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Just got to Istanbul, got a hotel room, tomorrow we go to Topkapi Palace. More to come.

So, what I did in the last almost 2 weeks, fast forward:

1. I visited Ankara (especially Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’ Mausoleum – Anit Kabir). Take a Turkish person with you to tell you about everything you see. It is interesting to see in their eyes what they feel for Ataturk. We don’t have the same kind of historic figure in Romania and I think that some of the patriotic feelings the Turks have are there especially because it is so much easier to feel closeness to a person in history than to a undefined concept like a country.

2. I visited almost every shopping mall in Ankara. These people, here, are crazy about malls: they eat there, they spend their time there, they shop there… What the hell is wrong?

3. I was the trainer in a sort of “Blogoree Workshop” ( ) I had for people here, a more basic one than the ones I have in Romania (the audience was different), but it was a great workshop for me (I hope it was the same for the attendees). The title of the workshop? “Basic Use of the Internet”. I talked about Firefox (best browser), about search engine operators, about feeds (what they are, where to find them and how to use them). Quite basic, right? Well, not so when you really get to it.

Other than that, some business opportunities came my way and, who knows, I might visit Turkey earlier than I expected (business not being the only reason).

I will get in details later on, because I have lots of photos and, more, I have to tell you about traffic here and their suicidal pedestrians. I thought traffic in Bucharest was bad… trust me, that is nothing compared to Ankara and, from what they are saying, Istanbul is worse (though I will be there from Monday to Wednesday).

First bad thing: no internet. It wasn’t working. But Yucel, one of my friends here, came to help and in 30-60 minutes, the most, everything was ok and we were connected. We checked our emails, and since everybody we knew in Ankara was busy, we decided to take a plunge on our own and visit the surroundings of our apartment, to know where we can find things to buy. We needed cables for the cameras, a map, food and more.

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So we finally went out to find a place to eat. And after around a hour of walking, we finally decided on this place, on a corner of a fairly busy street. We went in, we said Hello!, somebody came that actually understood English and even spoke it quite ok. So, we ordered some chicken (I don’t really like lamb, so I try to avoid it): chicken shish and chicken casserole. Great food, I have to tell you. Finally, after eating everything, we left and, while outside, took some pictures of the establishment, to tell people it’s worth stopping there (we also have the address, of course). Well, the surprise came there: they saw us taking pictures and called us in to take pictures of the cook, of the kitchen, of the owner… The result? My cousin got a job, as you can see in the pictures below.

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After that, while looking for the map, we found a guy in a bookstore that intends to travel around the World, too. We will meet for a drink sometime next week.

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Yesterday was a busy day in Ankara, since there was a demonstration against unbanning of the head scarves for women in Universities. We wanted to get there, but when we reached the location, at around 4pm, everything was already finished. Finally, we took some more pictures, we got a map of the city and we returned home. We were quite tired (I was also feeling the 17 hours drive and the fact that I didn’t sleep too much the day before) so we just stayed in, got in touch with our families at home, worked on some of our websites (this included) and we went to sleep.

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Today, we will go around the city. So, more pictures to come.

We (me and my cousin) left Romania at 6am – after only 2 hours of sleep -, reached Bulgaria at 7am and started the trip through a country that scared me to death last time I drove there. This time, though, I had no problems whatsoever (if we don’t include the snow in the mountains). We reached the Turkish border at 1pm. Because I already knew what to do, I went and bought the visas, I even helped the custom worker to translate to a Romanian guy there that he needed some documents to get to Turkey (problem solved quickly with the use of a fax machine). So, we entered Turkey at around 2pm.

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Now, the adventure started: our phones were not working. So we were unable to communicate to our friends in Ankara that we will be there, but we might be quite late. We weren’t too worried about it since we thought we can buy a prepaid Turkish card at a gas station along the way (common thing in Romania). Well, wrong: no gas station in 200km had a prepaid SIM card for sale. More, no gas station allowed us to make a call in Turkey. We already started to get worried, since it was almost obvious that we would be late. So, at some point, I thought I saw a shopping mall outside of the highway and just went there. Bad luck, though: it was a kids store. And, even worse, nobody spoke English. And, since all I know in Turkish would have made those people either kill me with stones (Turkish men) or madly fall in love with me (Turkish women), we really had a problem. Well, guess what, the girl at the counter, though she didn’t understand too much, understood from my gestures that I want to make a phone call to Turkey (I showed her the number) so she called a guy that spoke English and allowed me to use his phone. Even more, he actually came with us to buy a prepaid card from a village not far away and stayed with us until we could call somebody. Thanks, Yavuz, you really helped us. If you ever come to Bucharest, send us an email or give us a call

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Finally, one hour late, but with a working phone in our hands, we continued our trip. One more thing, though. When Yavuz heard we want to get to Ankara in 4 hours, he started laughing telling us it will take us not 30 minutes to cross Istanbul, but at least 2 hours: we would be there at the rush hour peak, when people would leave Istanbul (it was Friday, after all). That would make us not an hour late, but at least 3. Not good news.

So, we got to Istanbul in about an hour. And what a sight: lights everywhere, cars everywhere… Unfortunately, because we were already late, we didn’t stop to take any pictures, but we will stop in Istanbul at least one day. Anyway, it took as 2 hours to pass Istanbul. On a highway that had 6-9 lanes. That was mad.

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Finally, at 11 pm we entered Ankara (the wrong way, which made us wait another 30 minutes to meet with our friends). At 12:20 am on Saturday, we were at our designated apartment for the next 2 weeks. We got the all-wanted sleep.

First day, in the next post.

Yesterday I needed to prepare my resume (no, I am not getting a job!!!!! ) so I made a list of the countries I want to visit in 2008. Here is the list, that can be subject to changes, in a somewhat chronological order:

Turkey (Istanbul – Ankara) – I’ll be there starting with the 8th of February
Switzerland (Geneva) – I will go at the Geneva Auto Show for a week, at the beginning of March (with blogger passes!!!)
Finland (Turku) – JCI European Congress, at the beginning of June
Austria – August
Germany – September
France – October (including a visit to the Paris Auto Show)
India – November (at least a week, JCI World Congress, 2008)
Thailand – the rest of the year, until January 2009, on the beach, drinking MaiTai’s and blogging

I might also visit Spain (Madrid) and, if I get there, I will go to Portugal, to visit my friend Filipe Carrera, from JCI Portugal.

So, quite a itinerary, wouldn’t you think?

I will continue it in 2009, of course, if anybody can make me leave the Ko Phi Phi beach (with Internet by satellite)

One of my readers suggested that if I choose to go to Austria I should not forget to visit the city of Melk.

Library and Abbey

Situated about 150km from Vienna, one the bank of the Danube, with a great scenery (see the photos below), Melk is not really part of the usual tourist path, from what I can see, but it really has some incentives: first of all, here you can find Europe’s oldest library. The library is part of the Stift Melk, a massive baroque Benedictine abbey, with quite a history behind it.

The abbey was founded in 1089, the library was part of a school founded in the 12th century, a lot of manuscipts being actually produced there. The abbey you can see today was built between 1702 and 1736.

Now, there still is a school there, with approx. 900 students (maybe I can take my master’s degree there )

An interesting thing is that Umberto Eco, in his famous novel “The name of the Rose”, named one of the characters “Adso von Melk”, as a tribute to the abbey and its library.

Usually, when I go somewhere, I try to visit a lot of locations, both cultural and less cultural (well, can we call EuroDisney cultural? ), but Melk is also attractive to me because I intend to live several days in locations that are not important tourist locations (like Vienna or Salzburg), to get a taste of the way people with a different cultural background live day to day. And, who knows, hotels there might be a lot cheaper. So, if they have wireless, Melk, here I come

P.S.: I almost forgot, there is also a castle there. Do you know similar places I should go to? Small cities with great history? Not in Austria necessarilly.

Pictures below, after the jump.

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So, in order to celebrate my little adventure, I made a list with subway networks so complicated that make me wonder: if I managed to get lost in a network so small (like Bucharest’s), what will happen to me in London or New York???

Here is Bucharest’s:

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Below you can see the maps of subway networks in Berlin, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo.

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source of Bucharest and Berlin images, flicker images have credit in the gallery

The only thing that actually makes me smile lately is that the year comes to an end and that next year I will start the adventure of my life so far: going around the World.

So, first stop: Austria. I’ve never been there, but heard a lot of great things about it. And some pictures I have found around the internet show me it is true (click on the photos to see them bigger).

I also have a full set of photos of Viena from a very good friend (ro only) which I will add to the site in the days to come.

So, what do YOU, the ones that had the pleasure of going to Austria, suggest I visit?

I have found a great set of photos about Romania. I’ve added them to this site’s Photo Gallery, so go HERE to see them, it’s worth it.

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