"Welcome to My World of Travels!" Pinat's Profile

Well, it has been more than two years on VT. I made a good number of international travels since I joined VT. Most of them were for business so I was thinking maybe one of my managers was a secret user here and he wanted to send me everywhere after noticing my travel spirit.

I have been to not only one but TWO dream destinations of mine: South Africa and France. Both were short trips of 3-4 days but I made it :) Now we have started making plans for my third dream destination, Spain. Hoping to go in April 2012.

I was not really active on VT during the first half of this year but it feels so good to be back.

Currently I'm working on my Cyprus pages, mainly Famagusta and Karpasia.

Writing postcards in Brussels (Dec. 2009)

It wasn't until I came across Michele's page, I realized how much I missed sending and receiving postcards. By the end of my second month in VT, I also joined the postcrossing. Mu usernames are pinattina and pinuccia.

So if there is anyone out there who'd like to receive a postcard from Turkey, send me your address. I'd be really happy if you send me a card from where you live and/or where you'll be visiting.

I don't have any written and stamped cards from: Abkhazia - Akrotiri and Dhekelia - Albania - Algeria - American Samoa - Andorra - Angola - Anguilla - Antigua and Barbuda - Argentina - Armenia - Azerbaijan - Bangladesh - Belize - Benin - Bhutan - Botswana - British Antarctic Territory - British Indian Ocean Territory - Brisith Virgin Islands - Brunei - Burkina Faso - Burma - Burundi - Cambodia - Cameroon - Cape Verde - Cayman Islands - Central African Republic - Chad - Colombia - Comoros - Congo-Brazzaville - Congo-Kinshasa - Costa Rica - Côte d'Ivoire - Cuba - Cyprus - Djibouti - Dominica - East Timor - Ecuador - El Salvador - Equatorial Guinea - Eritrea - Ethiopia - Falkland Islands - Fiji - Gabon - Gambia - Georgia - Ghana - Gibraltar - Grenada - Guam - Guetamala - Guernsey - Guinea - Guinea-Bissau - Guyana - Haiti - Honduras - Iraq - Isle of Man - Jersey - Karakalpakstan - Kazakhstan - Kenya - Kiribati - Korea (North) - Kosovo - Kuwait - Kyrgyzstan - Lebanon - Lesotho - Liberia - Libya - Madagascar - Malawi - Maldives - Mali - Malta - Marshall Islands - Mauritania - Mauritius - Mexico - Micronesia - Mongolia - Montserrat - Mozambique - Myanmar - Nagorno-Karabagh - Namibia - Nauru - Nepal - Niger - Nigeria - Northern Ireland - Northern Mariana Islands - Oman - Pakistan - Palau - Palestine - Panama - Papua New Guinea - Paraguay - Pitcairn Islands - Pridnestrovie - Qatar - Rwanda - SADR - Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha - - Saint Kitts and Nevis - Saint Lucia - - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Samoa - São Tomé and Príncipe - Saudi Arabia - Senegal - Seychelles - Sierra Leone - Solomon Islands - Somalia - Somaliland - South Africa - South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands - South Ossetia - Sudan - Suriname - Swaziland - Syria - Tajikistan - Tanzania - Togo - Tonga - Transnistria - Trinidad and Tobago - Turkmenistan - Turks and Caicos Islands - U.S. Virgin Islands - Uzbekistan - Vanuatu - Western Sahara - Yemen - Zambia - Zimbabwe

I have recently started my blog. You can see my received cards there :)

In short, PLEASE PLEASE SEND ME POSTCARDS, especially from my missing countries and/or UNESCO WHS of your own country.

It feels so good and refreshing to be back in postcard-lovers community:)

Pinar & Özgür: Girlevik Waterfall - Erzincan(2007)

I'm Pinar (A.K.A. Pinat as in my nickname or Pinuccia or Pinattina by some Italian friends of mine:) from Izmir, Turkey. I've been living in Ankara, the capital of Turkey since I started uni in 1996. Other than Ankara, I lived in Torino and Trieste for my studies for about a year and in Munich for 3 months.

My travel history dates back to my childhood during which I've seen many parts of Turkey with my family (mostly the coastal areas but it covers quite a large part of my country considering the length of our coasts:)

I was one of the lucky teenagers in Turkey as I had the chance to have my first international experience in England back in 1993. It was for a language course and I spent most my time with my host family in Bournemouth but I also had the chance to see London and Oxford. This experience was also important for me as this was the period when I made my first non-Turkish friends.

I can describe my travel history in two phases: 1) During 1990s when I travelled with my parents and sis. 2) Post-2000 period when I had my second phase of international travels and when I started rediscovering my beautiful country, this time with my husband.

Ever since we got married in 2005, we started retravelling in Turkey: This time it was not with organized tours but with our own car, without any early bookings or reservations. We were in Dardanelles region in summer 2006, in Cappadocia in spring 2007, in the Black Sea region in summer 2007, in Istanbul in winter 2007 and we are planning to rediscover southern Turkey this year.

I work as a financial analyst. I like travelling to get rid of numbers, to discover, to taste, to smell and to remember. I had the chance to see Switzerland, Hong Kong and the Netherlands for business purposes.

I love making the most out of business travels, creating short holidays, little getaways out of them. I am very lucky in that sense as my boss has almost always given me some days off so I managed to create my very own run-aways. In this way, I've seen more than 4-5 star hotels and fancy restaurants during my business trips: On one day I may be enjoying a coctail in a 5-star hotel watching the sea and on another day sweating on the street with my backpack! This is why you're gonna see both nice hotels and tight-budget places for the very same cities.

I keep seeing myself as "lucky" because I'm well aware of the fact that many of my friends still didn't have even one international experience. This may be due to many reasons: financial means, working conditions, lack of education, lack of courage to step out, being lazy & impatient to go after a proper visa, etc.

Having said "visa", it's really a painful process for ordinary Turkish citizens. You have to bring together a long list of documents, go to the embassy and explain your reason for travel. Hong Kong is the first country that didn't ask for a visa from me. It was so strange for me as I couldn't believe I was really going there till my departure day. The Schengen agreement, however, is one of the best things that has ever been done for many travellers. I'm so happy that the Swiss have finally joined this year.

Although I like surfing the net prior to my travels, I don't understand why I haven't come across VT long ago. Maybe it's because of my poor surfing skills. Anyway, at least I found it eventually.

I hope to meet people like me on this site to start sharing stuff as most of you have started doing ages ago. I'm a real late-comer in that sense. I am so impatient to start building my pages. I have so much to tell but I have so much to remember and organize beforehand. It sounds like a good summer project:))

Turkey means diversity...

I live in the very center of Turkey and it's not that difficult me to find people coming from all parts of Turkey. I started to have these interactions when I started university because in Ankara, unlike many other big cities, there is a good number of universities. After starting to share things with people from the north, south and east (all were kind of different for me), I started wondering about them. Because of the things I've been told, because of the food I've tasted, because of the music I've listened to; I realized that Turkey is one country but with such diversity. Therefore, I'll try to pass over the diversity I've experienced and loved through my VT pages on Turkey. I made a quick scan and saw that a lot has already been said about the popular destinations. Then I thought maybe I should start with the less known, less visited parts of my country (east and north) followed by the parts known by everyone (west and south).

Botanic Park, Ankara

There are three main cities in my life for now: Izmir, my hometown and where my parents still live; Ankara where I live and Sivas, my husband, Ozgur's hometown where his parents still live. We visit Izmir and Sivas at least once a year so I know quite well about these too. Izmir is easy to learn: so many things on the internet, so many guided tours, etc. but Sivas is difficult: not much has been said or written, worth visiting in my terms. So, if you happen to plan a visit to Sivas for whatever reason, drop me a line so that we can be of help.

I live in Ankara, the capital and find it quite boring (maybe because I keep comparing it with Rome. I know I should compare Rome with Istanbul, not Ankara but they are both capitals and it's not fair!). Both me and Ozgur, we studied here, then found nice jobs here so it's been 15 years in this city and we are still around. After meeting with VT, I realized that I live in Ankara but I don't really know Ankara: OK, I know a good number of restaurants and the very basics but come on, I just said 15 years; that should make a difference. So I intend to become a tourist in this city this summer.

Assos, the Temple of Athena

In my VT pages, I prefer to mention about my recent travels in Turkey as I don't remember that much about the travels I had made with my parents when I was younger.

After we bought our first car in 2003 (1991 model, Peugeot 205), we started to see some places around Ankara but when we switched to our second car in 2005 (1998 model, Citroen Xsara) our long travels or better say our road trips started:

In summer 2006, we went to Dardanelles region for a week. We visited Canakkale, Gokceada and Assos.

In spring 2007, we were in Cappadocia. We did everything one should do (except for hot air balloons as they were quite expensive): We have seen Urgup, Goreme, Avanos, Uchisar and Ihlara Valley.

In summer 2007 we spent two weeks, made more than 3.000 km and seen almost all cities of Black Sea Region: Safranbolu, Amasra, Kastamonu, Sinop, Samsun, Amasya, Tokat, Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Rize, Zigana, Erzincan and back to Ankara via Sivas. We learned a lot, ate a lot and totally enjoyed ourselves.

In summer 2008, we changed our car (1998 model, Citroen Xantia) and had a difficult year so instead of road trips, we chose to lie on the beach and enjoy the sun of Aegean Sea for one week in Kusadasi, making visits to Izmir and Kocarli, Aydin.

Plans for summer 2009 are not clear yet but we have the intention to drive south this time. Nothing is set yet as we don't like making reservations or booking places in advance.

ITALY
June 2003: Torino, Florence
May 2004: Milano, Jesolo, Trieste, Siena, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples
October 2004: Udine, Treviso, Venice
November 2004: Padova
February 2005: Venice, Como, Bologna, Forli
March 2005: Rimini, Ancona, Bologna, Florence, Rome, San Marino, San Gimignano
April 2005: Treviso, Rome
May 2009: Fidenza, Ancona, Trieste

GERMANY
January 2005: Darmstadt, Heidelberg
May-August 2005: Munich
July 2005: Passau, Dresden, Chemnitz, Leipzig
August 2005: Berlin
December 2008: Dusseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin

SLOVENIA
March 2005: Bled, Ljubliana

AUSTRIA
August 2005: Salzburg

SWITZERLAND
April 2008: Zurich, Bern, Montreux, Lausanne, Geneva
May 2009: Geneva, Nyon, Montreux
May 2010: Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux, Vevey

HONG KONG
October 2008: Kowloon, Hong Kong, Lantau

THE NETHERLANDS
December 2008: Amsterdam
Devember 2009: Amsterdam, Utrecht

CZECH REPUBLIC
December 2008: Prague

SOUTH AFRICA
September 2009: Pretoria, Johannesburg

BELGIUM
December 2009: Antwerp, Bruselles

FRANCE
December 2009: Paris
November 2011: Paris

JORDAN
May 2010: Amman

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
August 2010: Abu Dhabi, Dubai
November 2010: Abu Dhabi

CYPRUS
May 2011: Famagusta
July 2011: Famagusta, Kyrneia, Karpathia
August 2011: Famagusta, Nicosia, Kyrneia, Karpathia

KENYA
It was back in 1994 when I bought my first travel magazine where there was a special coverega of Kenya. Ever since then I want to go there but haven't stepped on the continent yet.

BRAZIL
Due to economic similarities between Turkey and this country, I read a lot about it for business. That's why I want to go and see myself.

HUNGARY
Back at school we learned (had to learn) about Austrian-Hungarian Empire due to its joint history with the Ottoman Empire. I'd love to go and follow the remains.

NEW ZEALAND
Having lived with a New-Zealander for almost a year and heard so much about the country, it's a "must go" place for me.

SPAIN & PORTUGAL
Hard to say I've seen Europe without visiting these two and shame on me that I still haven't been to any of them. France is my target for Christmas time though.

POLAND
At some point in my life, I was so into World War II. I read a lot, watched a lot about this war. This makes Poland a "must".

SINGAPORE & MALAYSIA
Having stepped on the far-east side of the world and having started with "the most European" Asian country of the region, it must be followed by the others.

MACEDONIA & ROMANIA
Two dear friends who personally visited me here in Turkey expect me to do the same. I hope one day it happens...