A Truly Magical Adventure

Words can not describe how beautiful this place is.   It is a real live winter wonderland.  Living in Los Angeles, the Traveling Hillbilly does not see much snow.   Of course, I have seen it before in various places but I've never seen anything like this.    We are in the middle of a forest, where the snow lies undisturbed by people, cars, and pollutants.    It's just pure white, powder that looks so stunningly beautiful.   The trees look as if they've just been flocked and the rooftops are covered with the pristine powder.   It truly is magical to walk through the forest.

Although we technically had ZERO minutes of sunlight yesterday, we did get a few hours of dusky brightness.  It looked like a dark cloudy rainy day.    I thought I'd share a few snapshots I took during this time.   I know they look like black and white photos but they aren't.  I even included one with a stop sign so you can see they aren't.  These are not doctored photos.  They were just taken with my old and simple Nikon Coolpix.

 



I love this little guy!

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas!

So we arrive in Helsinki and head to Border Patrol to get our passports stamped.   The stern looking gentleman that takes my passport, looks at it and my boarding pass and asks very stoically, “are you going to see Santa Clause?”   I of course say yes and hopefully the northern lights.   He hands my passport back to me, says “NEXT” and I exit.   Apparently my friends were all asked the same thing as they handed over their passports.

As we head to the gate to catch our next flight, we run into some carolers, singing as they walk through the airport.   They sound quite beautiful and it puts us all in the holiday spirit.   The spirit quickly goes away as I board the plane and see a ton of kids.    There must be at least two kids for every adult on the flight.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many kids on one flight.  I guess everyone must be going to see Santa Clause!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to Say Goodbye to the Sun! And...

 possibly the chance of capturing great pictures!  This time of year, there are only a couple of hours of sunlight a day.   I’m curious to see the effect both physically and mentally this has on all of us.   I’m even more curious to see how this will impact my ability take some great photos!

Hopefully the many hours of darkness mean we will actually get to see the Aurora borealis, but with it being so dark, I may not be able to capture the moment on film.

If we do manage to get some great shots, trust me I’ll share them with you all!

 

How is that I get lost in Los Angeles - Visiting Princes' Islands

But have no trouble taking the metro, to the funicular to the ferry to visit the Princes' Islands in a completely foreign country?   This just makes no sense to me.  I couldn't take the bus from home to work in Los Angeles but somehow can figure out any other countries public transit system in no time!

Well enough about my poor sense of direction in my home town.  Let's get back to the Princes' Islands.  I had read about them over a year ago and they were one of main places I wanted to go while visiting in Istanbul.   I had read they are just about an hour by ferry from Istanbul and that there are no cars on the islands.  Everyone gets around by foot, by bicycle or horse drawn carriage.  It sounded like a step back in time and an opportunity to take some great photos!

So of course, it was one of the first places I asked the concierge about when I arrived and I was more than a little disappointed when he told me it would not be worth my time to go.  It's completely off season, so he  said there wouldn't be much to do.

As usual, I didn't listen to advice and I'm glad I didn't.  He was right about there not being a ton to do, but it's not like I wanted to go and lie on the beach anyway!   I wanted to wander around and see what it was like and hopefully take some great photos.
 
Now there are five islands in all and you can visit four of them.   Given my limited  time, I went to two of the five, Heybeliada and Buyukada (the largest of the five).   I spent a little time wandering around Heybeliada and then grabbed lunch.  Lunch consisted of some chips I bought at a little store and a panini this elderly man made me at what I guess was a cafe.   I'm not exactly sure what it was but it was delicious!  I have to say so far the best food I've had in Turkey has been "street" food!

After lunch, I hopped on another ferry and headed to Buyukada.   If this was "off-season" I would hate to visit during the season.  It was swarming with people and there were a ton of shops and restaurants right by the dock.   I quickly left the dock area and just wandered the streets.   What a beautiful and charming place.  Given the crazy traffic congestion in Istanbul, I can see why people from this city flock here in the summer. 

And the Artic Journey Begins

After a very lengthy delay leaving LAX, The Traveling Hillbilly arrived in London late yesterday.   My friends from San Francisco arrived just minutes after.   Given we were in different terminals we decided we’d head to our hotel and meet up for dinner later.

After checking in and getting settled, I headed over to meet my friends at their hotel for a drink and then dinner.   We ordered some champagne, toasted our adventure ahead and spent time catching up.  We then had a very bland dinner at the “oriental” restaurant in their hotel.

After a very unrestful night with little sleep, I’m sitting on a Finnair flight headed to Helsinki, where I’ll switch planes and catch another flight to Rovaniemi where we’ll be met with a car to take us to our final destination Luosto, in the Finnish Laplands.

I sit on the plane with a deep hope of actually getting to see the Northern Lights.  The sun is reaching the peak of its 11 year solar activity cycle, meaning this one of the best opportunities for seeing the northern lights!  Cross your fingers and wish us luck!

ESPA Spa...Quite the Experience

The ESPA spa at the Istanbul Edition is on floors -3, -4 and -5.   Three floors in the "basement" of the building?   I'm intrigued.  Plus when I checked in, the front desk gave me a ticket for a "30 minute extension" for whatever treatment I wanted at the spa.  It was just too hard to resist.  I had to check this spa out for myself.   So after I returned to the hotel from my day of sightseeing, I headed to the spa to see when I could get an appointment.  Luckily, I was able to secure one within about 45 minutes!   The spa did not disappoint.  It is warm and inviting and very relaxing from the moment you walk in.  They have all the usual amenities, steam room (which is amazing), sauna, quiet space and they also have a pool.  I didn't use the pool so I never even saw it.  It must be on one of the floors I didn't go on. 

As for my massage, I think I actually nodded off one or twice during my massage.  Even with the extra 30 minutes, it seemed far too short.  I left feeling relaxed and ready for another nap!   A much needed recharge for the couple more days of sightseeing ahead!

 

The Traveling Hillbilly Visits a Mosque?

If you don't know much about Istanbul, you have probably at least heard about the Blue Mosque. It was the sight I was most looking forward to seeing.  I decided to do a half-day tour, figuring it would give me a chance to see some of the main sights of the city including the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar

A 7:30am pick up almost made me rethink the whole plan, but at least I'd still have most of day and evening left after the tour.  So up I got and out I went.

The first stop was the Blue Mosque.   I have to say I was slightly underwhelmed.   Maybe my expectations were too high.   Don't get me wrong, it is worth seeing and very majestic from the outside, but when you've seen some of the other churches in Europe the Blue Mosque just doesn't compare.  What is amazing is the fact that about 10,000 people pray there on Fridays.   People pray there everyday, but Friday is comparable to Christian's Sunday so everyone is there and many have to pray outside in the courtyard.

After the Blue Mosque, it was on to the Hippodrome and then Aya Sofya which is apparently Istanbul's most famous monument.   What makes this monument so unique is it was originally built as a church and later converted into a mosque.  Unlike christian churches there are no images or mosaics in mosques.   So now you have mosque that has images of saints, angels, Madonna and Child on one side and huge medallions inscribed with Arabic on the other.  It's no longer used as a church or a mosque, it's now more of a "museum" that is going under near constant renovation.

These were all within steps of each other, so it made seeing them in a shorter amount of time easier.  After Aya Sofya, it was time to head to the world famous Grand Bazaar.   It is definitely Grand and I think a little bizzare!    It's like a gigantic flea market, mainly enclosed with over 4,000 shops inside.   It's crazy and quite the spectacle.  I didn't last too long.  Everyone is really aggressive and you are constantly being bombarded with, "come into my store,"  "come look," "hello, come, come, come here."   It can be quite overwhelming for some and quite frustrating for others.  If you are a shopper and you enjoy haggling you could spend a whole day here.  I am not a shopper, so I came, I saw, I left.

All in all a good day of sightseeing before heading home for some much needed rest or maybe a visit to the spa.