B to the Erlin. Word.

I went to Berlin. That's in Germany. I speak no German beyond "nien." Luckily, the fabulous Allison and Andrea Schmidt showed me around.

Flying to Berlin from Riga was cheap. I scored a 99 euro ticket through AirBaltic.Berlin is a bit more expensive than Riga, but since I have a student id and since I stayed with friends, it wasn't too pricy, thankfully.

Here are some of the pictures from my trip. I put all of the photos up on Facebook. I'll do a separate post with the graffiti art photos. My internet is slow today and I don't want to overwhelm it. :)

Here is the Brandenburg Gate. We were stopped by two Russian teenagers and asked "Why is it so cold here?" Allison's answer: "It's Berlin?" Like me, they probably thought, "Germany is south of me. Therefore, it is warm." Not true. 

 The Pergemon museum was rad. They rebuilt a Roman (?) sacrificial shrine inside the building. They also have a fabulous Islamic art exhibit. 

 This is the first Latin American restaurant we ate at. The food was mediocre. The music was great. 

                                         

  One day, we went to Potsdam. We ate at a chocolate restaurant. I was too excited about the chocolate to take a photo of the spread before, so here is the after. 

 This palace took forever to walk to. I'm sure in the summer it's a lovely walk. Not so much in the melty spring. 

 Allison and I got a behind the scenes tour of the German government thanks to Franzi, a friend who works for one of the politicians.

 This is the view from the dome in in the Reichstag.

 This was a rad little Mexican restaurant that made my day.

First taco Tuesday since leaving Lawrence!

I'll post on the graffiti and the Cathedral later. I'm tired of waiting for photos to load! This post is brought to you by Ellie Goulding's Explosions, even though I'm sure I've already linked that on here at some point. I love this song so much. :) She's coming to Riga, but I can't afford tickets. And it's in the middle of the week, which is damn inconvenient.

Istanbul: Part I

I got home from Istanbul last night at midnight. It was a wonderful trip. I will post on it in parts since I don't want to overwhelm you with a load of text and a barrage of photos. (Yes, I took photos!)

For this first part, I'll just lay out my reasoning behind choosing Turkey.

My first reason for choosing Turkey: I wanted to go somewhere that wouldn't bombard me with familiar happy Christmas family images. This is my first holiday season away from my family and it's been hard enough without being reminded all of the time that I'm not home drinking cocktails and playing board games with the clan. Istanbul had the requisite Christmas adverts and acknowledged the holiday since the city is quite mixed religiously, but mostly it was just another day.

I will admit that I cried in my baklava on Christmas Eve. The hardest part, I think, about being away from my family so long is that I'm experiencing so many things that I know they would love. Our family life revolves, in many ways, around cooking (and drinking) together. (Well, I mostly drink a cocktail and observe the cooking process, but I'm okay with that role.) Sometimes, I get quite homesick when I'm eating something that I know my family would love. I want to share these experiences with them and I can't, so I end up crying over my baklava in a cute little cafe in Istanbul on Christmas Eve. I Skyped them later, though, and felt much better. Thank God for the interwebs.

Secondly, I chose Istanbul because I've traveled mostly in Eastern Europe (none in Western Europe) and I wanted a change. I expected Turkey to be wildly different than most of my past travel. It wasn't as different as I expected since Istanbul is a huge, modern city, but I loved seeing mosques and different styles of architecture. I think I've mentioned before that sometimes I get worn out by travel and stop seeing the wonder of a new city. Istanbul, I think, recharged those batteries in many ways just because it was quite different than other cities I've visited.

I also chose Istanbul because I wanted warmth. There was a little snow on the ground when we landed and it was chilly the first couple of days, but the weather warmed up nicely and I enjoyed having the sun on my face and leaving my gloves and giant down coat at home.

 After three days in Istanbul, the other ladies headed south to Cappadocia and I moved from our apartment in Sultanhamet (the old city) to a hostel in Taksim (the new town). I decided not to go to Cappadocia because I really wanted to stay in one place for the full week. They were happy with their trip, but I think I would have felt a bit overwhelmed and like I hadn't seen either place properly. Also, I love cities. I grew up in a small town and have lived in small towns my entire life. Currently, I'm in a small town. I wanted to soak up city life for the duration of the trip. I love nothing more than sitting in a foreign cafe and people watching and Istanbul delivered on both counts.

So, that's my reasons for choosing to go to Istanbul. I'll post later about the actual trip, my recommendations, and my impressions of Istanbul (both good and bad).

This post is brought to you by Dragonette, Big Sunglasses.

Ludza and Grey Peas

Yesterday I went with a friend to Ludza, a town not far from Rezekne. It is only 30 km from the Russian border and is one of the oldest towns in Latvia. According to Wikipedia, it was mentioned in the Russian Chronicle in 1173! Here is a picture of the castle ruins.

And here is a view of the town from the castle:

It was kind of wet and cold, but we walked around the town anyway and had lunch at a cafe. I had grey peas and ham. According to everyone I've talked to, this is the quintessential Latvian dish. It was good. The dish reminded me a lot of the black-eyed peas and ham soup we have at home, but much less soupy. I also had a cold strawberry soup for dessert. Anna had warm cherry dessert soup. I'm a big fan of this soup as dessert idea. Here is a site about Latvian cuisine: http://www.latvia.lv/library/latvian-cuisine.

I was going to take some nice photos of Rezekne this weekend, but missed the morning sun and decided to wait. Of course, Inta told me that the sun might not come out for some time.... I think I need to buy some vitamin D!

Tonight I'm headed to Rezekne Augstskola to help Inta out with her Business English class. The students are quite great at English, even though this is their first year in university to my knowledge. It makes me wish we emphasized language learning earlier in the US. Here, they start formal language training in the first grade. Many people in Rezekne know at least two languages (Latvian and Russian). The younger people tend to have had English in school as well.

Oh well, I'm sure Congress will read this blog and decide to pass funding for public school language education. I'm pretty important, you know.

Today's post is brought to you by The Killers "When You Were Young" and Peka, Liliya's adorable kitten. (Liliya and Peka let me stay with them for a little over a week while I found an apartment.)