As you all know, last week I went to visit Onur in Istanbul, the furthest place away from home I have been (although Athens was further south, and Kyiv further east). Although a short trip of just 3½ days, it was jam packed with things to do and see. After visiting Athens in March and from what I had seen and heard before, I was expecting Istanbul to be full of old buildings, but also rather dirty and feel very foreign...but actually I was completely wrong,...

On the final full day, we awoke to realise that as my sister is just 14, she actually needed a letter from our mum stating it was ok to travel by ferry with the company we bought our tickets, as well as not actually being able to travel with a brother or sister below age 15. However as we had bought our tickets in advance and had the day planned, we decided to act as if we didn't know and try our luck. Once we arrived at the Port the lady did ask us for the lette...

After a day in Riga, the next morning we woke and boarded our four hour coach that would take us to Tallinn by early afternoon. Once we arrived at our hostel, we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening walking around the centre of Tallinn seeing the sights like the Town Hall and the city walls. The centre itself is very small, which was great as we had a very short amount of time in the city. After seeing buildings many centuries old, our last sig...

After arriving by minibus in Riga, we decided to go for dinner only, and leave the sightseeing for the next day as we had more than a full day in the city. After having a busy few days we also decided that we would have a lie in and take our time - however the next morning, my sister, for the first time in her life, voluntarily got up at 8:30am rather than the 11am we had agreed and we were already in the city when our alarms we had set went off! ...

After arriving by minibus in Riga, we decided to go for dinner only, and leave the sightseeing for the next day as we had more than a full day in the city. After having a busy few days we also decided that we would have a lie in and take our time - however the next morning, my sister, for the first time in her life, voluntarily got up at 8:30am rather than the 11am we had agreed and we were already in the city when our alarms we had set went off! ...