Turkey

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Turkey (the best trip yet)
This was an amazing trip. On Friday night I arrived in Istanbul with Darci, Tyler and Jamie, and we meet Lauren there (my friend from home who is studying in Cario, in case you don’t know her). Lauren stayed till Sunday though was not able to join us for the second part of the trip.

This trip is so hard to sum up in words though I will do my best…

SATURDAY

Palace:
The first day we went around the city and to the place that the sultan and his harem used to live. It was just a bunch of rooms with expensive furniture and paintings. It was cool at first but got dull by the end. I could never live in a place like that. There were so many elegant rooms, too many. We had to go on a tour though the tour guide said about two words. There were tourists who spent a long time in every room even at the end, and they kept taking pictures even though everything looked the same. It was so frustrating how slow everyone was moving. Though it was a beautiful day and the outside of the palace was nice.

Lunch on the water:
After the palace we went to eat lunch along a bridge. It was beautiful looking out over the water at the mosques at the other side. The restaurants were on the bottom floor and on the top floor cars could go across and there were hundreds of people fishing. So we could see fishing lines as we were eating. We looked at about every restaurant. They all had the exact same menu, which consisted mostly of fish and they all had people outside trying to get us to eat in the restaurant. Tyler was bugged the most by the waiters. It is really a man dominated society there, which was nice at times because the girls would be harrassed less. Everywhere in Turkey we were harrassed by someone mostly it was to buy something, such as a rug. There are people that will be nice to you on the streets then they tell you they sell rugs. Well more about hasseling and rug selling later. Back to lunch. So some people didn’t want fish but we managed to find a place that also had some other food and the man out front promised us free fruit and tea/ coffee to get us to come in. So we went in. They gave us sooo much bread. Which is odd for us because bread cost money in Prague and the food took so long to come so we ate soo much bread (way to much, all weekend). I was the only one who tried the fish. It came out full. I had Tyler chop off the head for me. I just can’t eat something that is staring back at me. The fish was good but there wasn’t too much meat on the fish. After we ate we waiting a while for the fruit and tea it never came so we were getting up to go then they brought the tea. Then we were waiting a long time for the fruit but it never came, the waiter kept saying four minutes. How long does it take to make fruit? So we just left after a while. After lunch we ventured into the spice market and the grand bazaar.

Spice Market/ Grand Bazaar
The spice market had many places with spices and teas and lots of Turkish delight. We ate way too much Turkish delight, though it was good, especially when it was fresh. I bought some tea though did not do a good job bargaining I got much better by the end. You just have to bargain a lot think of a price you won’t go over then walk away. Most the time they stop you when you are leaving and give into your price. Though one time the person did not stop me and I had to go back like a fool and pay the bargained price we came up with. But it was something I really wanted. I was good at bargaining at the end but got really sick of it. After all the bargaining we appreciated having set prices

The Grand Bazaar is 4500 shops of stuff that you bargain for. They had some really cool stuff and I bought a lot. Many of the store owners stand outside of there both and try to get you to come in. They will call out “lady” which got annoying. Once you show interest in anything you are trapped. The store worker will start showing you things and trying to sell it to you. Tyler was forced to by a scarf. The store worker took it out of the bag to show him. Then when Tyler said he didn’t want it the worker said he had to buy it because he took it out of the bag. There were still nice people and over all the Turks were very nice and friendly, sometimes they are just too friendly.

Belly dancing and twrilly worly (or something like that) show plus dinner (the hotel we stayed at) We paid to go out to a nice dinner with a show of different types of Turkish dancing including belly dancing and the twrilly worly. They also were people that made their stomachs look like heads. It was all really cool. I was so full from snacking on food and Turkish delight at the grand bazaar and they had four courses served to us. We were at a table with others staying at the hotel and everyone was nice. The hotel that we stayed at Almena was a good hotel, it was cheap and the people where nice though they were full so they put me and Lauren in another hotel down the street. This was great because we were able to escape the one really bad thing about the Almena. During the night there it’s hard to sleep because a train goes right by the hotel and it’s loud.

After the show
We went out with one of the people that work at the hotel, first he took us to a hostel where he knew the DJ. The music was loud so we couldn’t hear each other well. There were 2 young boys dancing and when Lauren tried to dance by them they got scared. Then the rest of the 10 or so people were sleeping on the couches in the back. I guess they don’t have rooms at the hostel. It was an odd hostel so we left shortly after we arrived. We made it all the way across the street to a bar. Lauren and I turned it into a club and our whole group was up dancing, including the hotel worker and his friend. That was the best part of the night. Later we lost Jamie and had to spend a while looking for here while a weird Turkish man (who I danced with) kept following me and saying my name and the hotel workers friend kept talking to me. It was odd getting so much attention but we were pretty much the only girls there.

All throughout Turkey there are always more men out then women, some days we would walk down the street and only see men. Or some restaurants would only have men in them. It odd and frustrating how dominating the men are in there society, though it seems to just be accepted there. However I was just saying the week before how I wanted to have it once were the men’s line for the bathroom was longer then the women’s. Well guess where that happened--in Turkey. When we were on the commuters boat after we got back from our trip to Ephesus the boat was full of men, I might have seen one other woman. And the men’s bathroom had a line while the woman’s did not. However the women’s bathroom had no toilet it was just a hole in the ground with running water so I decided to wait till later. But most places with toilets you have to pay to go to the bathroom (this is the same for most places in Europe) it's frustrating and us Americans want to rebel. You should not have to pay to do something that every human needs to do.

Well back to the club. So we finally found Jamie and said a quick bye to all the guys and went back to the hotel. Oh, also, there were also some American guys there who are doing peace corps in Africa for people with AIDS, it was really interesting talking to them. This was one of the guy’s first trips out of Africa for about a year and he was saying how cold he was because it was over 100 degrees in Africa. It’s amazing what they do there, the guy who I was talking to raised the money with his brother to be able to afford to go there and to help the Africans who have AIDS.

And that was just the first day.

SUNDAY

Mosques
We went to the mosques which were cool to see. Again there were many people trying to sell us souvenirs outside of the mosque. The Blue mosque was free to go in. Though the second mosque we went into (the one that used to be a church) they made us pay. I think at that one they some how knew I was Jewish and didn’t want me to enter. I waited in line to get my ticket like everyone else and when I got to the front waited again while many others went in front of me because the person did not have change. Finally she got change and gave me my ticket. Next I waited in line to go though the metal detector; my friends were nice and waited for me. Next I put my ticket in to go into the mosque but my ticket wouldn’t work and the man made me go all the way out again. I tried to talk to the lady that sold me the ticket but she did not care. She scanned the ticket and it showed it was not valid; pretty much she gave me an invalid ticket. She talked to the man behind here, good thing I understand the language. I was about to tell them to just go in again there was no way I was going to pay 10 more new lira (about 8 USD) to go in. Then the man came out told me to follow him and he ended up letting giving the ticket man another ticket for me and I got in. Though that was so frustrating especially with all the lines that I didn’t even end up enjoying the mosque.

Kicking it back
After we were going to go to the castle though when we could not find the entrance we just ended up getting lunch (nothing of which I could eat so I ate a snack bar I had in my bag. Since the hospital there are still many things I can’t eat). After lunch we laid on the grass and listened to music it was such a beautiful and warm day.

Boat trip
Then we went on a boat to see the bridges that divide Asia and Europe and because we got a good deal on it after getting our travel package for Ephesus. The boat trip was enjoyable. It was nice seeing all the places along the water. And it was cool seeing were the two different bodies of water meet. The boat had to move slower during that part.

Leaving Istanbul
After the boat trip we went for dinner then left for our long 12 hour night bus trip to Ephesus.

MONDAY

At about 7:30am we arrived in Ephesus, luckily I was able to sleep some on the bus, poor Darcy was not able to sleep at all. When the bus dropped us of someone from the hotel was there to lead us to the hotel. (Kind of like at the airport how someone from the hotel had a sign with Tyler’s name, though this time it was Darci’s name). We set our stuff down at the hotel ate some breakfast and then was off for our tours of the day. First was Ephesus (the ruins of an old city). It was cool to see and was interesting what the tour guide said about it. Though our tour guide was an ass, but more about that later. After Ephesus, we all went to lunch, which was included. I have been a big eggplant fan since I have gotten to Europe (though they call it something different here because British call it something different) and they have amazing rice in Turkey, so I got rice and eggplant which was perfect. (they also have lots of rice pudding). After lunch we went to a few more places on the tour including a rug factory which everyone said they didn’t want to go to and the whole bus started to boy cot by staying on the bus when we got there but the tour guide insisted. Once one person gave in and got out of the bus the others followed. It was interesting seeing how the rugs are made, all hand done and it was cool learning how you can tell the difference in material. I definately learned about rugs though at the end of the tour of course they tried to sell it to us. When anyone showed any interest they would start pulling out rugs and saying I know what you want. If they didn’t want that rug they would say the same thing and pull out another. There was one person who ended up getting a rug and she was one of the main people protesting earlier about going to the rug place. One of the people on the tour saw one of the people at the rug place slip our tour guide money, surprise, surprise. (the funny thing to is the person who sold us the whole package told us that the tour guide did not take us to places that they would try to make us by things). Then we went to some place were saint Mary (or someone) probably lived. Some religious thing.

Then we were done with the tour and went back to Selcuk were we rented mopeds. They were soo much fun though scary at first, we had to get out of the place the mopeds were parked while the people we rented them from where watching us and we had to make a quick turn and there were all these kids playing on the street and it was a small ally way. It was difficult but we managed to make it out. The people who gave us the bikes seemed to not care that we were having so much trouble. I signed some paper before, I must have been signing my life way. I couldn’t read it because it was in Turkish. I guess about 80 percent of tourist injuries happen on mopeds (mom if you are reading this, I’m fine). On our mopeds we went to some burial sight of some religious figure which had ruins and was pretty. Then we rode them along the sea (during sunset) and went to a restaurant on the water. It was so beautiful, we could look out and see an island of Greece. The road we took when up in some hills and along the water. Dinner was good but they did not understand me when I said I wanted rice and they brought Orange Juice. Though they finally understood and said they didn’t have it but promised that next time I came they would have a lot of rice for me.

After dinner we went off-roading with the mopeds. I crashed ours a little but we were fine. We went up a hill and looked out over the town. The further we got out of the main town the more we saw what the local life was like, we passed right by a sheep herder and some kids playing soccer in the grass. The houses were old and town down, they seem to have such a different life style there. It was so nice getting out of the huge city of Istanbul and seeing more of the country side plus being by the sea was amazing.

TUESDAY

Darci’s birthday camel
Tuesday was Darci’s Birthday. We went on a 3 hour bus ride to Pamukkale inland from Selcuk. At the beginning of the bus ride we saw some sheep headers then Darci says “all I need to see now is a camel.” We laughed and try to enjoy the rest of our bus ride. There we two cute little girls from England who we were talking to and throughout the trip they wanted to be by us though there parents kept pulling them away. When we arrived at Pamukkale the tour guide starts to explain something though at this time me and Darci were cracking up. Out of our window was one camel. Darci’s birthday wish came true. Though not only did we see the camel but Darci was able to ride it.

Pamukkale was cool there were some old ruins and a white rock that we walked on with warm water. The huge rock clings to the side of a hill and is formed because of some mineral in the water. The rock was soft though not every where and we had to take off our shoes so my feet were hurting by the end.

Then we had a 3 hour bus ride back to Pamukkale. We got dinner there at an awesome restaurant where the waiter had collected a journal type things of everyone he has served. We read what others wrote then we wrote in it and I left my newly expired Prague transportation pass. After dinner we got on the bus back to Istanbul and at about 7am we arrived in Istanbul.

WEDNESDAY

Unfortunately I was not able to sleep much on this bus ride, even though we were able to spread out. We took a ferry across the water and had breakfast.

Turkish Baths
After breakfast we headed to the baths. It was quite an interesting experience (I know that’s a shitty word to use though I don’t know exactly how to describe it, I will let you decide on a better word). It was different from the Hungarian baths.

We get naked (girls and guys are separate) then and have a towel that we wrap around ourselves. We go into a room that’s like a huge sauna and lie on this circular thing in the center. I don’t think I have ever sweated so much in my life. After awhile the Turkish women came in to give us our scrubs this was the most interesting part, we were pretty much treated like dogs. The women were over wait and were only wearing underwear. They poured water over us, scrubbed us down, covered us with bottles, gave a short hard massage and washed our hair. When they wanted us to turn over they slapped our butts. I was one of the last to go and when the lady slapped the ass of one Turkish women across from me it was so loud and the massage was beater her back, it seemed painful. My massage was a little painful but the lady I got was more gentle (in comparison). Afterwards we got facials.

Back to the Bazaar and home
We went back to pick up a few last minute things. Then had lunch and headed to the airport for the long journey home. We went from metro to airport to plane to bus to another plane to bus to metro to tram then walked home. I got home about 10:30. And we almost missed our first flight because Darci wanted Starbucks.
Turkey was quite the trip and I really want to go back and go all around the country. If we would have had another day in Selcuk we would of sky dived.

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Photos

Blue Mosque at night
My camera doesn't really make it look blue

Great Bagels
They sold cheap bagels on the street like poland

Tyler and Darci on the plane (we are almost there)
the plane was soo small

Lauren and me (cheers)
tukish tea was great, especialy the cups they served them in. They were so cute.

One of the many alleys at the grand bazaar
That man has lots of bags. Kind of like how I was. And Im not even much of a shopper but the grand bazaar rocks!

Relaxing on the grass
This is the second day. We were all aready tired out

The turkish flag with a boat and the bridge that dives Europe and Asia
This is the second day when we went on the boat cruise. (The Turkish flag was everywhere we went)

The dance show
the wirling dirbish