A Facebook app called YearBookYourself is doing its rounds and going viral because of its high level of awesome. Before I talk more of the bore, here’s what I would’ve looked like had I been 23 in the 80s.
Awesome, I know. Go check out YearBookYourself, upload your pic and see what you would’ve looked like anywhere from the 50s to the 2000s, with a 2 year interval. Share the results! (on your blog or in the comments! :-))
Still looking for my new neighbourhood here in Sofia, which is taking up quite a bit of time. It’s not as easy as 1.5 year ago, since the city got remarkably more expensive. I’m not worried though, patience and perseverance are the key to the keys of a great flat, in a great neighbourhood. If you know something good however, not more than 10-15 minutes by public transportation from the center, you can email me at 
Makes you feel like a total foreigner, and slightly out of place, don’t you think? 😉
The other day I got up before dawn because I wanted to take some shots of Istanbul as the sun came up. The set went alright, but the best picture has nothing to do with Istanbul by dawn… It’s this curious cat I came across (you can click the pic for a bigger version). I’ll be posting other pictures from the set regularly soon… The lower quality, unedited versions are already online for a sneak peek. Have a look in my Picasa.
Before I left I took another picture of the cat…
Istanbul has a lot of street cats, which I don’t mind. The dogs can be a nuisance, especially at night, but they are generally clean, healthy and well-behaved, unlike the ones in Sofia, Bulgaria. In my neighbourhood here in Istanbul, people put rests of food outside their window or put special food for cats on the pavement. Every now and then you’ll hear a cat outside your building meowing really loudly. One look out of the window and you’ll find out your upstairs neighbour is throwing food down at the cat – so be careful with sticking your head out of the window. 😉
In Holland, I have not once seen a street dog and I doubt I’ve ever seen a street cat, but it’s hard to tell as most people just let their cats outside during the day.
Do you have a lot of street animals in your country? I see a lot of reactions from different parts of the world, so I’m especially interested in what type of animals? How do they behave? How does the general public feel about them?
BasBasBas.com is about my life as a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
A few weeks ago, or was it a month, we (the exchange students) received a special invitation from the rector of our university (or chancellor/president, if you will). A special boatcruise was planned and we would be having dinner with the rector on the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Amazing!
Afterwards we would dance and the rector might teach us some Turkish folkdancing. “Wow”, I thought, “it’s really incredible what this university is willing to do for their exchange students”. Everyone was excited about it, partly because of the promise of free food and drinks ;-), and most of the 100 exchange students at Yeditepe University planned on attending.
On the day of the cruise we arrived and it turned out the boat had already left. Miscommunication. The boat left 2 hours earlier than was announced to us. The university bus took us to another dock where the boat would come to pick us all up. When we got there, the boat was a lot bigger than I anticipated and what surprised me was there were a lot of people on board already…
We were then told that kids from high schools and their parents were already on board and that the rector had ordered the boat to come pick us up. Great! I let the new information sink for a minute and then realized that it had all been a great PR stunt. There were hundreds of people on the boat and this way Yeditepe could show off their international character. The cruise was quite different from what I expected and definitely not as intimate as it was made out to be, but it helped me achieve one of my goals for Istanbul:
To party on the Bosphorus! The Bosphorus is the strait that connects the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea (and thus ultimately to the Mediterranean) and runs between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.
As we got on we sailed out to the Marmara Sea and saw the Prince’s Islands (I think) and witnessed the beautiful sunset pictured above. Later, as the skies turned dark we sailed through Istanbul. The lights are beautiful and as I’ve said before, the best way to see the glory of Istanbul is from the water. We partied on the deck of the ship with a bit too many high schoolers and very loud Turkish house music. Oh, and free beer (which finished within half an hour) and free wine!
View the pictures of the trip on Picasa! Pictures of the sunset and the sea and of course the party! Sorry, I don’t have the right equipment to catch Istanbul by night. You’ll have to come and see it for yourself. 😉
If you took a ferry or boattrip in Istanbul before, how did you like it? What was your experience? In the past I’ve partied in an empty office building, under a bridge, in an abandoned church (controversiaaaaal), a parking lot and in the forrests on a mountain in the Balkan range. What’s the most spectacular location you’ve partied at?
BasBasBas.com is about a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
click for more detailed version
It’s amazing what you can do with a little Photoshoping. Upon returning from Borovets to Sofia, in Bulgaria last weekend, our busdriver dropped us off under a bridge (click here to see the original photo). I immediately envisioned the above picture and snapped a photo. I was anxious to see if my idea would actually work and it’s always exciting when they do. To quote The A-Team’s Hannibal, I love it when a plan comes together.
So what do you think people? Post-apocalyptic enough?
More travel photos soon; including some snowy shots of Bulgaria! If you’d like to get them straight to your feedreader, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe by email using the form in the right sidebar.
This weekend I was in Bulgaria due to my 1 year anniversary with my girlfriend, who’s from Bulgaria. We went to a mountain resort, which is cheaper than Sofia (in the low season). On the day we arrived everything was green, but this Saturday the world turned white. I love it. I notice I feel quite at home in Bulgaria, and especially Sofia.
Will write more about my stay there in the days to come. Have to find my way back to Istanbul in this snowy mess. You can stay up to date by following my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.
I’m hoping for some nice snow in Istanbul this winter. Has it snowed where you are yet? Will it at all?
A view of the most touristic part of Istanbul. The mosque on the right is the Blue Mosque or Sultanahmet mosque, left of that is the Hagia Sofia which was a cathedral, but was turned into a mosque during the Ottoman empire and left of that is the Sultans’ palace. Quite a nice view, huh? On the left side of the picture, you see some land at the other side of the water… That’s where I live. Literally less than 2 minutes away from a nice sit at the sea with the view of the Hagia Sofia and the beautiful buildings around it.
The picture was taken from Galata tower. If you come to Istanbul and want to come home with some cool pictures, go to Galata tower. If you have many friends who go to Istanbul, all of you will have the same pictures though, as everybody seems to go up the Galata tower. It’s also a nice spot for panorama shots.
A typical shot of a street on the Asian side of Istanbul in Kadıköy, where I live. I didn’t want to feature this picture until I realized that this very every day scene for me might not be so ‘every day’ for the my many visitors from around the world. Click on the picture or here to get a larger and higher quality version of the photograph. In Holland we have a huge debate about the towers of the mosques, called minarets, spoiling the way the street/neighbourhood looks.
What do you think, would one (or a few) of these towers spoil the sight of your neighbourhood? Why (not)?
If you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog and you’d like to be, do so now either by RSS or through email updates. If you have any questions about Istanbul, about me, anything else, or you’d just like to tell me how your day was, do not hesitate to email me at 
The following shot was taken at a big bazaar that’s held every Tuesday and Friday in Istanbul’s Kadıköy area, which is on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. You can find food like fruit, vegetables, spices, nuts and grape leaves there, but also clothes such as the headdresses below. I was walking around there with a blond girl and boy, do you draw attention if you’re a young, blond, European woman in Istanbul. People were yelling out “Obama, Obama”, “hoÅŸ geldiniz” (welcome), “hello!” and “buyrun” (come in please/come here).
I apologize for the recent lack of updates. I had a friend from Holland visiting me here, but will now resume my posting about life in Istanbul. 🙂
I plan on posting a lot more pictures and short stories like this one in the coming time, so if you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog, do so now either by RSS or through email updates.
