more Turkey!

Day 3:
We started the day at 9:00 with a delicious complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast is the one meal that the ship doesn’t do very well so it was nice to have different fruit for once. Remzie’s 16 yr old niece, Merve joined us on the second day since she is learning English. She was such a sweetheart. She wants to be a cardiac surgeon and likes to sing. After breakfast we went horseback riding at some place that is owned by a lady from Colorado and her Turkish husband.

Since they didn’t have 14 horses we split into 2 groups. I went with the first group. The ride was really pretty! I thought it was going to take us by some fairy chimneys or caves but it didn’t. I kind of felt like I was in Minnesota. Then the next group went and we sat and drank apple tea (a Turkish specialty… they call it tourist tea though because its not the tea they drink all the time) and sat around a table and got annoyed by the flies. While we waited Merve taught us some Turkish and at one point we asked her how to count to 5 and she thought we were asking her how to say Turkey in Turkish so for a while we thought that 1, 2, 3 was Tur ki ye (its actually beer, ick, ung, dir, besh… that’s phonetic don’t trust the spelling). There was a gypsy kitty who came and sat on my lap for a while and then we went in search of some puppies the guy told us about. When the other group came back we still hadn’t found them so as we were paying for our horse rides Merve talked to someone there and they found them and so we got to peek at them before we left. After that we went to lunch and got some gyros. I sat with Amanda, Merve, and Tyler. The food was really good. I had a huge plate of seasoned chicken, lettuce and tomato, and rice. I was so hungry that I forgot to put mine on the bread.

After lunch we went to the underground village (ok… actually I can’t remember and we might have gone to the jewelry shop after lunch and then gone to the underground village but I can’t go back and look at my pictures because my stupid computer deleted most of them). It was so similar to Tanzania and how the Chagga dug the underground tunnels for protection from the Massai except that the Turkish people literally had a whole village down there. Only 10% had been excavated and it was 8 floors down and really wide and long. Being claustrophobic I wasn’t a big fan of the tiny tunnels you had to walk through to get from one room to another but I sucked it up. There was everything down there; bedrooms for the families, a kitchen that everyone shared, a winery, a chapel, a morgue (ew). Everything! After the underground village we got back on the bus and went to a jewelry place to see how they make jewelry. They showed us how they polish the stones and taught us that turquoise is actually Turkish quartz and then showed us the shop. I bought an evil eye necklace because almost every country we’ve been to had evil eyes (they’re good luck) all over. We ran into the S@S Cappadocia trip while we were at the jewelry shop and I talked to Ryder for a little bit. It was funny because he tried to explain the Turkish flag to me and ended up saying something like “It a moon and its special because its little and there is a star.” That kid says the funniest things!

After the jewelry shop (possibly underground village) we headed back to the hotel and had some down time before dinner so I got a head start on my postcards. (To those of you who have been getting them I’m sorry about the short messages/ugly pictures. I feel really awkward writing actual notes on postcards because anyone and everyone can read them and I’m obviously not the most talented artist…) and then we headed out to this place a couple towns over where for 90 lira we could have dinner, all you could eat appetizers (popcorn and fruit), all you could drink (pop, wine, beer, and water), and a show. The first dancers were whirling dervishes aka guys in long white skirts with funny hats on their heads spinning in circles. It was very entertaining! Next came some Turkish folk dancers who did a mock wedding thing (they were better dancers than actors…) and last came a belly dancer. It was really funny because she went around the room and grabbed guys from the audience and the first person she grabbed was tyler! He did pretty good. There was also some rando british guy who was wasted and wearing a fanny pack and a really big, tall guy with a pot belly whose shirt she rolled up. The british guy was my favorite. Dinner was ok but I wasn’t a fan of the meat or one of the appetizers but the rest of it was good. After dinner we all got up and danced with the folk dancer guys who had changed into regular clothes.

Day 4:
We got up a little later on this day (9:30) and got breakfast. After that we headed to a place whose name I can’t remember and we went for a hike. Remzie tried to scare us by telling us there were 550 steps but that was a total lie. The walk was BEAUTIFUL! It looked a lot like the Marangu falls in Tanzania. There were bunch of giant rocks that had slid a bit and made mini tunnels that we had to crawl through and there was a really pretty river that I stood in for a little bit. We found a donkey and went to visit it but we weren’t sure if it was nice or if it would bite us so we left it alone. After the hike we went to lunch at a place along the river (it was crawling with gypsy kitties). They had a choice of 4 dishes one of which was a whole fish (ew) and both the people next to me (Amanda and Angie) got that one. It sucked. Especially since they each named their fish and the dead fishes’ eyeballs were looking at me. I got chicken.

After lunch we went to a rug workshop place where they weave rugs and make thread from silk worms. They showed us how they weave the rugs and I got to try it. I was so much slower than the lady and it took her a couple months to a couple years to finish a rug depending on its size. Imagine if I tried to make a rug. Maybe I’d finished by the time I’m 30 but its not likely. After they showed us how they weave they took us in the back and showed us how they make the thread from silk worms. It was really cool and they let us hold the silkworm cocoons as they were going through the unwinding thing. It felt like the dead worms were actually moving (gross)! After that they took us to the show room and showed us the different patterns of rugs and told us where they were from. Merve and Remzie both pointed out the rugs from where they were from and we drank some delicious apple tea (tourist tea). After that it was time to head to the air port. We dropped off Remzie at his house and we gave him a Semester at Sea shirt that Aubrey had brought with and said goodbye and then Husseyin (that’s the actual spelling… I had it wrong in the other post. Oops!) drove us to the airport and Merve came with to say goodbye and gave us another Turkish lesson along the way. She taught me the most random things like how to say “I see the sunflower.” And “You smell like cheese.” And then taught me the basic stuff like the colors and numbers. It was really sad saying goodbye to her but I’ll probably try to find her on facebook so I’ll talk to her again. The flight home was delayed for a little while and I was too hungry to be patient. When we finally got back to Istanbul ½ the group left really fast so the rest of us waited for people who had to use the bathroom and while we were waiting some people talked to the cab to negotiate the price and the cab driver almost ran over Angie’s foot! So she went to the bathroom to clean herself up and (against her will) rode in another cab back to the ship with us.

Day 5:
Since I had only gone to the Bazaar on my other day in Istanbul I wanted to fit in as much as possible. I got breakfast in the street which was only 1 lira for a big bagel thing (it was delicious). Me, Bridget, and Georgina started by going to the bazaar so that Georgi could get a tea set (I got some apple tea because that stuff is just plain addicting) and then we went to the Turkish bath. The Turkish bath is a public bath where you can pay to have someone wash you. Yes that means naked. I don’t like being naked in public. So we changed into our swim suits and wrapped ourselves in our thin towel thingys and went into a really hot room (sauna style). It was about the size of the atrium in the stu cen and there was a big, circular, heated stone in the center. They told us to lay down on the stone and relax until it was our turn and I started sweating within 3 minutes. Me and Georgina went first and I tried to keep my bathing suit top on but the first thing the lady said was “off off off” and my first words were “F my life.” She started by dumping cold water on me, which took me by surprise, and I jumped and accidentally hit the lady (oops!). I giggled the entire time and Bridget and the lady washing me laughed at me the entire time. It was kind of cool though because they had a big bag that they soaked in soap and then dipped in water and when they opened it up it filled with air and when they squeeze the air out it made tons of bubbles. After they scrubbed us they sent me and Georgina to another room and they came and washed our hair. My lady was super cute and knew that I had curly hair and braided it for me and then walked me over and told me to get in a giant heated pool. I only lasted about 5 minutes in the pool before my claustrophobia got the best of me and then me and Georgi went and relaxed on the stone until Bridget was done. On the bright side there were water fountains all around the room with cold water so I could cool off a little bit. The whole thing was a cool experience and if you go to Turkey I’d recommend doing it but I think that was my one time at a Turkish bath.

After the bath we went to walk to a shopping center and on the way we passed the Blue Mosque so I left them and went to go check it out. When I got in the courtyard I met a couple from Virginia and they said that it was closed to tourists because it was prayer time so I walked over and looked at the Hagia Sophia (I didn’t go in because it cost money and I have a bad habit of ending up with only having like 3 lira/kuna/lev/euro with me). I took some pictures of it and got another bagel thing (only .75 lira) for lunch. I went back to the Blue Mosque and sat around in the courtyard with the rest of the tourists. At one point I went to look in the window so I could see the praying and I was standing right behind the women’s section. It took me a little while standing there but I finally realized that I was standing right behind a woman who was about the same age and me and it was strange because I was standing there all American in my jeans and a tee shirt and she was standing there all Turkish with her long skirt, head scarf, and no shoes but we probably weren’t that different. After a while prayer time was over and I couldn’t find the visitor’s entrance so a woman in a burka with her little kids showed me where to go and I went in and it was BEAUTIFUL! And then I had to find my way back to the ship. I had 3 hours so I wasn’t worried but I had to go through the bazaar to get there and that is a little bit of a nightmare when you look like a tourist, you are a woman, and you’re alone. I made it through the bazaar to the gypsy’s bazaar with limit comments (“Marry me baby” “oh look its Miley Cyrus” “Looking is free”) and then I got to the gypsy’s bazaar and asked which way to the ship and they guy told me how to get there via bus so I asked him where to go walking and he looked at me like I was crazy so I went back through the bazaar to the busy street and got a cab (I had my debit card with me so I put up with the fees and got money out). When I got back to the ship I got dinner and turned in my post cards and took a nap.

I would definitely go back to Turkey in an instant! I’m going to go eat dinner but I’ll try to finish Bulgaria tonight or at the latest tomorrow.