Prague and Istanbul

A few days ago, I returned from a whirlwind trip to Prague and Istanbul. Originally, the idea had been just to go to Istanbul and meet up with my mother, but after realizing that I had extra vacation days to burn and that there were no flights from Makdo to Istanbul on the day that I wanted to go, I decided to tack a 4-day stay in Prague onto my trip.

Prague
Prague was an adventure for me because it was my first trip alone. I went there alone, I did all my sightseeing alone, I ate all my meals alone... and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I stayed in a great hostel, Sir Toby's, which had nice rooms and lots of friendly travelers to chat with over a pilsner. I also found a vegan buffet. Prague is a beautiful city, but completely overrun with tourists. I highly recommend going in the off-season.

Istanbul
My mother and I spent about a week in Istanbul. It was plenty of time to do everything that we wanted to do without having to feel rushed. Also, the ten words of Turkish that I know came in rather handy. Istanbul is also a beautiful city, and was probably not as overwhelming to me (and Mom, for that matter) as it might have been if I hadn't lived in Macedonia. Macedonia and Turkey share a number of cultural traits (the Ottoman empire included Macedonia, after all) that might strike some visitors as disconcerting, annoying, or simply different, but I have come to accept these traits as part of life here and have figured out how to accept or even enjoy them. That freed us up to enjoy Istanbul rather than freak out about the cultural differences.

I'll write more later.... There are some people here at the NGO center who need the computers to do some REAL work!