TURKEY!

Today was an amazingly awesome day. It started off with a really interesting Global Studies class (quite rare) and then got even better. In geohazards we got to watch a movie. Then we had tacos for lunch, which is a really, really big deal! They are AWESOME. Then, as we were wolfing down the tacos, we look outside to see land. We had just entered the Straits of Dardanelles, which is basically Asian Turkey on one side and European Turkey on the other. On the Asia side is the ancient city of Troy (which I wanna say I could see but it may have just been that I simply WANTED to see stuff haha) and on the other is Gallipoli monument (Europe), a massive statue commemorating the WW1 battle. We were super duper close to the land, so we could see the flags and everything! It was great. Then I finished my pirated Harry Potter movie and had the craziest anthropology class ever. It was so funny/awkward to hear my prof talk about sex for an hour and a half. Then I got to lie outside and tan while I watched the mountains of Turkey pass us by. So pretty! Then I had chat time with my ship family, which was nice, and had a burger and pizza night with all my friends! It was a lovely day. Then we painted our nails and talked until the ship started rocking really hard. We knew that around 9pm we would be entering the Bosporus, basically Istanbul, which has super rough waters. So we ran outside and got the best seat in the house on the front of the ship before anyone else got there! We stood outside for two hours watching Istanbul fly by. It looks so beautiful and I cannot wait to be there! Six days… The city was huge! It went all the way up some of the surrounding hills and then some! We passed under two huge LIGHTED bridges and barely cleared them! I’m talking like we missed the concrete by 5 feet! The city had fireworks (for us? Haha) and then we had our eardrums blown out when the ship honked…. Yikes. We saw the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, two of the most famous mosques in Turkey, right when we got in sight of the city! They are massive and looked gorgeous in the moonlight/ street lights! I basically just cannot wait for Turkey. Cannot wait!!!

But yeah, I’ve been researching Bulgaria and getting more and more excited. There seems to be a whole lot to do there- Archeological Museums, Byzantine churches, the Black Sea, forests of limestone, a water park called Aquapolis (like Acropolis? Get it?! So clever… but I won’t be going haha), and more! It’s gonna be a blast. Tattoo? Ahahah jkjk… maybeee. We shall see if we all get up the guts! Hahaha :)