Planning Day

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Day 5:

Today we headed to a Turkish travel agent to discuss booking some tours and the best possible routes to get where we're going. Unlike the rest of Europe, Turkey is not the easiest place to get around. On top of that Momma Bear and I have yet to be fluent in Turkish. I know how to say thank you in two ways: Tesecur (big thank you) and Sao (small thanks). When we got to the travel agent he managed to set everything up for us up until the 30th of July including accommodation, bus fare, tour costs, most meals, our ferry tickets to Rhodes and of course our cruise on a sailing yacht where we will have all meals and drinks included for 4 days and 3 wonderful nights. We will be able to snorkel and DEEP SEA FISH! (Sorry Danette, I will be thinking about you when I'm fishing if that helps any!) The price he gave us was incredibly reasonable. Considering he took care of everything and was able to do it for us within our budget, which isn't extravagant by any means, we are very pleased with what we got. I can't remember what the name of the company is but I will include it in a later blog when we return there to leave on Thursday.

We then got seconded into a rug store where we heard the history of hand made rugs. This store was a little different because they operate under the premise that age of the rug doesn't matter, in fact they are selling a lot of rugs that are 150 - 200 years old. Their whole sales premise is based on the fact that rugs are art and the only thing that matters is that it makes you happy. Well after a cup of turkish coffee (very strong), some very good tea, and an hour to hour and a half long sales pitch Momma Bear was almost convinced. Two problems; the first was that they kept pressing that money doesn't matter as long as the rug makes you happy (one does need to be able to afford the house for said rug to go in); the second problem was trying to get the rug home. We managed to get out unscathed although I did consider purchasing a rug to decorate my cave (sorry, inside joke)! I didn't even ask how much the silk rugs were that take two years to make by hand.

We didn't exit the rug store empty handed, we gained some knowledge as to the different types of carpet. Some where made of goat hair because, as the nice salesmen put it, "in Turkey we have very friendly people; we also have very friendly snakes." The goat hair is fairly prickly and not overly comfortable to lie on but it prevents the snakes from slithering over it. Now we can say we learned something today.

We then visited the Basilica Cistern which was really cool to see. It is essentially an underground aquaduct used to supply water to the surrounding palaces but the design and architecture are amazing to look at. We also visited the spice market with has quite the selection of; you guessed it, SPICES!!

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch. The only reason why I am mentioning this is because of what I tried there. It is a drink that I have seen many people have and is called Doy-Doy; which roughly translated, is salted yoghurt drink. I have always said I will try anything once well this now goes in the never again category. Let's just say "I fought the Doy-Doy and the Doy-Doy won!"

On a completely unrelated matter; Terri keeps commenting that all she gets is my backside in her pictures and if you were to go through some of the pictures you could name the album "Where's Waldo and his Tilley hat." First of all, she stops to take pictures of some interesting (use whatever definition of interesting you want) pictures and second of all; WHO DOESN'T WANT TO SEE MY BACKSIDE IN ALL OF THE PICTURES!?! Speaking of the word interesting, it seems to be the only word in Terri's vocabulary as of late. How's your food, how's the tea, how's the view (yes, double entendre intended)? They all have the same answer, INTERESTING! Okay, I'm ranting now and I shall stop.

The end of the day was exhausting as we went to bed at 6pm and didn't wake until 7am the next morning.

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