In the Land of the UYANS

So let's start this off with a story: a fateful day somewhere in the ages of 11-13 (like many others, I've blocked out the majority of those years due to severe trauma), I met a fantastic human being named Deniz, who has blessed me with years of laughter and friendship and, debatably just as importantly, years of delicious Turkish delicacies. Both her parents hailed from Turkey, which meant, more often than not, a trip to her house included eating baklava, tabbouleh, and just about anything else you'd expect to find in Turkey. I've heard countless stories of her adventures in Turkey, and always knew one day I'd have to visit to see the glory for myself.

And let me tell you, the homeland of the famed Uyans did not disappoint. I mean, the first thing we heard when we got there Thursday night was a prayer at the Blue Mosque. Everything was just so interesting!!! This was my first time out of 100% Christian territory and it wowed me to the core. Like the Haiga Sofia, which has been both a church and a mosque. Religion is such a staple in so many people's lives, and seeing a completely different one in every day life was so eye-opening, to sound like a complete cliche. When we were at the Grand Bazaar around noon, many of the shops started to close and slowly, the small halls started to fill up with men facing the same direction, starting to pray. I wish there was an inconspicuous way to snap a picture of that, but alas we all failed.

Haiga Sofia

Dome of the Blue Mosque 

where Europe and Asia collide!!!!

As you all may be aware as well, the day we got there was also the start of the Turkish Twitter ban of 2014. Now if you know me at all, you know that Twitter is by far my favorite form of social media, and I use it to keep tabs on the shenanigans my friends get themselves into when I'm not around as well as the news from around the world. Naturally, I went into a little bit of a shock without it, but I did make it through the weekend in one piece. The ban also calls attention to the politics of Turkey; we managed to see two political rallies, and one for the political party of the Prime Minister that began the ban in light of alleged corruption tapes that were leaked via Twitter.

four days of this 

Political party flags

We (Lindsay, Lauren and I) also managed to meet quite the cast of characters around the city. Two guys living in Scotland, one which was BORN IN RHODE ISLAND JUST LIKE ME (I take too much pride in this, but he's like the second person I've ever met that was actually born there. We were born at the same hospital too!), Andy from Minnesota who went to St. Olaf and whom I scared, a guy who volunteered at the Sochi Olympics and insisted on wearing his bright volunteer swag everywhere. We also befriended three men who worked at a restaurant; through this friendship, we managed to snag a free bottle of wine, shots, hookah, and baklava. Oh and a guy who's literally just bouncing around the Middle East, while doing everything online (including church!). We deemed him the most interesting man in the world, because there's not a country he hasn't been to with a bizarre story to go with it.

That about does it for Turkey!! My next stop is...well, Paris, to finally this marathon I've been talking about for ages. This also means that I GET TO SEE MY FAMILY IN A WEEK, and I convinced my mom to go to Amsterdam with me so the next blog post will be equally exciting (assuming I do not die during the marathon, which is a slight possibility)

until next time mes chous,


Sarah
(no selfie today because I SHOCKINGLY didn't take any in Turkey)

to the left, to the left

HI GUYS!!!!!!! I bet you thought I forgot you; I did not. I just barely had to time to breathe the month of February, let alone publish a blog post! I went on "winter break" and MAN OH MAN do I have stories for you.

So the title of this blog has two meanings: one, I SAW BEYONCE if you somehow didn't know this (sorry if I was/am annoying about that but I mean come on) and second because the three islands I visited all drove on the left which consequently led to me almost dying 261894 times before I got used to it and now that I'm back in France, I'm back to almost dying because I look the wrong way still...my life is hard, I know. SO DETAILS here we go!!! This will be long af, sorry in advance.

FIRST STOP on my island tour 2014 was the UK, London to be specific. This leg of the tour I've dubbed "Sarah's Fangirl Break" because along with Beyonce, I also went on a Harry Potter studio tour and saw the Parent Trap house and fangirled in general over London because I still love it more than most things in life.

SOoooo Harry Potter. Like the rest of us, I grew up with those books and obv have a LARGE emotional attachment to them. I of course had to make the pilgrammage to see the studios to be fully immersed in the movie magic. I was expecting to love it, but not as much as I did. There was just so much to see!!!!! My fave parts included the Great Hall, the Burrow, the Common Room, Dumbledore's Office, all the props, the wigs, the costumes...okay so like all of it. But what actually brought me to tears was seeing all the tiny children running around in robes and wands, enjoying the magic as much as I did. We had the priveledge of growing up with the stories and characters, but seeing these kids made me fully realize the huge impact the stories will continue to have on all of us wah. Oh and at the very end of the tour, there's a room with nothing but the giant mini model of Hogwarts and talk about a surreal place to be. Wowza. I counted, and I think I only cried like seven times, which I think is impressively low sooo yeah.

As you may remember, my friend Lindsay is studying in London and was once again a fantastic tour guide, only this time we went to much less sightseeing places and I got to feel like a real Londoner, away from the swarms of tourists that are everywhere you go--my favorite was Brick Lane, although I am sadly not nearly enough of a hipster to truly fit in there...

...and then Lindsay and I continued to the highlight of life, a Beyonce concert. You guys, I know you already know this, but if you ever, EVER get the chance to go on the floor at a Beyonce concert, do it. We made eye contact like three times and I almost cried, Jay Z came for Drunk in Love and I did cry, basically anything she did was tear-worthy. She's just such a phenom performer, it's awe-inspiring. I don't know how she does it, but I'm sure glad she does because wow I reaped the benefits. I wish I could go on, but I honestly don't have words to explain it.

After Beyonce, I was scheduled to leave London but I didn't really have a concrete plan of what to do. Naturally, I fulfilled one of my goals with the modern way of running to a ticketing counter and saying "give me the cheapest ticket you have!": SkyScanner. I SkyScanned for cheap flights out of London to a cool place I'd never been and ended up in Larnaka, Cyprus at 4 AM!

My plan was this: drop my bag off at my hotel and go to the beach to watch the sunrise. Sounds relatively easy, right? Well not really. I got to my hotel and they weren't open, so I was stuck with my bag to find the beach. A minor hiccup. My taxi driver told me how to get to the beach, but I of course walked the wrong way....so here I am, pretty lost in a weird country, at what is now 5:30 AM...I didn't know what to do, so I kept walking. I found the beach, but of course it was cloudy, so I couldn't see the sunrise. It had been spitting this whole time, but, stupidly, I wasn't that worried (even though I live in a Mediterranean climate...I should've seen what was coming next). There were a lot of old, Greek men running/swimming on the beach and when they saw me walking in the mist, they quickly ushered me to a changing house to sit down and avoid the rain. I knew (assumed) I'd be fine, but I humored them and sat for a while. I left the beach the way I came, confident I knew the way. HAHA nope, I got lost (again) and that spitting? Turned into a torrential downpour. I've never been so unintentionally wet in my life. I stumbled into the first open coffeeshop I came across (it was like 7:30 at this point, but I had found my way into residential Larnaka). There were three people there: three old men, of which only one could speak marginal English. We attempted to chat, he told me he once brought a FBI agent home with him (I think that's what he said at least) and by the time I had finished my coffee (okay so I spilled it all over myself), it was 8 AM and still pouring. The English speaker goes: "Okay, now I give you a ride back to your hotel"

Now, everyone knows the golden rule of life: do not get into cars with strangers. However, when it's 8 AM, pouring in a place with little drainage so there are puddles everywhere, and the most sleep you've gotten in two days is a bumpy four hours on a plane, all the golden rules and smart things your mother teaches you fall to the wayside. Away I dashed into his car--Larnaka isn't a very big town and I showed him a picture of the church right outside my hotel so I was confident I would be there in about five minutes.

Then he tried to kill me.

WOW KIDDING SORRY NOT FUNNY but he did take me to a weird church that was definitely not the one I showed him, claiming he thought it was...so there was definitely a moment of "haha Sarah, you're so stupid what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing get out of the car get out of the car" but luckily we pulled up to my hotel like three seconds later and I scurried inside. Miraculously, my room was ready so away I went to take a nap--er, eight hour sleep--before continuing my adventure.

The rest of my time in Cyprus passed much less eventful than me climbing into a car with a strange old man, as I'm sure my mother is ecstatic to hear (sorry for any near heart attacks I just caused).

My next stop was the very small, very delightful country of Malta! I got there via a HUGE plane--I think it might've been bigger than the one that brought me across the Atlantic in August. They had Frozen so I was obv a happy camper. The Malta airport is tiny (shocking) and I'm pretty sure that plane was maybe half the size of the whole airport. You had to walk onto the tarmac for all flights and it dwarfed all the other planes there.

During my stay in Malta, I completely fell in love with the island and that's largely thanks to the hostel I stayed at (sunny weather by the sea doesn't hurt anyone's case either). Seriously, if you ever find yourself lucky enough to go to Malta, stay at Hostel Malti and I promise you a good time. They greeted me by name and made me feel welcome and shit that's just amazing. A++++. I met so many interesting people from all over the world, and as a girl that loves traveling alone, that's always the best part!! I could go on forever, but I think you'd rather look at pictures of the sea, so here you go! I went swimming twice of course, and it was cold, but summer is just around the corner!! (ahhh I refuse to accept the fact that it's almost the middle of March).

WOW SORRY I hope you read that all!! I have a lot to say, apparently. Who knew I liked to talk, even if it's via the internet? I'm staying in Aix this weekend for the first time in what feels like forever and I couldn't be more excited to do so. On the bus from the airport last night I was so content with everything that I started tearing up a little (okay, so maybe I was listening to Beyonce too but whatever). My next trip is to Istanbul so that'll probably be a peak of life. Oh and in case you're wondering if I ever study, I took two midterms today so yes I guess I do a form of studying.

Kisses friends!!! until the next one,

Sarah and the sea and selfies = true love 

Sarah

Sarah Swings through a Sunny Switzerland

(Author's note: I wrote this before I went to London)
(Author's other note: I've always wanted to write author's note at the beginning of something. Makes me feel more legit than I am)


WOW can't believe it's taken me this long to actually write about my solo trip to Switzerland, which is currently my favorite place to travel in the world because even in the dreary month of February, it managed to completely steal my heart.

I initially flew into Zurich and spent my first two days there. It was sunny, windless and there was a river running right through the town so naturally I fell in love within .2 seconds of getting off the tram from the airport. I honestly don't know don't know how anyone gets anything accomplished there; I would marvel at the beauty of the city every five minutes instead of working. My days there consisted of walking, window-shopping and eating food from stands along the river in the sun. Side note: in Europe, the hot dogs come in the middle of baguettes so there's no chance of ketchup squirting out the bottom and staining your white pants (not speaking from experience I swear......). Probably one of the best inventions in the world and I really think America could learn from this, just sayin. At the hostel, I met two girls studying for the semester in Milan and they invited me out with them to a bar with a live band and no cover charge (thank goodness). That's one of the best things about traveling alone: you're very much inclined to talk to new people and you say yes to things you normally wouldn't because why not? There's nothing to lose/to hold you back so away we went! I accidentally left my phone at the hostels, so unfortunately I have no pictures to show but I swear it was really fun and whatever!

The next day, I took the train to the capital of Switzerland, Bern! I stumbled on a market five minutes into being there, and it was so much fun to wander the stalls, trying to chat with the vendors (I know absolutely no Swiss-German, which is the language of Switzerland and sometimes English was choppy so that was fun). It was sunny again and I went on the most glorious run along the Aare river, which took me to the zoo and through some woods. I was exhausted from the night before, and I had segments of a state swim meet to watch, so I went down to the hostel bar to grab a quick beer before turning in for the night. Well at the bar, I befriended a crazy, bald, enthusiastic about Switzerland

Italian man, a Finnish girl, and the bartender, a woman from Bulgaria who I kid you not, was the spitting image of Ursula from the Little Mermaid when she turns human to steal Eric from Ariel. Kinda creepy, but the three of them were really nice. Turns out that between the four of us, French was everyone's strongest language (weird, I know), so I chatted with them in French for awhile AND THEY TOLD ME MY FRENCH WAS FANTASTIC AND THEY THOUGHT I WAS FRENCH (maybe they were just being nice/maybe a little tipsy, who knows) but it made my LIFE ugh god bless.

My final day in Switzerland was hands down my favorite--I took yet another train through the gorgeous Swiss countryside to end in Lucerne, a town that my friend Julia calls "a fairy land" and she was absolutely correct. I don't even have words to describe it but I'll try: sun, the cleanest water that they actually had to make dirtier because the fish were dying (not real life), and the Alps towering on the opposite shore of the lake, framing the city in mountainy glory. I think I took close to a million pictures of them but I was in awe, okay?? Lucerne is also home to a wonderful friend from high school, Fiona. We survived Mr. Boyland together, and that is a bond that is just never broken because he is the worst. Honestly, it was beyond nice to see an old friend and chat about the stupid things we did at the infamous winter of 2010 raves, cast parties, what's different about Europe, what we miss from Madison, how great life is in general. She was kind enough to invite me over to dinner with her parents and I've learned that there is absolutely nothing better than homecooked meals with friends while traveling. And seeing old, familiar faces is always a plus.

So basically Switzerland stole my heart/breath and I plan on moving there probably one day yaaaayy. I'm going to London today and I'm going to see Beyonce on Sunday so I'm sorry...except no I'm not I'm really beyond excited. Fave city, fave lady, fave EVERYTHING because life is fantastic. YAAAYAYYY so by this time next week, or maybe Sunday, you'll have new things to read about!!! don't be too excited. Love you all.

peace n blessins, as always.