The New Year! 2013. Wow. I've never started the new year in a different country other than America. First time for everything I guess right? 

ANYWAYS... 

So I went on this amazing journey for winter vacation… 3 countries in just 10 days. THREE COUNTRIES IN TEN DAYS! Sounds fantastic already, right?!

Eh, amazing isn’t really the word for it… it definitely was an experience I never thought I’d have and each stop had its own unique beautiful perk and history and food, etc. I won’t ever forget, but THREE countries in TEN days AND on a budget??

Here is what I saw, tasted, heard, and experienced on this trip plus some notes I took on my phone while we were away… things I wanted to be sure not to forget or just caught my eye or even taste buds.

Stop #1: Tbilisi, Georgia.

My two volunteer friends, Kate & Debra, and I took a marshutni (van) ride from a village up north of Armenia all the way to Tbilisi, Georgia. What was supposed to be a 3-4 hour ride turned out to be about 6-7 hours because one, we had to take a longer route to Georgia to avoid the massive amount of snow that had fallen the night before, and two, once we got to the border the van apparently had to have chains on its tires before we could cross and… well… let me tell you, whatever those things were that they were trying to put on our tires were NOT chains… it was like a bundle of wire and rope, some chain, I even saw some duct tape. All the men in the van of course get out to try and help while all the women stayed in watching them put this thing on our tires. At one point we thought we had it, started to drive over the borderline, and SNAP! one falls off and the others are just making a terrible noise. The border control takes one finger, points it back towards the other side, and we start to back-up the van back to Armenia. A few more times of this and we made it through!

iPhone Note #1 = Going through the border control… get to the passport guy, he gives me back my passport and says “Ohio…” I say “No no. I’m from San Francisco. Thank you. Bye.” I walked away confused and later figured maybe that’s how they say “hello” or “thank you” in Georgia or maybe he just had a relative or friend in Ohio and thought I might know the person. I get back to my girls, tell them what happened, and we figured out that maybe he was trying to say “hello” to me in JAPANESE!! Haha oops. 

iPhone Note #2 =

Question = If the marshutni (van) stops in the middle of the street… who or what do you think is crossing the street?

Answer? = PIGS! A family of PIGS! J

So we finally make it to Tbilisi, get out of the van, and realize, these people aren’t speaking English OR Armenian to us…. What?! We got so used to being able to communicate with our new language abilities that we totally forgot what it was like to be so hopeless in communication again. This old man comes up to us asking if we need a taxi and instead of speaking to him in English, which is what should be my first instinct, I speak to him in Armenian and didn’t even realize it! He understands me, looks shocked, but understands me, tells me he is also Armenian, and we get into his taxi haha how useful! We get to our hostel (Envoy Hostel), which by the way is the best hostel I’ve ever been to, both in Armenia and Georgia, got ourselves comfortable and headed out.

iPhone Note #3 = We find out “mama” is “father” in Georgian. It’s the only language that has it switched. How confusing right?! I can’t tell you what “mother” is in Georgian, but look it up if you’re curious haha.

iPhone Note #4 = So I found out how to say “hello” here… it’s NOT “ohio,” but rather “gamajouba.” Haha felt like an idiot when I sincerely thought that maybe “ohio” was a word in their language and not a man trying to say “hello” to me because I’m apparently “Japanese.” Haha “GAMAJOUBA!” “HELLO!”

her favorite statue on the walking tour and my new boyfriend! 

Our hostel had a free walking tour for all of its guests… cool right?! I sure thought it was J Our tour guide was this girl from Armenia so she gave us a lot of Georgian history and related it to Armenian history as well, which made it that much more exciting AND in fluent English!  

tiny hidden waterfall behind our hostel our new Armenian friend took us to 

iPhone Note #5 = They have “transparent police stations” made of glass to say that the police are transparent and don’t hide anything or do secret stuff behind the Georgians.

iPhone Note #6 = Portrait of Jesus in the churches… they say that if you are true faithful person then Jesus will look at you and if you’re not, he will look away … but really I think it depends on where you stand…

There is always a chair for the priest guy in the middle of the church in order to say he is available to everyone? something like that. And then their cross is interesting... comes from an old story about a man who tried to make the first cross out of a tree but the branches he tied were slightly wimpy so bent downwards as such. Am I right? I might totally be screwing that up. Let me know if I'm wrong! 

iPhone Note #7 = I don’t know why they do, but they do à they have a “George W. Bush Street” that goes to the airport. Every taxi driver we talked to that found out we were American would say, “Do you know we have a George W. Bush Street?”

iPhone Note #8 = Foods we ate in Georgia! Khinkali (which you have to eat with your hands if you want to eat it properly in Georgia), imeruli, khachapuri, aljabpuni salad, lobiyani… and there was much more I forgot to write down.

Last but not least we went to the sulfur baths. No wait, we went to The King’s Bath like they call it. We met up with two other volunteers who happened to be dropping by Georgia as well and had an hour to ourselves in a private sulfur bathhouse. The water turned all my silver rings an odd brown color, which apparently rubs off later from natural hand oils. Overall it was nice and relaxing and made our skin feel super smooth and silky !!

The King's Bath. Sulfur baths!

Stop #2: Istanbul, Turkey

One taxi ride straight to the airport and we were on our way to Turkey.

iPhone Note #1 = “Welcome to paradise!” It was written EVERYWHERE around Turkey, in the airport, on billboards, any tourist area or restaurant, etc… have you all heard of this being a “Turkey thing” before? I sure haven’t and I still don’t really understand it, but I guess Turkey = Paradise. Haha.

Again another nice hostel, The Orient International Hostel in Turkey, was in the middle of all the sites we wanted to hit during our TWO-DAY stay in Turkey.

iPhone Note #2 = Hagia Sofia.

iPhone Note #3 = Blue Mosque à prime minister came and there was a crowd of police like no other. Prayer is out loud so everyone on the streets can listen, stop, and pray together. Everyone stands OUTSIDE the church. Not inside. It’s a “Call and Answer.”

1. All the police lining up for this dude. 2. Outside Blue Mosque. 3. The fountains where they have to wash their feet in the freezing cold before they enter. 

We explored everything by foot and map, and let me tell you, we walked MILES. I swear it. We’ve also had to make so many stops because the people there really try to bring you in any way possible: pulling your arm, cheap deals, speaking English, speaking Korean, and most of all, FLIRTING.

iPhone Note #4 = Pick-Up Lines!

Pick-up Line #1: “The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen is here to my right.”

Pick-up Line #2: “Hey lady, look up at me. I’m so handsome. … Really.”

Pick-up Line #3: “Hey cutie, right over here. Darling? No? Princess. Princess.”

Pick-up Line #4: Best one was towards Debra who is older than Kate and me à “Lady I know you can afford this carpet. I can tell.”

SPICE MARKET. Bought all my teas and spices for friends here :) 

We made a friend in the Spice Market. He was real kind, spoke to us in English because he apparently lived in New York City for a while. Was all excited to see Americans haha 

iPhone Note #5 = I thought I was reading “Faith” everywhere and thought “wow, that’s kinda cool” haha oops it was “Fatih” which means “Turkey.”

mmmmmmm... YUMMM.... best baklava ever. super oily but for a once in a lifetime thing it was DELISH.

Went to the Bizarre and bought myself some handmade candles, beautiful scarves for myself and my mom, various teas, etc. By the way they have gorgeous candles/lights everywhere in various shapes, colors, and designs in masses on the ceiling, along the walls, EVERYWHERE. So eye-catching and calming to look at. Decided that I would definitely have a room like it once I get my own house. Can’t wait!

place where I bought my candles and fish restaurant we ate at for lunch where they showed us the platter of seafood we can choose from fresh from the Black Sea.

iPhone Note #6 = Palm trees. Why are there so many?! And how in the world do they survive this cold weather?! There’s snow and ice … hmm .

Last thing on our list before we left for our third country? TURKISH BATH. For about twenty dollars we got soaped, washed, soaped & “bubbled,” then scrubbed til we were completely red, washed again, then massaged, streeeeeetched, and then rinsed. All of that was done on this big warm round marble platform by these big women in bikinis! After all that we sat in the sauna for as long as we could, dunked ourselves in cold water, rinsed again, and it was all over. What an experience! And I must say a great way to end our two days in Turkey.

Our sketchy alleyway looking bathhouse. Really wasn't though. I would love to have another Turkish Bath. 

Stop #3: Athens, Greece

A few more hours and GREECE! That’s all I could about from the taxi ride to the airport and in the plane… Greece was always one of my dream places to visit, especially after Mama Mia and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants J

We arrived in Greece, took the metro for an hour, walked outside all excited to see our first real glimpse of Athens and… GHETTO. The only correct word I could think of to describe what I saw. This was supposed to be GREECE! But man was it ghetto. I felt like I was in a San Francisco or Oakland alleyway! And do you want to know what my iPhone Note was for Greece?? I only wrote one. ONE. Here it is:

iPhone Note #1 = ghetto Christmas tree.

We went to the center of Athens because everyone said there would be some decorations and festivities for Christmas and most of all, the main Christmas tree. You know what we saw?? A regular big tree with some lights thrown on it. THROWN. Not even nicely placed with ornaments or anything, but just a regular tree, not even in the middle of the square, with lights thrown on it. GHETTO. Haha.

Street performances. Street food. Street graffiti. Things like that. 

There was graffiti everywhere, trash, stray cats and dogs, smelly alleyways, old buildings and even churches meshed in with new high-rises in the city. I think I may have expected too much and just didn’t realize that the Greek Islands were something completely different from Athens and the rest of Greece.

We get to our hostel, which looked fairly nice and comfortable online, and … can you guess? GHETTO. Our room was cold with no heater so they hand us this tiny little one-person heater to plug in our room but the light from it is so bright we could hardly sleep comfortably. I ask for three extra blankets so we can all have two to sleep with and they don’t have enough. We end up sleeping cold and uncomfortable, and right the next morning we walked out of there looking for a new hostel.

We get a hotel, which was the same price as the hostel, closer to the center of Athens, with our own bathtub, TV, and HEATER. We all took a long bath cause it’s not easily accessible for us back in Armenia and man was it great. Just wonderful.

4 days in Greece. Four days including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I admit, it was pretty tough... no family, none of my best friends, none of my traditional foods and Christmas festivities... it was tough but we made it through together, the three of us.  

The day after Christmas we got on the metro, got on a boat, and made it to Aegina, the closest island to Athens. It was no Santorini or Mykonos, but it was better than nothing. I guess once I get married I'll have to make my husband take me to Santorini just like Lina found her boo in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants hehehe :) :) 

Aegina Island. There were at least some white houses with blue windows. Nothing like the real islands but I took a picture with all the ones that were similar! :p 

Our last view of Greece before heading back to Armenia. Not too bad, right? I would say it was a great way to end our ten day three countries trip during our Peace Corps service.