fireworks. The combination of feeling the drunkeness and not being ready for the noises and lights and colours that were being launched right there in the streets, off balconies, into the S-Bahn, this was like the real life Apocalypse, it was insane! In the end, we decided it was safer inside and to let the party go on until the daylight came through the windows and let us know we had definitely brought in 2012.

We said our teary goodbyes to our friends, to our favourite places, to Berlin and jumped on board our flight to Istanbul to start the journey back to the motherland. There was so much I was going to miss from Germany – the cuisine, the cheap beer, the easy going life-style, the roast chicken at Görlitzer park, so many things! But don’t get me wrong, everyplace in the world has amazing things on offer, and while it may not be the best, cheapest bottle of beer I’ve ever tasted, I’m sure that there will be exciting endeavours to look forward to outside of Berlin!