HAVING FUN AT BOX HILL!

Hello, people of today!! So this post is just going to be about catching up with random things in my life that I may have missed telling you guys, and also about my day, obviously.

Today, I went to Box Hill. It's a pretty little area in the North Downs and there's a river which I nearly fell into:

Anyways, we spent a few hours there, it was so fun and so gorgeous! In my geography class, I'm going to be doing a 20 hour controlled assessment on it, so we'll see if that opinion changes or not. But yeah that was the main reason why I wanted to go there, and it was a chance for family bonding time!

Whilst on our little hike around Box Hill, we also saw tons of kids doing their Duke of Edinburgh expedition which brought back memories of when I did it. But I swear when my friends and I did it last year it was the worst time possible! The practise expedition we did was when it was basically snowing, and the the actual expedition was done on the hottest days of the year!

So that's what happened today!

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 7: THE END OF THE JOURNEY

Hello everyone, it's been a few days since I've written anything, and of course, I'm now back at home. I've just been way too tired to write anything on the last day of Turkey, then yesterday I was too busy getting things sorted out. But I'm back, and ready to tell you about the weird and wacky last day in Turkey!

The day started off with us having to get onto a coach which had been parked in the middle of a road...in busy traffic. It was a nightmare, there were four lanes and our coach was parked in the middle so we had to cross a lane to get onto the coach. This was in Istanbul so there were lots of cars honking at us, obviously getting annoyed that we were basically blocking two lanes... We also had our suitcases, which meant we had to load them into the coach before we could get on, which was terrifying because all of us were lined up squished against the coach whilst vehicles swerved around us. I think our teachers also aged about ten years during those ten minutes, poor them.

Once we had finally clambered onto the coach without being flattened by cars, we set off to go to the Sultanahmet, also known as the Blue Mosque. It is actually still used as a place of worship nowadays, so we had to wear head scarfs to cover our hair. The mosque is huge and so grand, it reminded me of a mosque version of Hogwarts a little bit. There were giant chandeliers that had candle-like lights in them which were hanging really low from the high domes of the ceiling, making them look like they were floating. Tons of people were there, the place was really crowded with tourists like us that is was nearly impossible to move without accidentally elbowing someone or stepping on someone's foot. At least no one was wearing shoes (shoes aren't allowed inside mosques).

Anyways, let's carry on. We then went to the Basilica Cistern, I think it's called. It's basically an underground lake, complete with fishes and an underground cafe. The whole place was supported by pillars and there were raised paths for tourists to walk around and explore the cistern. It was a really cool place, the lights made the dark place look kinda eerie and the droplets falling into the water made little dripping sounds now and then.

The last place we visited before leaving for the airport was the Hagia Sophia. I'm not really sure what it is, but I think it used to be a basilica, then a mosque, and now a museum. It's very confusing, it's kinda like three-in-one. It's a great building though, the ceiling is made of tiny mosaics and I think the floor and walls are marble. It's very impressive.

When we got to the airport, we had to say goodbye to our tour guide who stayed with us for the whole week. It was really sad, he was amazing and we all loved him. He asked us to write a little bit about how we found the trip because we wanted to make a memory book thingy to remember us - so cute!! Anyways, he's Turkish, but he did our tour thingy in English, even though he had self-taught it to himself and learnt it all in four years. As well as doing Russian and German tour-guiding too. He's so determined and clever! Imagine, learning three other languages and doing tours in those languages, when he probably isn't even 30 years old yet!!!

Ok, this paragraph is going to be weird and random. Basically, I don't really remember all this too well because it was a few days ago, but I have written it down. And what I wrote in my notebook was 'teacher'. So I wrote 'teacher' because one of my teachers (one of the more calm and sophisticated ones) swore. I don't remember why, but something terrible happened which made said teacher swear really quietly. Of course, being the half-nerds and goody two shoes my friends and I are, we were sitting at the front of the coach near the teachers and heard it... Lol, our reactions!! This teacher is always all sophisticated and collected, so we kind of just went silent and stared at each other, and of course pretended that we didn't hear. I dunno why I felt the need to mention this whole paragraph...I told you it was going to be random. I also feel kinda bad now...but I love my teacher, the lessons are amazing and everyone learns so much.

Well anyways after checking in our suitcases and getting through security, we were allowed some time to explore the shops. To me and my buddies, this was interpreted as 'go to Victoria's Secret and try on every single perfume they have'. Which is what we did. And omg they are amazing!!!!! I especially love Tease and Gold Angel - they smell amazing!!! We spritzed all over ourselves with Gold Angel and ended up smelling so strongly of it that it almost got too strong to bear. But it wasn't enough to put us off it. A few of us were almost going to buy it, but sadly it was in euros whereas we only had the Turkish lira. It was so fun, I'd never been to duty free with only friends before, so it was a great new experience. Usually, I'm with my parents who only care about getting to the boarding gate or buying a tax-free alcoholic drink. So I end up trailing behind them, wondering what the difference is between one vodka and the next.

Now we skip forward to the plane flight itself, which was very uneventful. They were playing 'The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty' which I only half focused on. I was too tired to do much anyway, I just sat back and relaxed, drinking coffee and tomato juice (not together though, bleugh). Of course, I ended up needing to go to the dreaded toilet. I found out after last week's flight that I wasn't the only one who hated those toilets, in fact, I was part of the majority. Ugh, I don't even want to talk about it anymore.

Skipping to a few hours later in which nothing much happened in between, I finally got back home at around 9:30 pm - ish. All I know is that it was really late and I was really tired, in Turkey I would have been sleeping at that time. I hate jet lag...

And that's all that happened on the last day of my adventures in Turkey. Overall, going to Turkey with my school and friends has been amazing. I've kinda just focused on the details of each day and haven't really mentioned how the trip was as a whole. It was so fun and a nice break from schoolwork and upcoming tests which I now have to worry about. The teachers who came with us were so organised and kinda cute in a way. I guess it's because usually, I see them as strict people who don't have a life, but this trip has shown me that they're so sweet and are actually capable of doing other things such as joking around and playing on the beach with us (we buried one of our teachers alive with only his head sticking out)! Even though this last week has been tiring for all of us, we've all kept ourselves together and made the most out of this trip.

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 6: SLEEPING, AIZONOI AND IZNIK

I thought waking up at 6am was too early...but today we had to wake up at 5am...to get ready for a 12-hour coach journey to Istanbul. A nearly non-stop 12-hour coach journey...it was not fun, and we didn't do much, we were all too tired to do anything so a lot of us slept for most of the journey. When we did stop, it was either for a toilet break or to see more ruins. 

We went to a little place high up in the mountains called Aizonoi to see the Temple of Zeus there. But everyone had dressed according to the coach journey, and we didn't realise we were going outside so we all only wore comfy clothes such as jogging bottoms and a T-shirt. In the freezing outdoors though, that was definitely not enough and we basically froze to death. I ended up having to share a fleece jacket with my friend, so we had half of it each...it was very awkward trying to climb up the temple steps at the same time! 

Aizonoi was also our toilet stop, which was good because everyone (38 students plus a few teachers) desperately needed to go. When we got there though, we found that it was in a shack and there were only one male and one female toilet. It would have been alright if we were a mixed school, but unfortunately, I go to a girl's school, so all 38 students needed to go to the female toilet, plus 2 female teachers. There were no tissues and the door didn't even have a lock. I ended up using my strawberry scented tissues, so now I have a strawberry scented bottom. And how unfair is this: there are only 3 men in total in our group...so unfair. They could just go and leave, but we had girls waiting there for about 30 minutes in the queue. 

After more long coach journeying, in which I slept a bit (mostly on my friend's shoulder), we arrived at Iznik. There was an old mosque there which had been turned into a museum, then turned back into a mosque in 2011. It was cool, I couldn't take any photos though. After that we went to a pottery/tile/jewellery shop where we got to watch someone take a piece of clay and literally transform it into different pots in under ten seconds. Then we were allowed to explore his shop and buy anything, which was mainly jewellery. They were really pretty and were hand-painted.

Late on, on the ferry we had to take to get across the bay/lake/sea thingy, we all went to the toilet...on the squat toilet. Now it isn't my first time on one of those, but I really didn't want to go through that experience ever again... Sadly, today was the day I squatted above a hole on a ferry, and it wasn't nice :/

And finally here, I will leave you something kinda cute:

'Seni sevi orum' --- 'I love you' in Turkish (I think...) :P

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 5: APHRODISIAS AND HIERAPOLIS

Hello people!!! Today I'm really tired, so it's gonna be a really quick post with lots of random pictures. First, we went to Aphrodisias, a little ancient city famous for being one of the best preserved and also for its marble. There was a museum there which we went to briefly which had tons of marble statues of nude men in it, and they're labelled 'man without toga with bare chest'...so much imagination (note the sarcasm).

And then on the coach we learnt French pick-up lines from our Latin teacher...awkward much... And funny at the same time! We also 'stargazed' with the flies which were dotted around on our windows...pretending that they were star constellations and trying to name them...we are weird. 

Next we went to Hierapolis which is the 'sacred city', and frankly, it wasn't as exciting. We did get to see the entrance to the underworld, or the 'Plutonium', which was kinda cool I guess. Well, it was all fun, just some parts were more interesting than others. There are also thermal baths there which look totally amazing, that sounds weird, but it really was amazing. We were allowed to put our feet inside one of the shallow baths and we all linked hands because it's slippery. It was so fun, I loved it so much!!!

At the new hotel we arrived in today, which is a really nice 4-star, we had the most awesome dinner (buffet, like all the other dinners and lunches we've had so far, except for lunch today). We were all so stuffed after the mountain of food we all got, then the massive pudding volcano we ate/wasted-because-it-was-too-sickly. To wash that down, we ate 10 oranges in total. Between the 6 of us. According to my friends who got the oranges, everyone else was giving them REALLY weird looks... XD

This picture is of the clocks in the hotel reception this morning before we were leaving...just think, if that's the time we were leaving (Kusadasi clock), imagine when we had to wake up... Well, I'll tell you, we had to wake up at 6am!!!! Way too early!!!

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 4: EPHESUS AND THE BEACH

Hellooooo everybody!!!!! Today has been so fun!!! OMG the best day ever!!!! Today, we first went to Ephesus, an ancient city (now just ruins) which is nicknamed 'The Gateway To Asia'. And it was fun-ish, it was a bit boring because there were just rocks and columns everywhere, but it was still fun. Though it was way too hot and sunny, so I was literally burning...

At lunch, which was at a really nice hotel restaurant and was very very yummy, we also got a chance to buy some touristy stuff. I bought two bracelets and I just absolutely LOVE the neon colours!!

Next, we went to the Temple of Artemis...it's basically just one column. At least, that's what it is now. Before, it would have been an amazingly huge temple with hundreds of columns. And it's one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, which is kinda cool.

But that's not what got me all hyped up - it's the fact that we got to go to the beach!!! It was AWESOME!!! My friends and I built a sphinx out of the sand, which was really cool but the head looked kinda odd. Still, it was quite big and looked cute! At first, we were going to make all the 7 wonders of the ancient world e.g. the great pyramids of Giza. But then we gave up. It was so fun though!

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 3: RUINS AND GETTING LOST

Hey guys!!!! I haven't got much time today, I'm in the hotel in my friends' larger room and we're just talking and playing and stuff so I'm kinda being antisocial by sitting here blogging. And anyways today we haven't really done anything interesting, just looked at various ruins which all look the same, and are basically huge slabs of rock scattered around everywhere... Anyways, we're in Kusadasi, and all the places we went to today are all nearby, sooo... Also, we got lost so much, the places we went to were new places for the tour guide and our teachers, so we were literally walking through random places, and having to go all the way around a random lake or something. Anyways, here are some pics of today!!

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 2: TROY AND THE ACROPOLIS

I LOVE TURKEY!! (Well the parts I've seen, at least). It's so gorgeous here and the sunny hot weather is such a large contrast to Britain's grey skies and rain! Although I hate sun lotion with a burning passion and with the jet-lag and stuff, I'm absolutely shattered!!! And the walking we've been doing did not make it any better...even if I did have a bit of sleep/daydream time on the 7-8 hours we spent on the coach in total... Today, I woke up at 6:30am...early right? But of course, that's in Turkish time, so in England that would be 4:30am...not funny!

Firstly, we travelled to Troy by coach (of course) and I was so excited because I've read a book called 'The Song Of Achilles', which is one of my favourite books, and my favourite adult book. It's about the Trojan War, so of course it's set in Troy, as well as other places such as Greece. And even though  Troy is just ruins now, it was so much fun and an amazing experience!!! The feels!! All the time there I was just thinking 'omg Achilles and Patroclus and Hector and Paris were here!!! *fangirls*.' I loved it.

Also, whilst we were walking back to the coach, I saw the most adorable little terrapin (a type of tortoise) on the path!!! Well, actually I kinda nearly squished it, but after my friends and I made a huge fuss about it, others started coming to see what was happening. Someone even picked it up - sorry the picture is terrible, it's actually a picture of a picture... But anyway, it's all to scale and the little cutie is so adorable!!

A few hours later, we stopped in a tiny village, and were told to find lunch on only one of the roads...in the end we couldn't find anywhere to eat so we ended up buying bread rolls, Dairylea cheese, chilli Doritos, Snickers, and bananas to make our own picnic! And lol it was hilarious, sitting in the burning sun whilst trying to smear cheese with our hand-sanitised fingers and slip Doritos into the bread roll...fun times... And this image makes it look disgusting, but it was actually really tasty!!

After that very messy makeshift lunch, it was another coach journey, this time to the acropolis!!! Athens is most famous for their acropolis, but actually, an acropolis is just the highest part of a city. So we went to one in Pergamon, and we had to take a cable car up and down!! Even so, we still had to walk tons once we were up there. But anyways, the view was AMAZING!!!! I'm not even lying when I say that I didn't put my camera down at all, I was taking photos left and right, the view was just gorgeous, this picture definitely does not do it justice...

At the acropolis, there was a really steep-sided theatre (the Greek/Roman sort) and we had to walk from the top of it to the stage, which in my opinion was amazingly fun, but most of my friends were terrified. We later found out that the side of the theatre was 70°, almost vertical!!!!

Now back to the coach!! I swear, half the time we've spent in Turkey has been inside a coach This time, we were going to our next hotel, thank god. Still, the coach journey was about 3-4 hours, so we stayed on the coach for about the same amount of time as yesterday...it's a pain in the butt, literally. However, after ignoring the painful bum and the need to go to the toilet, it was nice, I guess. We got to see flamingos in a lake, they were really pretty, and we also saw shepherds with their sheep. And they were proper shepherds too, with their staff/hooky-thing, sitting in the middle of their sheep. It was so cool!!!

And finally, our hotel. It's really good - 4 star. The room is slightly too small and cramped, but it's really nice and there's a balcony so that's cute! Anyways, I'm tired now, so bye!!!! Xxx

TURKEY ADVENTURES DAY 1: IN THE AIR, OVER THE EARTH, AND ON THE WATER

Hello peepsicles!!!! So today has been absolutely amazing and so much has happened since this morning... I woke up at around 4am because I was too excited, then I couldn't fall asleep again, so I guess it's literally and figuratively been a long day today... Anyways I was super excited and hyper, on the coach to Heathrow Airport, I kept on jumping and wiggling up and down, I just couldn't keep still!!! I haven't been to turkey before, so going somewhere with all my best friends was so exciting! When we finally got to the airport (late, may I say) we had to hurry straight to check in our bags and then security. And OMG security at Heathrow's north terminal is absolutely terrifying!!! They have huge machine things which look like a glass cylinder cages which scan you, and you have to stand inside with your hands up as if you were surrendering...ugh and I got beeped and had to go inside...never again, please!! In the end, nothing was wrong, grr...but I guess they were just doing their job. Finally, after going through admin and etc. we started boarding the plane...

There really isn't anything interesting about the plane or the flight, it was just a normal British Airways passenger plane which we had to stay on for about 3 hours...it was fun and we could watch Saving Mr Banks if we wanted to. But anyways, the food they served was amazing!! It was proper hot food with 2 courses(ish) and it was only for a 3-hour flight! Although for some reason they didn't have a vegetarian choice, which was kinda stupid, so I gave my vegetarian friend a few of my potato pieces, because I'm just such a wonderful friend. But, carrying on, after the roast chicken & veg main and salad side, there was dessert. And OMG, BLISS!! It was banoffee cheesecake in a little pot, and it was so good!!!!

We also got to have a drink (of course), plus either coffee or tea. And, being the most loyal and patriotic British, my friends had tea, unlike me, who had coffee...oh well, I like coffee more, and don't judge me for it...

However, one thing I didn't like about the flight was the toilets...and I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates aeroplane loos... Ugh, they're seriously scary...when you flush it, you could literally feel air blowing in, which I don't understand, because shouldn't flushing a toilet suck things out, not blow things in?!

Well, enough with toilets, it's not a particularly nice subject to talk about. So once we finally arrived in Istanbul, I was so excited, and even more so when I realised I was going to get a visa, which meant a stamp in my passport!!!! I had never got one before, that I could actually remember, at least. So yeah, I got excited again (I'm very easily excited, in case you didn't realise) and was so happy when I got a stamp AND a sticker!! This excitement was short lived though when we decided to queue up for passport control - we had to walk about a mile or something to find the end of the queue...and to actually start queuing... All in all, it was VERY long and VERY tiring.

After taking my first breath of outdoor Turkish air, we got into a coach which was adorned with broken rusty seat-belts which were so bent and deformed...though thank god the rest of the coach wasn't quite so disused and disgusting. Even so, staying in a coach for 4 hours (and we were told it would be only 2 hours) - even longer than in the plane - was not something I was looking forward to. The view, however, was something to die for. Istanbul is gorgeous!!! There are the typical clayish-red houses which you can only find in places like Greece and Turkey, apartments and shopping centres a huge contrast, and in the background, there's the sea, which was so beautiful and calm today. So frickin gorgeous!!

All too soon, as you can probably tell from the pictures, The sun had set and it started getting darker...so no more pictures I'm afraid... Anyways, after about 2 hours of driving, we stopped at a service station where we were harassed by stray dogs and made to pay if we wanted to go to the toilet... I didn't have any change on me, so sadly I had to cross my legs and hope I could keep everything in...and laughing didn't help at all, not that I didn't love the laughs and giggles we shared! Anyways basically I was kinda really tired before, but then one of my awesome friends started talking about Hetalia and turning our own female Hetalia characters we made into male versions, and lol we were then talking about the pros and cons of being a man...and lol the fun times!!! On the subject of fun times, my friend also bought some mini salty fish-shaped crackers, a bit like Oddities, from the service station, which for a short time we actually thought were cat biscuits... But anyways we 'manned up' (lol) and decided to try them. And it tasted like cardboard!!! It was literally flavourless crackers, which was supposed to be salty... And, when we looked at the salt content, we found there was only 2.2g of salt per 100g...which is even much less than the amount of salt in bread (which is about 6g)!!!!!

After hours of nearly peeing my pants on the coach, we finally, at 11pm (Turkish time, 9pm English time) got onto the ferry and started crossing the bay, or whatever it is. It was one of those ferries which you drive the coach straight on, one of those (no offence) ugly ones. And I still had to keep my pee in, because apparently, the ferry toilet was rank...my poor bladder... But we were on the coach for 5 OR 6 HOURS, so it was good to finally get some fresh air. Also, even in pitch darkness, it was still pretty, the water was really dark but the lights of the city and towns in the distance looked amazing. This picture really does not do the view any justice, but it was the best I could get...the black areas are basically windows, and the lights going across are the lights of a town or something - underneath is the water and on top is the sky. 

Still...we're going to reach the hotel at about 12 midnight (Turkish time of course) and we haven't had dinner, and to be honest, no one is going to be there to cook us anything. So I don't think we're going to have dinner...I'm sad :(

So it's later on, and it turns out that yes, we did get to the hotel at around 12, but no, thank god we did have dinner...and a mighty nice one I must say!!! It was a kinda buffet, and quite nice!! I'm shattered now though, so bye!!! Xxx