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Brittany
At the Basilica Cistern, on day 1. 6 in the morning on a Wednesday. Waaaay too early for a university student to wake up, but I did, because as someone who's arrived at an airport without the person to meet you there, I know it's quite an unnerving experience.
So I put on some clothes and made my way through 3 different types of public transportation to the airport, 5 minutes before Brittany's flight came in.
Needless to say, just because the flight was there didn't mean that people had their bags yet. So after about an hour or so, she appeared with a backpack and a giant suitcase full of supplies for me from the folks (thanks folks!). We did some exploring, I helped her find a hostel and ditch her stuff, and I started her running with basic Turkish culture (don't point the bottom of your feet at people, lifting your chin and clicking means no, etc).
We started a planning and a plotting. When I met up with her the next day, we agreed to head out to Kapadokya that night, Thursday the first. We waded through the mass of people harkening to us "Ankara, Kars, Van, Kapadokya! 'scuse me,
Sultanahmet Cami (Blue Mosque)
Right around sundown. Day 1 (Wednesday, October 31, 2007) 'scuse me. Where you go? You go with us!" and found a company that looked reputable enough to get us there. 40 lira down, swing back to the metro stop for some 1 lira chicken sandwiches, then onto the bus.
We arrived at about 8 in the morning in Neveşehir, and waited for about an hour for the transfer to Göreme, the center town of Kapadokya. We found a hostel some of my friends had recommended (10 lira a night, including breakfast, for a cave-dormitory room hollowed out of one of the "fairy chimneys," the English name for a type of tall, thin rock formation found there.
We walked to Motodocia, in the center of town, and rented the fastest looking scooter they had there for about 40 lira... well worth it, I could pull 60 with her without a passenger on a straight. I mean, that's not that fast, but it IS a scooter, what do you expect? Brittany and I cruised up to Gülşehir to check out some old carved out churches. (Most of the churches are around 900-1300 years old. Check Cappadocia on Wikipedia if you want more info).
Back home to Göreme, Brittany
My Feet
In the Blue Mosque was exhausted and jet lagged so I dropped her to take a nap while I tested the off-roading capabilities of the little scooter (and I must say it did pretty well. The great thing is if you get stuck in dirt you can more or less just drag it out). I drove up a switchback mountainside paved with cobblestones to Ortahisar to top off the tank. On the way back, needless to say, I got lost. But not TOO lost, I only missed my turn off by one stop. It started to get a little intense though, the clouds broke open and it started raining on me, while I'm on the scooter in the dark trying to figure out my way home. It wasn't so bad once I found the right road, but I had to go pretty fast because there was no space to pull off on the side of the road and so I had to go fast enough to keep from getting tailgated by buses (not a good thing). The face shield on my helmet was all scratched so the light would just blur my vision like crazy, so I had it kind of riding half up/half
Woman and Child
I really liked this shot, just wish it had come out better, of a woman sitting on the floor in the Blue Mosque, with her baby in her lap, as she is looking out and her baby is just staring up at her hand. down to keep as much of the rain out of my eyes as possible but still allow me to see.
Then I made it back to the switchbacks... the way the scooter is wired if the engine shuts off so do the lights, so I had to make liberal use of the wet breaks while revving the engine to keep my lights on.
But anyway, I made it back alright. Brittany was still asleep, so I took a bit of a nap, missed my alarm, and woke up at 3am. Got up a few hours later, and woke Brittany from her 17 hour sleep (no kidding). We packed up our gear, had breakfast, and started exploring. We headed up to the Göreme Open-Air museum, which has 20 or 30 some old rock churches, and then on the way back just sort of hiked aimlessly through some of the emptier parts. There's not much my words can do to describe it, so I'll just post lots of pictures.
We're back in Istanbul now, Britt's staying in Sultanahmet and I'm grudgingly going to class.
Anyway, that's all for now,
(a)Live in Istanbul,
Tristan
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