Istanbul

Our first day started way too early with a wake up call of 4.30am. We arrived at heathrow with plenty of time to spare. Dead set BA needs to get the stuff sorted. We sat on the Tarmac for an hour because of a broken landing light and it needed to be fixed!
We finally got to Istanbul an thought we were pretty lucky to have got to immigration quite quickly despite being one of the last off the plane. Turns out your meant to have a visa and we had to line up in the huge line to get that. After paying 15 euro for a sticker we finally got through immigration, got our bags and found our travel talk transfer. We waited and waited for the mysterious mike who was meant to be arriving with us and would be in our transfer. After waiting for half an hour we ended up leaving without him. Turns out he had a bender the night before, arrived at heathrow 5 minutes after check in closed. Good one mike!!
The journey fromthe airport to our hotel was... Interesting. Istanbul reminds me of KL, crazy traffic with constant beeping, streets littered with run down buildings, massive billboards advertising everything and anything. At one stage we almost got run over by a tram!

We walked around a little near our hotel which was great. Had a look in some souvenir shops that sell Turkish rugs, shishas, pottery and jewellery. I wentto buy a post card and the man gave it to me for free! The Turks are really nice.

After a welcome meeting for our tour to explain the trip, what we will need, what to expect etc etc, we headed off to dinner. The restaurant was underground in a converted old water resivior. Turkish gypsies (funnily enough dressed in suits and not at all what I expected of gypsies) played some tradition Turkish music. Our guide told us they were crap haha. All I could think of was borat "you do not fool me gypsie" hahahaha.

So my first impression of turkey is pretty good. Loving the different country and culture! So excited for the rest ofthe trip!!

Packing

I am so excited for our impending departure to turkey on Saturday.

Mitch and I have booked a 15 day tour starting and ending in Istanbul with a special stop to be in Gallipoli for anzac day.

I’ve been looking at the weather forecasts and its looks like we will get good sunny weather but will be between a cool 12-20 degrees. Bummer. I was hoping for extreme hot weather.

This leaves the impending question of.. What Do I Pack?

Packing is probably my least favourite thing about a holiday, actually I lie, UNpacking is my least favourite thing. But packing before a holiday stresses me out because I never know what to pack, how much to take, what I should leave behind. After all my trips so far I pretty much have packing down to a T now. I work out outfits, which shoes can go with which outfits and I keep it to a minimum and avoid over packing. It seems to work well, but then I always end up regretting not packing a certain top, dress or shoes.

For the past 10 months we have been using backpacks as our luggage, which is easy but I also struggle with carrying them and usually want to dump the bag and burn it all, so taking the least amount of clothes possible to lighten the load is what I have been trying to perfect.

This trip, I don’t know how it’s going to be possible. My warmest jacket is my thickest and most space taking, I’ll need an abundance of warm clothes for sleeping out under the stars before the dawn service on anzac day, but then I’ll also need some clothes suitable for 20 degree weather, and also some more clothes for those wishful days its going to be quite warm. Then there is the night time clothes I need to work out!

How it’s possible for a girl to fit this in one backpack and stick to 20kg is beyond me!

(I forgot to mention within this backpack and 20kg I need to fit a towel and a sleeping bag)

Hopefully I’ll be able to do a sneaky and pack a few extra things into mitchs bag when he’s not looking…fingers crossed he wont mind.

Where I have been

I found a website that tracks the countries you have been. So I spent my boring afternoon at work finding the best map.
I though it was pretty cool and it calculated the percentage of the worlds countries I have been... 10%. thats it! after all these countries I have only seen 10% of the world!

Australia
Thailand
Malaysia
Hong Kong
China
England
France
Monaco
Vatican City
Italy
Spain
Portugal
Germany
Austria
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Netherlands
Croatia
United States

Thats only 10% of the world!

By the end of the year I hope to have added

Greece
Morocco
Czech Republic
Hungary
Iceland

Anyone keen to donate towards the 'Lyndal's Travel Fund' is more than welcome. I wont deny you the privilege!

Borough Market

Today we ventured to Borough market. One of London's biggest food markets situation right at London Bridge. They sell everything from fruits and vegetables to homemade cakes and skinned rabbits. (Skinned rabbits.. gross I know)

It's pretty cool to look around at all the stalls of the Jubilee and Green market section, selling the variety of gourmet international foods. Homemade cakes and slices that get the tastebuds watering instantly, a mix of cheeses that actually has a nasty scent that is now imbeded in my nostrils, fresh made curries in massive woks. I loved to look at it all... although trying to actually look at anything is struggle. I dont do well in crowds and just end up getting angry so by the end of being there for about half an hour I was over it and needed to get out.

The food actually looks amazing and I would have loved to have tried alot of it, but lining up with the rest of the hundreds of people who are trying to get the food aswell is a mission. I started lining up to get a baguette for lunch and in the 10 minutes I waited in line I moved about a metre and still had another 5 metres to go. I ended up giving up and got a hot dog from a mr whippy type van haha.

All in all it was a pretty fun day. I'd definitely advise going there earlier in the day when its not so busy so you dont have to compete with other couple of hundred hungry tourists trying to get some of the delicious food.