Turkey!

So, I'm a few months behind on the blog. And by few I actually mean like three. But no time like the present to give a little upate!

Towards the end of April we went to Istanbul for a few days. We left in the wee early morning on Friday (our flight was at 2 am) and got back in the wee early morning on Tuesday (our flight got back at about 3), so we had a pretty decent amount of time for a mini-vacation. And we had an amazing time- definitely our favorite trip so far and have about 300 pictures from our trip. I'll try to give a little taste :)


The benefit of flying super early in the morning? Seeing the sun rise from the plane!


Sleepily getting off of the prettily colored plane! It's always a good sign when you're being transported in a vehicle that happens to be your favorite color :)


So we flew into A and had to get over to wear it says Istanbul on the left. We took a bus and then a ferry!


Arran with his wind blown hair as we soar across the Bosphorus Strait.


Excited!


Oh, look! Sea-foam green water! Basically this trip was a whole bunch of my favorite colors every where.


Our first stop after we got there and dropped off our stuff was the Hagia Sophia. At different periods it was a basilica, a mosque, and now it's a museum, so there were both Muslim and Christian influences in the design.


Here you can see the dome pretty well. And us looking all happy :)


Outside washing my feet.


The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there. And there were lots of blooming trees and flowers- it was beautiful.


Next we went to a cistern, that used to provide for people in the city. There used to be aqueducts that shipped the water in and then it was stored here. The columns were actually used, they had been used in previous building, so they were mismatched. Here you can see a few different ones.


Interesting there were also two Medusa heads. One was purposely installed upside down (seen here) and the other was purposely installed on it's side. They are unsure why.


Between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia there was a really beautiful park with lots of tulips! Apparently Istanbul is known for its tulips. You can also see the fountain in the background which is also pretty. With the beautiful weather tons of people were milling around, hanging out, and eating.


The view of the Blue Mosque from the park!


A better picture of the fountain with the Blue Mosque behind.


This is a view of another park by the Blue Mosque which contained, among other things, an obelisk. This picture was taken from the courtyard outside the mosque.


Also in the park, with the obelisk, was a gazebo with a fountain given by the German Emperor Wilhelm II to commemorate his visit to Istanbul. It had old school German on it, which was pretty neat.

I'll post more soon :)

Some musical things I've been up to

Here in Berlin I joined a band, the Lankwitz Horns, which is associated with a local church. Oddly enough, I am the first actual "horn" to play in the group, but oh well. Here are some pictures from us playing at a Christmas market at a local church in December. I'm in the upper right hand corner :)


This is what the rest of the (very small) Christmas market looked like.


Another view!


Fun fact: they don't really know what to do with me, so usually I play transposed saxophone music. For a while I played with the trombones, but now for the first time in my life I'm essentially considered a wood wind.


I actually am playing later this evening, so we'll see if some one takes pictures of that too.

At my school they have this huge concert/ talent show type thing in the winter. The head music teacher asked me to lead a Stomp-esque percussion group that was going to play with some other musicians for a piece for the concert, and I didn't have much choice but to agree. Apparently my teacher informed him of my "musical-ness" and he didn't want to lead the group, so I was probably the only person that would have been willing and able to do it.

Here I am pretending I have some idea how to play drums.


Luckily the kids I worked with were super great and patient with a) my occasional lack of musical terminology and b) my lack of percussion experience. It ended up being a lot of fun getting to know some of the kids better and performing!


And here we are at the concert! You can see the other musicians behind us.

Prague!

Germans don't have a 3 month long summer break like we do in the States, so they end up having random week or week plus long breaks through out the year. Here in Brandenburg had a week off in the fall, we had two weeks off for Christmas, and then we got a week off at the beginning of February. In an effort to live it up a bit Arran and I went with Amanda to Prague during our time off of school.

Arran and I loved Prague! We didn't take too many pictures, but the city is absolutely beautiful. Lots of tiny winding cobble-stone streets, old buildings, a castle. Pretty awesome.

To begin our pictures though will be an example of globalization, rather than the beauty of eastern Europe.


We found a McDonalds and a McWalk, which I didn't even know existed! Despite how appetizing the menu looked (especially for the two vegans ;) ) we did not try it out.


Here Arran and I are in front of the river- behind me you can see the Prague Castle. This was after we sat in Kafka's favorite cafe and read some of his short stories out loud.


We got closer! We ended up walking up to the castle and wondered around. We also got a great view of Prague since it is up on a hill. This also meant that our trek up was a wee bit strenuous, but we managed just fine.

Like any good tourists to Prague we went to the Charles Bridge. While there we found a statue that Arran found especially interesting.


Here is Arran doing his best lion impression.


Here he is looking incredibly fierce :)

In the spirit of silly pictures:


We went to a Chinese restaurant while in Prague and I felt compelled to put the napkin on my head because it looked like a crown. Arran found this amusing and took a picture.

One of the days Amanda and I (Arran stayed back at the hotel because he was sick :( ) happened upon this park on the top of a little hill with a cool view.


We wondered around for a bit and I took some pictures for Arran so he would get to experience it a bit with us.


While we were up there we saw these carved tree stumps, which looked pretty cool. In the background you can see all the people who were sledding. The snow wasn't too wet or too icy, so it was perfect for adorable Czech children on sleds!


In the park was this little bar/ cafe, which felt very chalet-esque. Amanda and I read and drank tea for a few hours, which was really great. There was a nice view, I was next to a little heater so I was warm enough, and I was sipping peppermint tea. A perfect winter time activity :)

So that commences the pictures we took. But! we did lots more fun stuff. We went to a communism museum, a Czech cubism museum, the Prague city museum, which had a cool early human exhibit, and drank warm drinks in lots of small cafes. It was an awesome vacation and a much needed get-away. I certainly wouldn't have missed the part where I lost my wallet, but you win some, you lose some :)

Berlin update

While I'm in the process of putting up Paris, I figured I'd give a little update on how things have been going in Berlin in the past month.

Frankly, cold. And white.

This is what Arran and I came home to from Paris:

Snow, snow, everywhere!

Beethovenstrasse:


I may look happy here, but I can assure you I am not pleased.


And here is our apartment building.


Snow is great. Sometimes. You know, like a week here, a week there. But an entire month like this? Not the biggest fan.

Apparently it's the most snow in about 20 years. And! Berlin beat a record this year. It surpassed the previous record of 11 consecutive days without sunshine, by going 15 days this year.

Arran has been very sweet and understanding and patient with my... vocal dislike for the weather. I'd like to publically thank him for that.

I figured I'd also throw in some pictures of my walk from school to the train station that I took with my phone.

Me. Cold.


The Havel. I will with no problem, say that I think the snow is pretty. I will definitely always take cold and snowy over just cold.


View from the bridge you can see in the previous picture. They call the bridge "The Blue Monster", presumably because it is large and blue.


Ducks!

Fun fact: on my walk to the train station I always pass this guy who just stands by a tree with his bike. He's always there and I thought maybe he sold drugs. I told our German friend, Stefan about it and he said no, he probably is selling illegal cigarettes. Illegal because they were smuggled in and are super cheap because they don't have any taxes on them.

Oh wait, there's more!

Of the famous Paris must see sights, Notre Dame is way up there. Here behind me you can see the cathedral on it's little island. We actually went and visited it a few days later, but it looked pretty from the bridge.

Aaand Arran got in on the photo action! Well, I suppose since he took the majority of the pictures he "got in on" it a lot, but still.



Although they have yet to make an appearance in our pictures, we met Ian and Kathleen in Paris and ate lots of good food with them, among other things. While walking to dinner one evening we passed this street, which I think Ian wanted a picture of. And it's pretty, so it has been included :)


Coming back from dinner we passed a little bakery that was open and in the window we saw some canelés in the window. Ian got two so I could try one. Here I am chewing:


Looking at Arran:


And I liked it! Apparently it wasn't very good quality, but I still thought it was super tasty.


So, there are still more pictures. And we're going to Prague (yay!) today, so we'll soon have pictures from another European capital for me to take a ridiculously long time to post!

More Paris in pictures!

There are certainly more fun an exciting things to see in Paris other than the Eiffel Tower. Like an Arabic restaurant named Noura!


Noura happens to be the name of my best friend (hi, Noura!) and I got pretty darn excited to see the restaurant. And made Arran take several pictures.

Now, in terms of historical sites, we went to the Arc de Triomphe, which is actually a bit complicated to get to because it's kind of on an island surrounded by streets.


It really is beautiful. While Arran wandered around and took pictures I just sat in a corner and looked around- at all of the names on the wall, the ceiling, the reliefs. Very cool.


The Arc also offers opportunities for dramatic tourist photos :)


And silly ones, too!


Of course we also walked down the Champs-Élysées, which I tried to call the Champs-de-Lysées pretty much the entire time we were in Paris. The Arc is at one end of the street, so we just wandered on over after dinner. As you can see it was prettily decorated for Christmas with blue lights in all the trees!


How perfect for a picture!


The street had tons of shops and also the movie theatre where we went to see Avatar in 3-D with French subtitles later in the week! Arran and I both enjoyed the movie and I left really wanting my own dinosaur type creature to fly around on. And on the other end was the Luxor Obelisk, a giant Egyptian obelisk with gold painted hieroglyphics, which once stood outside of the Luxor Temple in Egypt.


And nearby there was a fountain with mermaids, who look like their snuggling with fish!



Those last two pictures were for Marilee :)

So, there are still more pictures to come, worry not!