Please refrain from turkey jokes.

Yes, I spent Turkey Day in Turkey. And no, I didn't eat any turkey.

So yesterday was Thanksgiving (see above). And despite the fact that it is strictly an American holiday, most normal Americans would never pass up the opportunity to eat an unreasonably large amount of calorie-dense food in one sitting, even if they are currently in another country. If you can mask your binge eating under the premise of "giving thanks" for things you are "grateful" for, even better. So, as a typical American, I congregated with a whole bunch of other typical Americans last night to pig out in true American fashion. It was a great night.

There was a lot of anticipation leading up this holiday, at least in my mind. How could I celebrate Thanksgiving in a foreign country with limited access to traditional, American food, and no oven? Luckily, my friend Zoe masterminded and arranged for a potluck style get together in our very own Superdorm! Stella and I (per usual, because we are essentially a couple) opted to throw together some kind of dessert. After very little planning, we set to work on a stove-top apple crisp creation. Stella did the work, and I did the documenting. Using our fantastic hot plate skills, we actually managed to combine apples, oatmeal, cinnamon, brown sugar, and lots of butter in a fairly successful way! The result was two frying pans full of some type of apple not-so crisp.

The rest of the American students that came to the potluck provided stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls, peas, rice, and plenty of rotisserie chicken, which served as a perfectly acceptable substitute for a turkey. We ended up having more than enough food, which was fantastic! Despite the fact that we all had classes on Thanksgiving and everyone had to get creative with the cooking, things turned out great. We even had a few Europeans join us, and we managed to convince them that a holiday devoted to consuming irrationally large amounts of food is actually a great idea. What's not to love?

Below, left: Dining in the cozy and atmospheric dungeon of the Superdorm. Below, right: Dining again, candid shot. I encourage you to look closely.

The Hairy Hound from Budapest himself

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please refer to my previous post about Budapest for clarification. And shame on you for not memorizing it, printing it out and sleeping with it under your pillow every night. These blog posts are real works of art.

Credit goes to my sister Charlotte, who found out who the actor was in My Fair Lady that played this infamous character. Knowing his name led to a fabulous google image search which resulted in some real photographic gems. So ladies and gentlemen, I now present you with one of the best characters from one of my favorite movies of all time.

The Hairy Hound from Budapest:

And for your further education, please PLEASE please watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvvk5n9lQF0

And this one too. It's worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cmaCOf4LMM

Budapest is excellent.

Before I came to Hungary, I could probably tell you three things about it: The main character in the movie Kontroll, which is a Hungarian film, eats an onion raw. Apple-style. I haven't seen this movie yet but Stella told me about it. Another thing I could tell you is that one of the characters in My Fair Lady is referred to as a "hairy hound from Budapest". The third is that there is a Buda side and a Pest side in Budapest, divided by the Danube which runs through the middle. And I didn't even know that until about three weeks ago. In summary, I was totally ignorant. Luckily, during the past few days I have learned a lot more about the city! The most important tidbit is that it is actually pronounced BudapeSHt, not BudapeSt. Take note, Americans.
This is a photo of me in front of the Chain Bridge, which was the first bridge (I think) to connect the cities of Buda and Pest. It's a big deal.

I really, really like this city. It is a lot easier on the wallet than Vienna was, and although it is a little bit more gritty and edgy, it is just as interesting and historically rich. While the city is certainly still recovering from its communist days, I think that it makes the atmosphere of the city more interesting. You will frequently see buildings of the Baroque or Secessionist style right next to an ugly, boxy, utilitarian style office building.
Here are the best things I've done in Budapest:
1) Our hostel, called The Groove, was recommended to us by a fellow American that we know from Bogazici University. It is right off a main street so there's a bit of noise from the traffic below, but it is a great building. It is pretty empty right now, so Stella and I have this enormous room with high ceilings and a nice view almost to ourselves. Sleeping late has become a (not so good) habit.
2) The Budapest Free Walking tour is exactly what it sounds like. We just showed up in St. Istvan square, met our tour guide, and went on a very informative and chill tour of some of the coolest parts of the city. No charge, but tips were welcome at the end. Our tour guide was a young lady who was quite knowledgeable, funny, and not overly peppy. I managed to take a few pictures.

Two views of St. Steven's Basilica (aka St. Istvan)- not actually a basilica. St. Steven is a BIG DEAL here, because he made the region Christian. His right hand is a relic and is on display inside. We didn't really see it because you have to insert coins to turn on a light that shines on it. A tourist trap. We are so beyond that stuff.
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A view of Pest from the Buda side, featuring the dome and spire on top of St. Steven's and the Chain Bridge.

This was a palace located on the Buda side that was built for the Habsburgs, namely Maria Theresa, who never actually stayed here because she was always having babies in Vienna. After our tour ended, Stella and I stayed for a little bit on the Buda side to get some night-time action shots of the view with all the beautiful lights.

Pictures taken from the Fisherman's Bastion.

See if you can spot me! The foreground is the Fisherman's Bastion, and behind it is St. Matthias Cathedral.

3) Today, Stella and I went to the baths. If you recall from my earlier post about the Turkish Hamam, I have been to a bath with Stella before. This was totally different. Lots and lots of steam rooms, saunas, indoor and outdoor pools, all with varying temperatures and therapeutic values. Sadly, all the signs were written in Hungarian, so we weren't really sure which pools were supposed to be treating us for psoriasis or curing a hangover. We tested a lot of them, regardless of what they were for. My favorite was the hottest outdoor pool, which was 38 degrees celsius and had a big fountain in the middle. The building itself was beautiful, and the pools outside were located in some kind of central courtyard with all of these pagan statues and fancy fountains. Most impressive, Budapest. Well done. One thing I learned about myself in the process: I don't really like sharing bath water with hundreds of strangers. It was a cool experience, but I don't think I'm any cleaner right now. I fact, I think I smell a bit like sulfur or maybe feet. And when I see unidentifiable specks floating towards me through the bath water, my imagination runs wild. It's better not to think about what you're swimming in, I guess!

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, but I am really hoping to get some more pictures before we leave tomorrow night. Our plan for getting back to Istanbul is a little complicated, and it involves a 12 hour bus ride to Sofia, Bulgaria. Should be interesting!

auf Wiedersehen, Wien. Szia, Hungary!

The past few days in Vienna (or Wien, in German) have been fantastic. That city has serious class. I'm actually listening to Mozart right now as a kind of farewell ode. Highlights from the past couple of days having included:
Renting bicycles and exploring the city haphazardly.

We stumbled upon some pretty awesome little places, like a cute park that reminded us of home (especially because of all the ducks and dead leaves on the ground), an outdoor skating rink featuring cute Austrian families galore, and this body of water called the Danube. Anyone heard of it?

There was also this sweet church called St. Stephansdom, where we stopped to bust out the map. Not too shabby.

Oh, and then we went to the Schönbrunn Palace, the Habsburgs' summer residence. Not bad either. They had Roman ruins in their back yard too. Cool, I guess. Vienna is sophisticated. I think that makes us sophisticated, too.



This afternoon we took a relatively short bus ride across the border, and now we're in Budapest! More updates soon!

Eating our way around Vienna

If you haven't picked up on it yet, my traveling philosophy is that the best way to appreciate a culture is by eating lots of local food. I hope this doesn't come as a surprise to you, because as most of you know, I love to eat. I recently shared my traveling philosophy with Stella, and we have been practicing it actively! So far I am very satisfied with Vienna. I will relay the details of our trip thus far in terms of food/meal benchmarks.

One of my concerns at the beginning of the trip was my diet. I had been feeling sick for two days leading up to our departure yesterday, and I had restricted myself (mostly) to a diet of fruit, bread, and rice. I have NOT been sticking to this strict regiment since I have arrived, and so far I have been alright. Thank you Penicillin! After we checked into our hostel yesterday afternoon, Stella and I have been sampling the Viennese specialty foods quite liberally. Last night we decided to explore the city a little bit, not deterred by the cold or the dark. Our mission was to find and devour apfelstrudel-- Apple strudel, in English. Delicious, warm, and best when eaten with ice cream. Our night was complete when we ordered chamomile tea and it came in two separate tea pots. Nevermind how bad the euro to US dollar exchange rate is right now. Good food is always worth it. Right?

Today we woke up at our leisure and had the breakfast served at our hostel, which consisted of cereal and bread. Simple and yet very satisfying. Despite the light drizzle, we walked to the MuseumsQuartier in order to get our fill of Austrian art right off the bat. I can't speak for Stella, but I certainly got my fill! We went to the Leopold Musem to see works by the famous Austrian expressionists such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and the collection was incredible. Not only do they have an amazing array of Austrian expressionism, but they also have an impressive variety of other 19th and 20th century art from Western Europe and the US, including pieces by Cezanne, Monet, Picasso, Warhol, and Lichenstein to name just a few. Excuse me while the Art History nerd in me freaks out a little. It was spectacular. To top it all off, the museum itself was recently built and has picturesque windows scattered around the galleries that show the Vienna skyline and all the other impressive buildings in the MuseumsQuartier. The real kicker was the rainbow in the sky over the already beautiful skyline. Really, Vienna? I get it. You're cool. Rub it in a little more.

All in all, I was exhausted after a couple of hours of visual overload. And what do you need when you are low on energy? Food! Stella and I went to a nearby cafe for salad, which did not merit any picture taking. Too healthy to be interesting. Never fear-- we chased this healthy lunch with some heavy desserts. I tried this cheesy strudel thing that was sitting in a puddle of vanilla sauce. Kind of odd, but still quite tasty. Stella stuck with a trusty crepe with chocolate sauce. We then decided to check out area surrounding the Museumsquartier, which included the Weiner Rathaus, which it turns out is not a church. It certainly had us fooled! It was beautifully lit up, and looked particularly striking through the bare branches of the trees in the foreground. Surrounding the entrance to the Rathaus was a Christkindlmarket, which is basically a Christmas market of little shops selling gift items, Christmas decorations (note the hundreds of hand painted glass ornaments at right), and lots of amazing Austrian street food. But wait- it's not even mid November! Can we really justify getting excited about Christmas already? Regardless, it was a really cool market, and we tried some of the spiced rum punch that seems to be a popular beverage here. Kind of like spiked hot apple cider- yummy!



After exploring the Christkindlmarket, we decided to put a hold on our spending for the night, cook ourselves a light dinner in the hostel and relax a little bit harder. Tomorrow we are planning to go to a flea market in the morning and follow it up by a trip to one of the old palaces in the afternoon.

The Plan

Next week I don't have classes in celebration of Bayram, which is the Turkish word for holiday. While I don't know much about its background, I know that it is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims all over the world in which families generally sacrifice a ram or another animal. For you philistines out there like me, here is a link to the Wikipedia page on the holiday. Thank goodness for the internet.

In proper celebration of the holiday, I am planning to do a little bit of sacrificing of my own-- my budget, that is. Tomorrow(!) I am flying to Vienna with my friend Stella, where we will be getting cultured until Monday. Monday afternoon we plan to take a train to Budapest, where we will be for another 4 days before hopping on a train that will eventually bring us back to Istanbul. Passport stamps, here I come! I am planning on bringing my laptop and my camera, so expect to get updates from both places. Does anyone have any suggestions about what Stella and I should see while we're there? Please let me know, because I don't know much about either city!

Proof...

... that I raced in a single on the Golden Horn.

Photos are courtesy of my friend Florence!

It is undetermined whether or not I am actually in this last picture, but it gives you an idea of what the racing was like. In the top photo you can see a bit of the Bogazici University racing uni- pretty tame compared with the Williams College purple and yellow!

Now back to studying for that Byzantine Art and Architecture exam this afternoon...