A group of us having a battle, i guess, it kind of just turned into people posing randomly, in front of the stadium in Greece where some important olympic games took place I believe and where the Greek Gods used to have races. 

Adam and I enjoying a beer at the bar one of the first nights in Athens. (Don't mind the size of the drink, let's just say I didn't need a big one ;) )

A group of us with the Parthenon in the background.

Adam, Sara and I drinking our Starbucks in the water of the Aegean sea on a 50 degree day. Our goal was to have Starbucks in every country but apparently they don't exist in Italy.

My Birthday!

Still my birthday! We got separated from the rest of the group somehow. Trying to keep 16 or so people together is very hard. Still had a great time!

Italia!

Some of you have been pestering me about an update and my class ended today so i finally have free time! and here we are. i am at my hostel in Venice as I write this, and I am having a great time! after getting past the nerves of travelling alone it has been simply wonderful! the beginning was rough, getting to venice with no knowledge except the address of my hostel. here is more of an update from the past couple weeks:


 rome was a lot of fun! i dont know if i like it so much as a city, its really busy all the time and by the end of the week we were running out of things to do. buut the second night there me and three other guys got upgraded to the apartment suite! it was soo big. so naturally we threw a party..there was also a group from indiana there so they joined us as well which was really fun. the public transportation there is really good though, and easy to use. the second to last day we went to an AS Roma soccer game and that was amazing. one of the best things of the trip in my opinion.. then we went to florence and i love florence! there is a river that wasnt too far from our hotel and it was very nice. though florence didnt treated me so well. i accidentaly left my suitcase at our hotel in rome, because there was a pile of suitcases for those who wanted to leave them there since we were returning for our last day. i didnt know i left it til we got here and so i had to wear sweatpants for the first two days and then luckily i borrowed someones jeans for the last 2 days. i still didnt have much else to change into. also, one night i went to an american bar with people to watch the football games, the first one started at 9 and the second one at midnight. so i only stayed for the first. but i had been so good about always having one hand on my wallet or having it in my front pocket. but this time, i had it in my jacket pocket but i took that off and so i had to put it in my sweatpants pocket, which apparently have very bad pockets. i went to the bathroom and 20 minutes later someone announces my name and returns my wallet, he said the security guard found it on the sink in the bathroom. luckily i got it back, but i opened it up and noticed all of my money was gone! all 80 euros of it. i had taken 120 out of the atm earlier that day and it is now all gone. but despite the misfortune i had a great time in florence and pisa when we went for the day! we also went to some city that i dont know the name of and i went on my first tandem bike ride. it is very tricky but that made it fun.


Peace,
Dusty

Pictures

This is a picture of the famous blue mosque. It is only a 10 minute walk from out hotel. It's one of 3000 mosques in Istanbul but it's the only one with 6 minarets (the tower things).

The 6 sophomores on the trip in front of a beautiful view that you can no longer see because we're in the way.

This was taken from the ferry I was on on my way to Asia. That ship right there is the kind that I was currently on with Asia in the background.

The next two photos are from the same place but it was my favorite place so I thought i'd put two. It was the Basilica Cistern (or the underground cistern). It was where they stored the water. The first picture to me looks like the belrog if about to come out of the darkness. This place was in used in a James Bond movie as well as an episode of the Bachelorette, not sure who cares about that last one.

 Here is an example, not the best, but still, of how people in Turkey park wherever they want. They just go up onto a sidewalk and I guess that's good enough.

My favorite picture. It was taken at the Archaeology museum.

Onward

so much for that morning post...i'm really bad at this. also, the pictures are hopefully coming! theyre on my computer, so half way there! I did make it over to Asia a couple days ago so i can now officially say ive been there! it was pretty much the same as the european side but the ferry ride over was quite wonderful! and only for 2 turkish lira which is just more than a dollar. Stuff is very cheap here, i've been getting meals for 4 or 5 lira, that still doesnt mean i havent spent a lot of money though. oops. bargaining or haggling is one of my favorite things to do here! i've discovered i'm quite good at it, except for my little experience today. the price was 50 and i said that was a lot for what i was getting and he looked me in the eye and said unhappily, "excuse me my american friend, this is a fixed price". some people don't like americans too much over here.

tomorrow, i am headed to Greece where where i will have no internet apparently, so unless i pay there will be no updates until I reach Rome on the 15th. I am very excited to move on, Istanbul is fun but we've done just about everything there is to do here and it's time to move on. It's rained the past 4 days here, hopefully Greece will bring much better weather.

onto gyros!

for those who didn't know, my email is sher0145@stthomas.edu
now you can email me! funfun.

Istanbul, Turkey

After a day here I thought I should let everyone know that I have arrived. it is now 7:30 in the morning, it's hard to sleep through the turkish chanting coming from all of the mosques. Istanbul is one interesting city, it is very third world which is weird because i have not spent time in anything like it before. The city itself is divided into 2 parts, the European part and the Asian part. the European part consists of 9 millions people and the Asian part a little over 4 million. this is crazy to think about seeing as how minneapolis and st. paul combined are somewhere around 6 thousand. my hotel is in the european part but on saturday we have a free day and a group of us are going to take a ferry to the black sea which is in Asia, just to say i have been there :)

The city is filled with mostly shops, restaurants, apartments and alleys. there is hardly no grass anywhere which is kind of depressing for me. oh and there are stray cats everywhere too. the most interesting thing for me to look at in this city is the driving. i cant get over how insane it is. they hardly have street signs and just go wherever they please. there will be a street barely big enough for one car but it is still not a one way, they just look and if it looks clear they go for it. watching our bus driver drive is amazing enough in itself. our tour guide even said, if it red for the cars and you are supposed to walk, always look because its up in the air whether a car will go anyways or not. they also park wherever they want to, they'll just ramp up onto the sidewalk and get out of the car. i have some interesting pictures of this.

the pictures will come later though! once i get some more taken.
-Dustin, reporting from Istanbul, Turkey.

Goodbye

Two days until departure: I have not started packing. It still does not seem real that I am about to leave the country for 7 months. I'm not sure it will hit me until I am on the plane but I must force myself to pack my bags.
where is the first destination you ask? Istanbul, Turkey. Wish me luck surviving the airstrikes!
next stop, Athens, Greece, where I will celebrate my 20th birthday. can't get much better than that.
The last stop of J-Term: Rome/Florence, Italy

For the next month I will be on my own, traveling around Europe, this will be a very interesting experience for me. more on this as I go though.

Finally, on February 22 my program in Freiburg starts, it is still a ways away so I don't have much detailed information but I will be sure to keep you updated.

That is all for now
first post, don't really know what im doing, i'm sure this is such an intriguing intro.
I hope they will get much more interesting
#followme