Author Archives: John and Michelle
Impressions of the Çukurcuma Neighborhood
When we chose our neighborhood, there were several overarching concerns. First, we wanted to be close enough to the historical sites to make seeing them a near-daily occurrence. However, we didn’t want to be in the overly-expensive tourist zone, and we wanted a largely local experience in a place where we can go quite some […]
Catalunya: Spirit Animal?
Though I’ve casually read about the efforts of Catalunya (a region in northeast Spain, with Barcelona as its capital) to secure independence from Spain, I was moved by how fierce that separatist spirit was when I set foot in Barcelona. It certainly struck a chord with my stubbornly independent, anti-authoritarian side.
Just Istanbul Things
Despite living in Turkey, I know very little Turkish. (If you’d like to know more about our language situation, check out “Linguistic Overload”) My knowledge of the Turkish words for palace, church, museum, and the like really don’t tend to help when at a supermarket faced with mystery meats. But as if I needed another […]
Linguistic Overload
We will encounter three different language families: Turkic (1), Uralic (1), and Indo-European (3). Of the Indo-European, we will hear two separate subfamilies: Balto-Slavic (2), and Hellenic (1). Thankfully, we will only encounter two different alphabets.
Seeing Barcelona Through Gaudí
On our way to Istanbul, we built in a quick mini-vacation to Barcelona, a city high on my list of places to visit. Tight on time and eager to get our adventure going, we set out for a walking tour about Barcelona’s famed architect Antoni Gaudí our first morning there. Gaudí influenced architects around the […]
How Would You Like to Spend a Year in Sunny Kathmandu?
It was a typically cold winter day in Minneapolis, and my wife Michelle and I were sitting across from each other at a Himalayan restaurant, which was helpfully named “Himalayan Restaurant.” There was a picture of Nepal hanging on the wall, looking very much unlike Minnesota, for better and for worse. I wasn’t really planning […]
The Turkey Bucket Lists
Here is what John would like to do in Turkey. For the rest of the bucket lists and a fuller explanation, check out our Bucket Lists Page. In Istanbul Walk the entire length of the Theodosian Land Walls; find the sites of the siege of 1453; find the inscriptions; find a way into the peribolos; […]
No Ticket Back 
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