A Trip to Turkey

Bwah. THis is my first blog post in 2 months. Talk about slacking! Anyways here's some videos!

The first batch is from Istanbul.

First Night in Istanbul

A Cool Cafe in Istanbul.

The Aya Sofya. It was SO amazing!

This place that we went to had the BEST baklava ever! It was amazing!

The Entrance to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

Inside the Grand Bazaar.... after the power went out and everyone had to use generators.

We went to Bosnia last year and first heard the call to prayer there, at sunset. I think this is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard.

A beautiful view of the harbor.

The most amazing fish sandwich that I've ever had in MY LIFE!!!! They actually caught the fish about 20 feet from where we ate it!

Jake and I decided to get a haircut in Turkey. Here's Jake getting a Turkish style haircut. It was quite an experience!

Bwah! I have no idea what this was about but it was cool!

The haircutter also used an old style razor! It was pretty cool! It was pretty smooth too!

Then it was my turn for the fire!

This was the final result of an almost 2 hour search for these amazing sweet treats. It was well worth the time that it took. It turns out that they were an old style treat in Turkey, which meant that they were almost impossible to find!

Next up.... Pamukkale

Nothing to really say here. I think the videos speak for themselves. You can really see how beautiful of a place this was. The water was so warm and clear. IT was a truly amazing experience!

Cappadocia.....

This was, by far, the most difficult part of the trip. It all started with a series of troublesome, and expensive bus rides. Each person we asked along the way insisted that finding a bus to our destination would be easy. However, we ended taking many buses out of our way and paying out the nose for said bus rides. It was a nightmare even trying to find a bus that would take us to a place near Cappadocia. However, afterwards the time that we spent there was quite enjoyable. I even got a chance to try doing some Yoga, which was actually pretty amazing!!

This is how our bus trip started out after we were basically stranded by the bus company.

However, things chilled out and started going a lot better.... kinda....

Here were some amazing trees that we found on the side of the road.

Goreme

Goreme again

And finally, on the way out of Cappadocia we saw this mountainside village.

This was our trip to Turkey. Hope you enjoyed the videos!

Fall Break: Auschwitz

So, needless to say, this post is about visiting Auschwitz. It was a very interesting learning experience and I now know more about the Holocaust than I ever did. I think that you don't truly understand what happened until you see these things in person. However, the scale of these horrible events can never truly be comprehended. I still find it hard to actually comprehend that the belongings, collected after the liberation of Auschwitz, were only those of 2% of all of those that were killed in the camp. The camp still has a very eerie feel to it and it's hard to understand everything. Here's the video:

(Work makes you free) were the first words that people saw as they entered Auschwitz. It's rather sick, especially considering the fact that people were worked to death. It almost seems as if it was saying that working to death, or rather just death, was the only way to escape the camp. Unfortunatelly, this was true for most people.

These were some of the crystals and their containers that were used in the gas chambers in the camps. I remember that they said that one canaster could kill roughly 2000 people.

The following videos are of the belongings of ONLY the last 2% of the people that were brought to the camps. In actuality, the amount of objects taken from those killed was much higher. So much higher that it seems impossible to comprehend.

It's pretty horrible to see on film but when you see it in person it affects you tremendously. Another collection was the hair that was taken from people to make clothing for the Nazi army as well as for German citizens. I have a hard time trying to comprehend how these people were turned into nothing more than supplies. Their clothing, belongings, and even their bodies were turned into nothing more than supplies for the Nazi regime. Truly sickening, even now when I think about it I can't help but feel naseous.

The last part of Auschwitz was the gas chamber. You can see in this video the hole where they put the gas into. Out of this entire trip, I felt that this room was the saddest. You can almost feel the hope. Many people came into this room, believing that they were going to get a shower. I'm sure many believed that they would be able to survive the Holocaust, but once they were in this room, there was no chance that they would survive.

I'm sorry to have such a sad post but I think this is something that everyone should see at least once in their lives. Without seeing this you can't fully understand what happened. I hope those that died can rest in peace.

Fall Break part 2

Bwah! It's been crazy since we got back. Lot's of working and trying to get back into the swing of things but it's now time for more videos! The first 3 are from Cesky Krumlow.

This was the torture museum. We had a lot of fun inside and Jake scared Val and Jamie pretty badly..... lol.

After that we went to the wax museum..... equally as frightening.

Next up was the marionette museum, which was my personal favorite :D.

Our next stop was the bone church just outside of Prague. It was even more amazing than I thought it would be. Also worth mentioning is that it was all done by a half blind monk from a long time ago.

This is the Coat of Arms made out of bones!

The Trip

I'm a little tired so I can't really write too much but here's a bunch of videos!

This door was open on the train! We couldn't believe it!

It was also nice to see fog on the train, on the way to Cesky Krumlov!

Cesky Krumlov was a really beautiful place.

I'll post some more videos in my next post..... (To Be Continued)

Post trip

Just got back from our trip. It was really fun. We did a LOT of stuff over the course of this past week. LOTS of videos too! I'll start posting them after we get groceries!

Prague and so on

I completely forgot to mention this to anyone. We even just told our school colleagues today. We're going to Prague today! Bwah!!! I'll be sure to upload pictures and videos, of course! So this is sziasztok (Goodbye) for now. I'll be on and uploading in a little bit. I've been pretty bad at posting lately. I've just been so exhausted from work that I couldn't find the energy. Fall break came right on time!