stuck!

we were planning on leaving istanbul this morning and venturing southwards to the nect town in turkey, but instead we’re stuck here (heh, not a bad place to be stuck though!!). 11 days from now, when we leave turkey, we’re plannig on going to syria next. the problem is that you cant just get a visa for syria at the border like most countries… instead you have to apply for a visa at a syrian embassy (or by mail). well, the only syrian embassy in turkey is here in istanbul, so we have to try and get this visa before we leave the city. of course, we didnt realize this till yesterday, and it’s the weekend, so we cant do anything till monday, and even then it will probably take at least a day to get the visa. so until then, we’re just gonna chill here.

we were feeling extremely lazy today, so we really didnt do much. we just went down to Taksim, which is this super popular and crowded shopping district full of stores, restaurants, bars etc. for some reason, i’ve become all interested in history over the last couple of weeks. considering just how much the middle east is in the news lately, and the fact that we’re going there soon, it’s pretty sucky that i actually really dont know too much about it. i really want to read about it’s history and find out how it came to be as it is. not only that, but considering that i’m jewish, i really know virtually nothing about israel and it’s conflict w/ palestine other than the absolute basics. if i’m gonna understand these countries that i’m traveling to, i need to get a little more info than i get from just seeing some sights and sampling the local cuisines. so, my main goal in Taksim today was to find some books. in the end, i bought Middle East, a brief history of the last 2000 years by Bernard Lewis and From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. let’s hope they’re good!!

so, other than just shopping around, we really didnt do much else, so i guess that’s it!

*v