Istanbul, Belgium and the Netherlands

This is a little long, but we had to get everything in....

Final week of Ramadan = Our first vacation!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Katie: We packed up and headed for Istanbul for the day/night so we could catch our flight out of Ataturk Airport the next morning. Getting into Istanbul was an adventure in itself. From Gebze there are various ways to get into the city, but all of them require multiple modes of transportation and a lot of time. First, we hopped a ride with our friend Peter into Gebze, which saved us from getting a cab. From Gebze we took a train to the sea on the Asia side where we hopped on a couple of ferries to get us to the Europe side. After we got off the ferry we wandered around trying to decide if we could manage the train/tram system, or if we should try to walk. We ended up settling for a confused cab ride (that was my decision and it cost us extra money – my fault). The rest of the day was spent exploring the touristy spots and wandering the streets of Sultanahmet. Some of the touristy spots included Hagia Sophia, the Underground Cistern, walking the Hippodrome and wondering the outskirts of blue mosque (we weren’t properly dressed for the inside). They were all amazing, but the Underground Cistern was our favorite (This is where Allie and Frank had their date on the Bachelorette...). At sundown we settled in at the park between Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque to witness the breaking of the fast. This is pretty much a giant picnic that begins after the final call to prayer. You would think that it would be a loud celebration, but when the call to prayer ended it was very quiet – everyone was eating! We only got a taste of what Istanbul has to offer, but I have no doubt we’ll be making many trips into the city over the next couple years.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Our day began very early with a shuttle to the airport at 5:30. I could spend the next couple paragraphs complaining about stupid people not being ready for the shuttle and causing all kinds of frustration… but I won’t. When we arrived in Brussels around 10:30 AM, we made a beeline for Grand Place. This is where the Belgium Beer Festival took place. AWESOME! Eric claims this was the best day of his life, but anyone who knows Eric knows that he makes this claim on a weekly basis. However, this is one day that should not be dismissed completely. The location alone was spectacular. Also, as if Belgium beer isn’t tasty enough, Eric got to try one of the rarest beers in the world.

Eric: It is from one of the trappist breweries (there are only seven left in the world and six of them are located in Belgium). They only bring eight cases each morning and it is usually gone within 10 minutes, but we heard from someone that they were bringing a small amount at 2:00, so I went and stood in line for a while and ended up with my hands on one of the chalices of liquid gold.

Katie: Needless to say, we had a good afternoon. After a late lunch we headed back to the train station and continued on our way to Amsterdam. Once in Amsterdam we took a tram to our hotel (insert link). This place was crazy! We arrived at the hotel around 8:00 exhausted, and with the resolution that Amsterdam would have to wait until tomorrow.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Eric: There are one and half bikes for everyone one person in Amsterdam. Bikes are everywhere! Therefore, on our first full day in the city we decided to take a bike tour. Our bike tour took us through the countryside outside of the city. We visited an old, working windmill and a farm where they make cheese and wooden clogs. The cheese was incredible, so we had to buy some of the smoked cheese to take back to Turkey. After the bike tour, which lasted about four hours, we had lunch at a small Italian café in the Jordaan neighborhood (on the west side of Amsterdam). Most of the rest of the day was just walking around through the city. We walked around the Red Light District during the day, but also returned later that night before our late dinner. The Red Light District is a very interesting place…

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

To start the day we went straight to Anne Frank’s house (Anne Frank Huis) in order to beat the long lines. It was a very sad place, but very interesting at the same time. On our walk from there to the tram stop, we decided to see what all of the fuss was about and have a pancake. The pancakes we had may have been the best I’ve ever had. Next, we visited the Vincent Van Gogh museum, which contains the largest collection of his paintings in the world. The Heineken Experience followed and it was awesome! It is located in one of Heineken’s old breweries within the city and allows you to walk through the entire brewery, but it isn’t like every brewery tour. The entire tour was interactive which is what made it so interesting….and to finish the tour we each received two glasses of Heineken Extra Cold. We wanted to have some authentic Dutch cuisine after having the authentic Dutch beer and what better way than to have a cone of Vlaamse Frites….french fries drench in mayo! I loved it, but Katie opted for the mustard. Just like the day before, we did a ton of walking around the city again and turned it in early to be well rested for our early departure the next morning.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Wednesday morning in Amsterdam started just like Monday….breakfast from a corner bakery. We boarded a train to Bruges, Belgium after that. Our train only went as far as Antwerp so we had to get off and switch trains there, but it turned out we had to switch trains again before actually arriving at our destination in the early afternoon. From the train station we had about a 15 minute walk to get to our hostel in the city center. We dropped our bags and headed straight to Belfry Tower which is located in the very middle of the city at the edge of the market square. We grabbed a bite to eat from one of the cart vendors in the square before making the 366 step climb to get to the top of Belfry Tower. The stairs went straight up and the passage was VERY narrow…when you were going up and someone was coming down, one of you would have to get as flat against the wall as you could to allow them to pass. It was an exhausting climb, but the view from the top was incredible as you had a view of the entire city.

After our descent, we continued our walking tour to the Basilica of the Holy Blood and then on to the Church of Our Lady. The Basilica of the Holy Blood claims to have a cylinder of Jesus’ blood from a crusade to Jerusalem in the 12^th century. It is kept behind a silver tabernacle. We couldn’t take and pictures, so here’s a link if you care to see it…http://www.sacred-destinations.com/belgium/bruges-basilica-of-holy-blood.htm. The Church of Our Lady is home to Michelangelo’s “Madonna with child” and is one of his few pieces to leave Italy.

We walked along one of the canals (hence Bruges being called the Venice of the North) en route to our next stop, De Halve Maan Brewery, the only active brewery left in Bruges. We had one beer here and continued on our journey. Later in the day we went to De Garre. De Garre was difficult to find since it’s tucked away in an alley, but they have an awesome beer called Garre and this is the only place in the world you can have it. The rest of our evening was more walking and a few more beers along the way.

Thursday and Friday, September 9 and 10, 2010

We hopped on a train to Brussels in the morning and arrived in a little over an hour. Our long walks around Brussels gave us ample time to see just about everything. We visited Manneken Pis, Grand Place, the European Parliament, and Federal Parliament. We also went to the top of a parking garage that gave a great view of the city, including the Atomium which we didn’t want to take the 25 minute trip outside of the city to see. The parking garage tried to give us a pretty good scare….we were on the 10^th floor of the garage and got in the elevator to come back down, but as soon as the doors closed the power shut completely down. It was pitch black and all I could hear was Katie hyperventilating. I tried to use my phone as light to look at the buttons but that didn’t even give me enough light. Luckily the power came back on about 20 seconds later and we made it safely to the bottom. I have a good feeling Katie won’t be going to the top of any parking garages anytime soon.

For dinner on the first night we heard about a place that served traditional Belgian cuisine called Fin De Siecle. I had a dish called stoemp-saucisse (sausage and mashed potatoes) and Katie had what we think they described as cow cheek and mashed potatoes. Whatever it was, it was incredible and the stoemp-saucisse was equally tasty. The servings were so big that we managed to finish only about 2/3 of our plates, and at that time we felt like we were going to explode. The serving of mashed potatoes I was given with my meal was equivalent to what a family would have set out for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we hit up a couple different bars to enjoy some Belgian beer.

On Friday we started the day with a traditional Belgian waffle, covered in powdered sugar at Mokafe. After that, we headed to the Cantillon Brewery for a tour. They are a lambic brewery and only brew their beer from October – April. The reason for this is because they don’t add yeast to their beer…they allow this process to occur naturally during the night and the best time to do this is when it is cooler at night. They actually keep the beer on the top floor in a huge, open pan with the windows open overnight. They then let the beer ferment in barrels for a minimum of three years. We did get a few samples at the end and they beer is very acidic and sour. It tastes more like a wine/champagne would taste, but it was still very good. You probably could’ve guessed by now, but we did more walking in the afternoon to see the rest of Brussels. We bought chocolate, had more beer (I managed to have all but one of the trappist beers…Achel is the only one I had a hard time finding), and had some good Italian pizzas for dinner. Saturday morning marked the end of our trip and we headed back to Istanbul.

Overall, it was an exhausting trip, but it was just the right amount of time and we have now been back for a little over a week. Katie just completed her first week of teaching and I have a ton of students coming up to me every day and asking if we will be playing American Football. So far, everything is great here. We will probably take a trip this weekend to somewhere close, even if it is just going into Istanbul for a day or two. We’ll keep you posted on everything we do. I am also pleased to announce that we will have our first official visitors in November…J.J. and Paul will be coming for ten days. We will definitely be going to Greece during that time, so J.J. will finally be able to stop talking about how bad he wants to go there. I’m just as excited…