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
