Turkey!!

Ok here is the beginning of my blog... I did a LOT in Turkey so i'm not done yet but i want to go to sleep.
Let me start off by saying that I had no expectations for Turkey. I knew nothing about the country and never expected to visit. I didn’t know any of the major cities or landmarks but I LOVED it! Hands down favorite country.

Day 1:
We were all pretty tired on the first day because we only had one day between Greece and Turkey. Me and Bridget slept in (missed breakfast) and then had to wait around all morning until the landing cards were ready to pass out. In Turkey if you don’t have a visa they can take away your passport so in Istanbul if you are a tourist you have to carry a landing card that says that you are allowed to be there without having to buy a visa. If you traveled outside of Istanbul (which I did) you had to have a visa (which I had : ).  We ate lunch on the ship and then headed out to go to the bazaar. The boat was in a really convenient location so we didn’t have to walk for 30 minutes to get to the actual town for once!!

Once we crossed the Bosphorus river from the asian side to the European side we were instantly in the gypsy’s bazaar. It was ridiculously overwhelming. It was a less fancy version of the actual bazaar except outside and selling cheaper stuff (black market perfume, used xbox 360’s, etc) I could safely bet that a good ½ of everything sold there was stolen and the other ½ was food (spices, roll thingys, fruit). There were TONS of locals and tourists all mixed so there were a bunch of languages being spoken at the same time with the vendors yelling whatever they were selling from every stand. We were walking through there around 12:30 which is one of the busiest times of the day so we had to weave through people and there were people walking around trying to sell stuff and a man walking around in the traditional dress with a giant fancy cooler of something on his back and he was pouring glasses of some kind of drink for people.

We finally got to the spice bazaar and almost immediately tried some Turkish delights. These are little gummy cube things that come in different flavors and are DELICOUS! The nice vender guy let me try a couple different favors and then Bridget bought some and we split them. So then we had to go back through the gypsy’s bazaar to get to the actual grand bazaar and Bridget and Taryn took care of asking for directions (we had to ask about 8 different people before we actually found it). The bazaar was HUGE. If I bought 2 items at every stand I could probably decorate every dorm room in every dorm at depaul. We walked around a good sized chunk of it before actually buying anything. I got to haggle again (just like in Tanzania : ) so that was fun. I also got good at converting from Lira to dollars in my head (you have to multiply by 2 and then divide by 3).

We stopped for some food at the bazaar because we had been walking for a long time so I got chicken schnitzel and it was pretty much a giant chicken nugget on a piece of white bread with cold vegetables on the side. It made ship food look like a 5 star restaurant.

After our snack we went back to the ship and had nap time before dinner. After dinner we went out to a hookah bar. It was really cool because they had these strange shaped bean bag things around tables and giant hookahs all over. It was outside and they had really pretty lanterns that looked cool in the smoke. The best part of the place was the waffle stand. There were a bunch of people walking around selling fruit and drinks (tea, water, pop) and nuts and then there were some small stands for ice cream and other stuff and we went to the waffle stand where they make the waffle when you order so its still warm and they put in your choice of fruit (me and Justine shared one and had strawberries) and your choice of any other toppings (me and Justine had nutella, white chocolate, dark chocolate, and milk chocolate chocolate chips… it was the ultimate chocolate covered strawberries on a waffle). It was probably the most delicious dessert I’ve ever eaten. I fully intend to make them when I get back to America (hopefully before my wisdom teeth disappear… maybe as part of my last meal). So then after hookah I went to bed early.


Day 2:
On day 2 I got up at 6:15 (ugh) because I had to meet the group I was going to Cappadocia with at the gangway at 7 (ew). When I got there I found out that 2 girls had opted to go later to the airport so they could sleep in so only 12 of us were there and we fit perfectly into 3 taxis. On the way to the airport I had a nice overview of Istanbul and I tried asking the cab driver (I was sitting in the front seat) a little about what I should see while I was there but he didn’t really speak much English. He only knew enough to tell me that he grew up in Istanbul.

When we got to the airport we had breakfast. I attempted to order Turkish Toast and ended up with a grilled cheese sandwich and a brownie. It was really good though! While we were waiting for everyone to get there Paul went to take money out of an ATM and it ate his card. I felt really bad because I had just solved my money problems and his were just starting. So when the final 2 came our whole group was there (Stephanie, Aubrey, Angie, Caroline, Amanda, Sarah, Dan, Alex/Allix (I’m not sure about the spelling), Tyler, Melanie, Cara, Paul, Lindsay, and me). Dan gave us a little airplane lesson because he works at an airport back in america and we got on the plane. The ride was really short but they still gave us a full meal! (I sat next to a 3 ½ year old boy who kept rolling his eyes at me.)

When we got there our tour guide, Remzie, picked us up in our awesome white creeper van (yeah we roll in style) and our drivers name was Hussein (I sat up front with him and Melanie). We went right to a little area off the highway to look at the caves and fairy chimneys and Sarah ended up riding a camel for 5 lira. After a group picture with Remzie giving us really complicated things to say instead of cheese (the name of the place in Turkish… beyond my abilities after getting up at 6:15) we got back in the van and headed to another place that was similar (Remzie called it the grand canyon of Turkey). Next we went to a place that had churches and a nunnery carved into the rocks. There was also a kitchen and dining room for the priests. The churches were really cool because there were frescoes from either the 8th or 11th century (I can’t rememeber which…) all of the pictures were missing chunks and a lot of them were missing their eyeballs and Remzie explained that it was because people were superstitious and would come and scrape off parts of the paintings and mix the scrapings with water and drink it for good luck, to ward off evil, to cure a medical thing, or for fertility. The open air museum had a bunch of random foods growing there. They had apples, apricots, walnuts, poppy seeds, almonds, coffee, etc. Most of us tried some of the poppy seed and dan tried a walnut which was apparently a bad idea. Remzie knew a lot about the area and could answer any question we threw at him. He also started most of his sentences with “My dear friends…” which led to a lot of funny impressions of him.

Finally it was lunch time (2:00… keep in mind we had breakfast at 7:30) and we went to a restaurant and sat on the roof top terrace and I had vegetarian pizza and a pop. They gave us appetizers beforehand and it was bread, salsa, and random vegetables in some kind of dressing. It was a random mix. After lunch we went to another place to see the fairy chimneys and then went to a pottery place to see how they make pottery. After a demonstration they let us try. Amanda went first and then I went (I accidentally broke the clay ball in ½… oops!) and then Alex/Allix went. After that we saw how they decorate the pottery. Then they showed us the store area. The stuff was cool so I got 2 small bowls. Then it was time to go to the hotel. We were staying at Gamirasu Cave Hotel. It was in a really small town and where Hussein dropped us off was a little sketch so I was pretty skeptical but after short walk down the hill we saw the actual hotel and it was BEAUTIFUL! Saying we staying in caves doesn’t even begin to cover it. They were giant rooms and all of them were shaped different with different decorations and big bathrooms. I roomed with Stephanie and our room (#5) looked a little like a cottage but cave style. We had some free time before dinner so I pretty much sat around and did nothing. Though I find a friendly stray cat to pet. (there was a running joke that all the stray animals are gypsies so we referred to every cat we saw as gypsy kitty… and don’t worry mom. I washed my hands!). We had dinner at the hotel that night and it was the best meal I’ve had on S@S so far. We had vegetable soup, Turkish ravioli, salad, and then rice and chicken. I have no idea what the dessert was but it looked like dried grass sitting in a pile on a plate covered in honey. It was pretty good though! We listened to sarah’s Turkish music CD while we ate and since ½ the group had gone into the tiny town for dinner there were only 7 of us. It was nice to be able to hear what everyone was saying and all have a big conversation instead of splitting into little separate conversations. After dinner I took a shower and then we had a bathrobe party on the terrace (aka we drank wine, played backgammin, used the free wifi!, and sat around in our bathrobes).


I'll try to finish the rest tomorrow but since i have a paper due in 2 days it might not happen. Its also harder to do this blog because the hard drive on my computer is almost full and so i had trouble uploading pictures and most of my pictures from Cappadocia got deleted off my camera and didn't upload properly so I can't remember a lot of the names of places and the order we did stuff in.

On the bright side, in 2 days i'm going to be in Egypt!!!! Oh and another thing is that Natalia is the coolest person ever and found us the most amazing apartment for next year!! EEEEEK!!!!

alrighty goodnight