Pokey's Visit: London and France

 My mom was fortunate enough to make the journey across the pond to come visit! She had never been overseas to Europe before, so it was fun to be a part of her new experience. We walked all around town, because visiting London is first and foremost about seeing all the beautiful architecture and historical places like Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The first day she was in town we went to Parliament to meet Aleks for lunch with all the MPs. He gave us a tour and then we left to go see a play at the Apollo theatre called the Curious Incident of the Dog At Midnight.

I took her to see 23 Courtfield Gardens where I lived for most of the year. It is in a nice part of town, so she liked seeing all the other white washed front step buildings. 

The Shard

We walked in South London as well and saw the new Shard building. It looks smaller from far away but up close it reminds me of the Empire State Building! It is being built to house living spaces, grocery stores, a mall, and anything else a person might need to live. Later, we went to Kensington Palace to see the Victoria Revealed exhibit about Queen Victoria and had High Tea at the Orangery next door. Later, we watched the movie 'Young Victoria' with Emily Blunt to get a visual context. 

In front of Westminster Abbey

 She was keen on visiting Westminster Abbey, but unfortunately they were closed the day we went! It was a huge bummer, but she still got to see the outside. 

The guard to Green Park and Buckingham Palace

View from our hotel balcony

We left for Nice, France on Monday morning super early at 2.30am to get a cab to the airport. I had come down with the "Lurgy" (British talk for Cold) and was at the peak of it on our day traveling. Once we got to the hotel we took a nice long nap. We left later for a delicious dinner that my grandma gave us!

 The next day we hit the ground running and walked around town. The centre was beautiful with red, orange, and yellow buildings, fountains patina'd with turquoise. We did some shopping and walked down the beach collecting pretty rocks. We found Castel Plage, a seaside restaurant and cabana spot. Apparently, Elton John and Emma Watson love going there when they holiday in Nice so we knew it was good! If you ever go, I suggest the clam linguine and some white wine for lunch.

At the Castel Plage having some cocktails... it's 5 o'clock somewhere!

 We had a drink and decided to go back the next day.
The photo below is a picture looking down the beach at the Castel Plage. The water there was the prettiest, too! They had chairs you could rent for the day, so we got to soak in the sun. The view wasn't too bad either. :)



















The trip went much too fast, and when we got back to London around midnight we packed my mom up to leave for the States the next day. It was so fun showing her all the places here that I have loved, and going to France to a city we could explore together. It was truly the trip of a lifetime for both of us!

Turkeys in Istanbul and Some Lessons Learned

We finished our dissertation presentations May 3rd and after a very stressful and prolonged week we were ready to take on Istanbul, Turkey with our professor Charlotte. 

We left our new flat in Clapham, after hiding all our valuables away, and headed to the airport. The city of Istanbul is so different and beautiful in a way I've never seen. There are many diverse and interesting people, shops, and buildings. There are ancient, crumbling walls next to bright and newly painted mosques and houses. The Bosphorus, a straight which connects the Aegean and Black Sea, flows through the city and separates continents Europe and Asia- I can officially say I've been to Asia! The view from our hotel room overlooked the red bricked roofs and the Bosphorus. We were fortunate enough to have lovely sunny days all week. Charlotte took us to the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Roman Aquaducts on the first full day in town.

Many of us had studied the art, architecture, and decor within these Byzantine churches and so seeing it in person was a great experience. There are no pictures or videos that can quite fully capture what it is like to be in these places. The colors, patterns, and light overwhelms you. We had to cover our heads in respect to the mosques, which made for some funny photos..Apparently I shouldn't have worn my cat-eye sunglasses that day- hence I was proclaimed, "diva-esque" by Charlotte. If ya got it, FLAUNT IT! (just kidding.) Afterward, we went to the Roman basilica Cistern and saw the famous medusa stone heads. 

Istanbul is such a different place. The language is complex, too. It took us a week to truly know how to say "thank you" (Tesh-a kur adem!) 
During a free afternoon Kate and I visited the Topkapi Palace. This was one of my favorite places in Istanbul. The rooms were tiled with patterns in blues, greens, yellows, and reds and embossed in gold. No two rooms were the same. The balconies also gave us spectacular views!

In the nighttime we would have delicious dinners and drinks, and talk. Our last evening in town Kate, Lisa, Lilly, Tom, Lisa's friend Kate, and I went to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city and straight.

 It was one of the best nights of my life! The food was exquisite, and the company even better. There is nothing like being surrounded by good friends, good food, and a panoramic view of such a gorgeous place. The sun set and we talked for hours until our bellies were full and it was almost midnight, then we went down to the bank to a hookah bar. 
The next morning we were up bright and early to head to the airport. The best day of our life had somehow morphed overnight into what would become one of the worst. Lisa and her friend Kate were feeling the effects of food poisoning... rut-roh. We piled into the van, some looking a little green already, and started on the fast and winding taxi ride. One of the girls in our group got car sick and threw up in a zip lock baggy. We arrived to the airport and realized that the cabbie had put Lisa's friend's bags into the taxi with ours (She was still back at the hotel and getting ready to leave on a different flight to her village in Turkey...) Once we made it through, Lisa was looking and feeling worse. When she came back to the table after another bout of sickness she was as white as a sheet and sweating profusely. I decided to go find Charlotte, and by the time I got back with her Lisa had apparently passed out on the way to the bathroom with Kate. When we went in to check on her she was on the bathroom floor, and the medics soon arrived. They carted her off to the hospital wing of the airport and got her on an IV. At this point I couldn't imagine the day going more awry.... until they told us she couldn't fly for another day. It was decided I could stay back with her for another night and the rest of the group would go on. Once again, I thought that nothing else could possibly go wrong. I should have been knocking on wood ten thousand times. 
Lisa and I finally made it to the hotel that the airport booked us. I took a nice bath and felt all the bad karma melting away. Theeeennnnn we got a call and text from Kate. Our apartment had been robbed while we'd been on holiday. In a way, I think we knew deep down that something was going to happen. We had hidden our jewelry, perfumes, computers, and valuables to an obsessive degree. I had a last minute thought (divine intervention in my opinion) to hide my computer in a genius place which will go undisclosed for future use. Kate decided last minute to move hers in with mine. Lisa kept hers between the box springs under her bed, where I hid my own iPad. The robbers came in and flipped EVERYTHING. The tables, the drawers, the bed and box spring. They snatched Lisa's Macbook Pro, my iPad, all of our mac chargers and left our pretty, expensive girly things (freakin' dudes). They didn't get Lisa's back up hard drive so she didn't lose any of her priceless research. If they had taken my computer ALL my work would have been lost. While the day was terrible, we were very blessed that no true harm was done, and that all our research was not gone. We learned a valuable lesson about counting the blessings and being thankful for the small things.

Cheers, my friends!

Carly