September 2024
Spt 3 Italy (Tuscany) 🍷🍝
We took a train with our grandparents and halfway through we switched to a bus in Chiusa and the bus stopped in a small town in Tuscany called Montepulciano (Monto-pulch-ano) . We went from there and took a taxi to our apartment. This apartment has a stunning view.
We then went to the town square where my mom was obsessed over the medici artifacts. Then I had the best pizza of my life. After dinner I took my mom hostage and begged for gelato.
Sep 4 Italy, the land of wine tasting
Today we walked to a church near the bottom of town and took in the breathtaking Tuscan countryside. It really looked like we were in a painting. We then ate lunch and went on a wine tour. At first I was not excited because I’m a kid and kids can’t have wine. But a wine tour is way more than wine. We started in an ancient wine cellar and walked around as they explained the history of this wine industry. Starting all the way back in 500 BCE.
We then learned about the differences between wine aged in one type of wood barrel vs the other, which made no sense to me. We then walked upstairs into a wine tasting room where they gave me grape juice and a charcuterie board. I loved the whole experience 11/10
(A very large wine barrel)
Sep 5 Somehow my parents found a hike
I woke up and went to a nearby grocery store to get a tasty breakfast and a cappuccino to share with my mom. After that we started to get our hiking boots on to hike between this town (Montepulciano) and to a nearby town 11 kilometers away, this one is called Monterollonico (I don’t know how to pronounce it). We hiked in what looked like a painting for 4 hours. We took many stops to see viewpoints we also saw loads of what we thought were blackberrys so… I ate 43 of them hope that they are blackberries. The hike was tiring so we all took nice cold showers and then ate dinner with our grandparents.
Sep 7 Today and yesterday
We had a short travel day in which we took a bus and a train and now we are in Rome. When we got back we were all sweaty and exhausted. Evian with my moms parents we took a golf cart tour, my mom made a huge mistake by at the beginning asking to see “All of Rome” which would literally take centuries. But at last he took us on a 5 hour tour that was meant to be 2 hours after our long travel day. I loved the tour. It was mainly going around ancient Rome like the outside of the coliseum and “The circus Maximus” which was epic. After the long tour he had a surprise for us, he got us tickets to go inside the Pantheon!! Wow that is amazing, we went inside and it was even bigger than the Duomo in Florence. It was stunning. When we got back we Collapsed on the beds and fell asleep.
The next morning we woke up and ran to the bus stop to catch a bus to the inside of the colosseum. When we got there we had it all to ourselves, It was magical. Twenty minutes later it was packed shoulder to shoulder and chaos everywhere. After that we went to palatine hill. The old NYC of Rome where we saw so many budge ruins like 10x taller than my dad, and we are in Europe the land of tiny houses.
Roman spa day 🧖🏻💅
No I did not have a spa day but you know who did have one ancient Romans! The baths of Caracalla are ancient Roman baths that had running water. This is not the only crazy fact about them; the water also changes temperature based on which room someone is in. There was a hot water room (like a spa) and a cold water room to use after workouts. These structures were massive, 40 meters high and 62 acres wide. That is huge, like 9 YMCAs smashed together. They had made changing rooms, workout rooms and even pools.
The baths were not meant to just be for bathing, they were also a meat up spot for Roman’s to go like a bar for us today. We walked around and saw amazing mosaics and maps. Scientists predicted that they had water features like waterfalls running down into the pool. These pools were not designed specifically to be sanitary, people would intentionally pee in the pools because urine has skin softening properties yuck. Even though I did not have a spa day, I hope the Romans enjoyed theirs.
Wednesday sept 10
After an adventure in central Italy we had to say goodbye to my grandparents and hello to Greece 🇬🇷.
We hopped on a plane to Greece and on that plane I felt off, I got a little bit emotional because I have always thought that this moment will be in the future, like a month before I go to literal Everest base camp always seems like a future goal. But the future is now, as I hopped on to a plane to Greece I … Waited on the runway for approximately 4 hours, for a 1 and a half hour flight! We got off the plane, picked up our rental car and drove for 3 hours to a town called Kalabaka. That has rock formations coming out of the ground in straight cliff edges, this town had barely any tourists and it was full of locals doing their normal thing. We did a hike up to a monistary up on the hill and it was hot and hard but we persisted. We finally made it and enjoyed the view hiked then down.
We grabbed the car and drove up to a sunset view point we got our very own spot in the front because It was just 17:00 at sunset was at 19:00 so we played games and wanted. So when sunset came we looked across the horizon and saw almost a mosaic of beauty, each detail a color palette of pastels and neons, the silhouette of the jagged peaks in a mighty sunset in which the sun had not just fallen but dramatically slid behind thy clouds. Sorry I’m reading Shakespeare.
Sept 15 🇬🇷
I’m in Athens right now, the town of old architecture, Greek food and tourism. We are staying in a cozy hostel that is themed like a circus. MB and I are on elevated lofts with floating stairs leading up to them. Every night they have activities that I may or may not be able to participate in like some nights are movie nights others are club hopping and cocktail parties, (I’m excited for movienight). Yesterday we went up to see the Parthenon and the Erechtheion which are towering over the whole city. We finished the car and train ride late so when we arrived in Athens it was the perfect time to go up and see them. The evening light on the old stones is stunning. We then had food at a good Kebab place with really cheap food. We then went back to the hostel.
Sept 15 part amazing 🇬🇷
Our family did a slow wake up after staying up very late. We woke up and ran to a bakery to get breakfast, after that we went to a museum about the Acropolis that had tons of information about their statues and architecture.
We spent a very long time at this giant museum. We also found out that a large number of the ruins that belong to Greece were stolen a long time ago and they are still in London to this day. From this museum we could see the Acropolis up on the hill full of wonders.
We then ran to have some fry’s at a shop that’s specialty was fry’s. After having way too many potatoes we went to rest for 30 minutes. After that we went up to a hill to see the sun set over the city.
We then went on a fever dream, roller coaster of emotions play, this play had a modern person get sucked into the old times in a giant Greece. This person was meant to act like they were about to see a play but they were the play. The play had 6 different stories. Each story involved many different characters but in the end I was shocked to see there were just 4 different performers. The play was really engaging and magical.
Disclaimer I know this is the most manufactured Touristy Nonsense.
After the play we continued our fever dream by going to our Halloween away from home, our psl (pumpkin spice latte) to Greeks. It is called ”little kook” . This restaurant is 3 blocks long and looks like its electricity bill is in the 6th digit. We walked through hundreds of glowing floating pumpkins, ripped umbrellas and skeletons. All of the wait staff are dressed like vampires. There is no other way to describe it other than WOW. I ordered a crepe with cinnamon. My dad got a crepe that had strawberries and chocolate. As we looked around we saw everything in the whole idea of Halloween.
We had an amazing last day in Athens 🇬🇷
Our family went to the Agora which is basically the Times Square of Ancient Greece. Today this Agora is just a pile of old rocks and tourists making instagram reels but back then it was way more than that. It was chock full of flea markets, seals, men, horses, and most importantly the birthplace of democracy as we know it. Thousands of years ago the people of Ancient Greece decided instead of having a king rule or a chaotic mess they decided to build a tholos. A tholos is a circular Greek or Roman structure which was usually designed for worshiping their 3,142 gods, but this tholos was different; this tholos was a voting area where the elected council met.
They had a direct democracy where they would have a rule be thought up by a normal person and then all of the people would vote, kicking out the middleman. We also saw the museum full of little historical pottery trinkets that were excavated from the site. We then went on a walk up to the observatory of Greece to see a stunning view of Athens in the sunset. After that I went to have dinner. Goodbye to the last country that is fully in europe. Hello Istanbul
We are now in Istanbul!
We got scammed by our taxi driver from the airport to the blue Mosque. We then all lay in bed after a very long day of traveling. We went out to get Turkish delights. We got to see the “Hagia Sophia” which is the most beautiful Mosque I have ever seen. We also noticed that the call to prayer was way longer than the one in Morocco and way louder. We then ate out Turkish delights on our rooftop deck that has a view of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.
Wed sept 18 More of Istanbul
Today we went to the Suleiman mosque. It has a very deep and complex history. If you want more than a brief overview watch these 6, 20 minute long extra history videos that my parents forced me to watch (link below the entry). “So basically there was a king called Suleiman and he wanted to take over europe and some of asía. So basically he did that until he noticed that he had 8 sons and only 1 could be king. But he loved all of his kids and if he just chose one and kept the rest alive that would make a civil war so basically he himself killed all but 2 of his kids. So then he dared one of his 1 kid to meet him in this battle tent because they are still in a war, so this kid meets him and walks into this tent where he was stabbed by 6 people.
So at last Suleiman the magnificent leader of the majority of the Islamic world at the time started to cry about what a tragic thing he had to do. He made this mosque in his kids honor. Shortly afterwards his most beloved wife died and the country was now led by the only kid that was left.” That was a brief glimpse into the whole story but let’s talk about the present right now. Before we entered this giant mosque I needed to change into long pants and a button up shirt and MB and my mom needed to wear headscarves inside. When we entered we could see giant prayers written on the walls. Each Arabic word is spelling out different prayers.
As we sat on the carpet I was just amazed how this just took seven years to make it would take us today 30 years like that is insane. We sat for as long as we could until the call to pray was on and we needed to leave. We then went to dinner at a beautiful cafe that we got up to by using a sketchy elevator without a door. But the food was sorta mid. We then went to something I was looking forward to, The spice market. This market is hudge and has tons of different teas and spices. I “politely borrowed some treats and drank some teas. My parents decided to get a mango saffron tea and dried fruit that I did not drag them into by taking 1 to many samples. It was like winding through a maze of shops in the best way 10/10.
These are the photos
Sept 19 Türkiye
Today we went to an underground water holder called the basilica cistern. This cistern still has around 3 inches of water on the ground so you get a really cool reflection of the columns. These columns were re-used by the Romans; they were found all over Türkiye so the ancient Romans used them to build the cistern. We also found out that they found a Medusa statue in trubble so that is displayed here too. After the cistern we got sucked into a carpet shop where they were very keen on the idea of us buying a 5,000 euro carpet. (We clearly decided).
We had a huge surprise coming up that I am very excited for. The surprise is that we were going to an official European championship league football game (soccer for Americans). Because my dads co co-worker’s daughter played in it, we got tickets. Our family were the only ones who were cheering for Prague, the rest of the stadium was cheering for Istanbul. We got booed a lot and in the end the game turned into a tie. It was very close they only scored in bonus engery time.
Sept 21 Türkiye 🇹🇷
Today we were trying see the grand bazar but this aggressive rug dealer (pun intended ) got us in his basement and woundent let us leave until we bought his overpriced rugs, in the end he won and my parents skillfully bartend with the same guy from the last entry for 3 days in the end my parents got the rug for a reasonable price. We then went to the grand bazaar which is basically a place to get scammed and nothing else. It is advertised as a giant ½ mile long spice, jewlwey and rug store but it was really just a let-down. It was similar to the Medea in Fes Morocco but way cleaner less chaotic and only tourists. We then went to the blue mosque; the one we can see out our window. It was giant but way more crowded. The attention to detail in these mosques is just stunningly beautiful, the walls are covered in Arabic writing all different prayers that look so beautifully etched in the walls. We then went to see the iconic Turkish icecreem man. You know the guy who dose tricks with the ice cream yeah him, at first I thought I was going to go easy and play into his trick but no he deceived me and it wasn’t the best ice cream but it was an amazing show.
This is the same day different time
So… We got tickets on a sleeper bus to capidochia at first we thought this would have beds, maybe wifi? But we were wrong. So far we hopped on a tiny van shuttle that we didn’t know where it was going, someone just told us to get on it. This shuttle pulled over in the middle of the highway for us to run onto the bus next to it. I was still exited to be on a sleeper bus that has literal bunk beds again wrong. This bus has fake screens attached to nothing, seats that barely recline and worst of all the driver is actively smoking in a closed bus like what the heck? Someone on the bus is sick right now so I’m just hoping that if they vomit because of the driver smoking, I hope that they vomit on the driver. This bus is absolute nightmare scenario. 0/10 don’t travel with ŐNĆŰ this is not what we expected.
Sept 22
We have safely arrived in Cappadocia with a very pleasant free taxi and cup of tea that the hotel gave us. I have been excited about this hotel for around half a year because I found one with my mom that is inside of a cave. All of Cappadocia looks like it is out of Star Wars. There are hot air balloons flying everywhere and tall elegant sand structures with houses from 3,00 years ago inside them. I have fully connected with Cappadocia even though it is just our first day.
Sept 23
Today we did an easy 9 mile hike loop that started at this town and hopefully ended at this town but things did not go to plan. We started thinking this would be a two hour hike through amazing badlands and caverns that go deep underground. MB was feeling 100% for this hike so she stayed back at the cave hotel. We had a wonderful hike we Evan stopped at this juice guys shop that sold freshly juiced juices. When I say shop I mean “I mean an old man running a juice cafe in the middle nowhere” it looks very homey and cute! After the juice the trail split up into 4 trails.
It was nowhere near dark so we felt confident taking our time on a longer trail with more viewpoints. We saw a couple of ancient churches in caves. The old homes inside the rocks were just epic. They are high up on rocks that you need ladders to access them. I made a big mistake by climbing up this total sketch ladder that was attached to nothing at the top just to be met with a closed metal door. At this point it was getting a bit dark so we needed to go faster, we were out of the range of reception and this 2 hour hike is now going to be 5 hours and we just got halfway.
We are now in the land of annoying tours that include “Vintage gassy cars, Loud atv tours, horses that poop on the trail tours and jeeps that don’t pay attention to where they are driving and almost hit the innocent hikers’ tours. This part of the trail was loud and missurable after the long day of hiking. Seeing people Wizz around you just makes me appreciate the peace and calm that I had without atvs earlier in the day. As The sun was setting above the viewpoint near our hotel we ran back to enjoy a truly spectacular special sunset. We then went to a delicious burger restaurant.
A very fun day
Sept 24
Today we did another hike that went wrong in the best way. This hike is where the half that we skipped out on yesterday. We started around ½ way from where we started yesterday so we could explore more and do a longer hike. We saw 2 amazing caves that ancient civilizations used as their home. We played hide and seek in the fist one and after the round I found a sketchy risky climb over the steps into another room. I still wish I had hid there during the game. We then hike 2 valleys over and this cave was marked on the map as “Cool cave sneak through back DANGEROUS!” We of course have to try to sneak through the back. We tried and once we scaled the cliff face we needed a rope that was 2 feet in front of us but… it was cut off half way in what looked like someone had fallen off and broke the rope.
We then tried to enter through the front and guess what. The same infereorating ATVs stop there. The trail before the atvs had zero people other than us now there are 80 people all going around the cool cave. I was going to play hide and seek with my family again but how do you do that when you are shoulder to shoulder with randos. Dear UNESCO international world heritage, please take care of this dessert more.
Ok after that we went to a slot canyon. The sun was setting so we needed to be fast. This slot canyon was less than ideally safe. We went up a couple ladders that were attached to nothing and needed to go over boulders and through flooded areas. I have never called just a trail sketchy most of the time it is what is on the trail that counts not this one this trail is sketchy. We got out of the slot canyon right about dusk and we then needed to walk into town. When going back to town two stray dogs started to follow us. I did my best to ignore them. All of the sudden we heard barking from behind us and the trail turned into a giant WWE match. We ran out as fast as we could.
Wednesday sept 15 🇹🇷
Today we went on a 5 hour tour with our hotel manager. This tour started in an amazing underground city that was huge. We played hide and seek then our tour guide told us to explore what looked like a chimney. This rock wall was 30 feet high and it only had light for about ¼ of the climb. It is also 1 foot by 1 foot wide. We made it up in pitch darkness. The only way that I knew we were at the top was because I reached out for a handhold and my arm hit nothing. I slowly turned and scooched until I was on flat ground. I then waited for my dad to come up with a light. The whole city was full of these passages. It was epic.
You know what is not so epic is my ridiculous mom she never buys anything extra but then she buys a ring in turkey like what? We teased her for a while afterwards. We then went to a restaurant that had outdoor seating above apple trees with fresh apples. The food was good and the apples were a nice dessert. We made many tiny stops at viewpoints. We also went to this amazing pottery shop where we got to make our own pottery on a spin wheel. I had been looking forward to doing this and I loved it. We even got a small hot air balloon to be nice because the shop owners kept it open extra late for us.
Sept 27
We did a short hike because my mom is now a little bit sick and my sister is still sick. This hike was fun. The paths were like spiderwebs so they intertwined. We made a few mistakes but we got back to having well earned boba from the 3 consecutive hikes that we did. We then hopped on a bus going back to Istanbul. This bus is pretty nice, way better than the last one. It even has wifi and working televisions. I am excited and a bit nervous for Nepal and the treks we have been planning. We then ate at this fun homey restaurant where the waiter asked to have a dance party with us. We danced to some nepalíes music and noticed that she had all of the dance moves memorized 😀. I just followed what she did I also forced my dad and mom to dance with her.
Sept 29
A lot has happened these days. After the bus we got to a airport hotel and spent a night there. We then took 2 planes, 1 to India and 1 to Katmandú.! We safely landed in Katmandú after these flights. If you don’t know Katmandú is actively flooding and they have 12 inches of rain for a week straight. Katmandú is a very chaotic city in the best way. I can’t wait to hike to Mount Everest base camp.
Sept 30
Today we woke up and ate breakfast at our hotel (I loved it). We then went to talk with out guide about what to get for our treks, for people who also are going on treks in Nepal I recommend this list.
- Duct tape
- Athletic tape
- Anti mosquito lotion
- After bite
- Cipro
- Hoodies
- Maybe trinkets
- Sunscreen
- deodorant
- Face wash
After talking with our guide we took a walk to get some of the stuff of our lists. We then stumbled into a cute store that sold shirts. I got an amazing I Heart Nepal shirt. Shopping in Nepal is very cheap and they expect you to negotiate. We then walked to the monkey temple hence the name a temple that has monkeys. This temple was stunning it was decorated with prayer flags and has a view of all of Katmandú. From the top Katmandú looks very calm but inside it is very chaotic I almost got hit by a litaral bus no I am not joking this bus was not stopping it was going 30 miles an hour and I needed to start running. The temple that there were two rival monkey gangs. All of the sudden a monkey would scream and ½ off the monkeys would chase after it making such a ruckus in the temple.
Eight Boots Abroad 