I went to Istanbul with my sister for the first week of July. She’s going to be spending the rest of the summer studying there so it was kind of a combination “get Maggie used to the city” and “cram as much tourist stuff in for Molly as possible.” It was (surprisingly) the first time I’ve ever been to a non-Westernized country, and I’m aware Turkey is still pretty Westernized. But you got that whole “Is it Asia? Is it Europe?” thing going on, and they’re not part of the EU… etc. I want to count it as a non-Western country so I’m going to.
Istanbul is SUCH a stunning city. I got to visit Topkapi Palace (where the sultans lived) and tour the harem where they kept their concubines. Mags and I took a super underwhelming boat tour but saw some awesome mosques (Mags showed me the basic arrangement and structure of a mosque, taught me how to pray, etc) and we enjoyed good weather and good food and good wine and good sister times.
The only other notable thing was that Maggie’s debit card didn’t work and, unbeknownst to us, our hostel didn’t take credit cards. I completely emptied out my bank account, paid for both of our hostels, both of our meals, both of our museums, etc, etc, until I was completely out of cash. We had called Maggie’s bank to tell them of this issue and they told us it wouldn’t work in Turkey, period, so we had to have our dad withdraw the money from Maggie’s account and wire it to my account, if that makes any sense. I was then going to withdraw it and hand it all to her – all of her savings, in cash, in one lump sum. It made me uneasy, but what were we going to do? It didn’t come in until the last day we were there, and at that point, the ATM near our hostel was broken. I almost broke down in tears. But we worked it out and everything should be good for her (god, I hope so).
On to Sweden! I won a free flight from Bank of Ireland so I got to go to Stockholm for 3 days. I went alone but still had a really good time. Stockholm is like getting a glimpse of the future. Here is how we will all be living in about 20 years:
1) Street vendors will take credit cards.
2) All bathrooms will be unisex. All of them.
3) When you go to a museum and get an audio guide, no longer will you walk up to a display case and push the number into your audio guide that corresponds with the exhibit. No. You will receive a wand that you WAVE AT THE EXHIBIT and some microchip or something IN THE EXHIBIT picks up on that and starts playing the commentary for the right exhibit. I am being serious right now.
4) Everyone will be blond and tall and smiling and friendly and gorgeous. Or maybe that’s just Sweden. Or Hitler’s wet dream.
While there, I took a Stieg Larsson tour. For those of you who don’t know, Stieg Larsson was a Swedish crime novelist who wrote the Millenium trilogy – Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Girl Who Played With Fire, Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. He very tragically died of a sudden heart attack in 2004. ANYWAY on that tour I learned that he was mostly a journalist and only a moonlighting crime novelist (actually, I sort of knew that already) but that in his capacity as a journalist, he was a NAZI HUNTER! LIKE INDIANA JONES! He was Sweden’s foremost expert on neo-Nazi cells and far-right movements in Sweden. He used to testify all over Europe. YEAH. How cool is that??
The other thing of note in Sweden is how damn efficient everything is. My last night, I was having a beer with these three American kids who had just graduated college and were spending the summer backpacking Europe. They had just come from Italy, and one of them said something that really summed it up for me: “We just came from a really poorly run country with so much soul. Now we’re here, in this super efficient country, but there’s not a lot of soul.” Very wise, recent UCLA grad. Very wise.
Oh, also, in my hostel, the man sleeping under me was an elderly sweaty stinky Polish man who came in RAVING drunk each of the two nights he was there and sang to himself and pooped the bed and peed on the floor. He also told me I had nice legs. So that’s that. And THAT’S why most hostels have an age limit. Because if you are above 30 and still feel the need to stay in a hostel, there is probably something wrong with you.
I didn’t get awesome pictures but here are a couple quick samples:
(haha, yes, I went to the Nobel Museum and took a picture of the man from my hometown who won a Nobel Prize. Also, they spelled his name wrong. Millikin.)
(sweet Swedish picture - note the flag)
Turkey is the one place I want to go before I die! I have several places I would like to see, but if I could only go one place it would be Turkey!!!!
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