Turkey

I don’t know how to say Hello in Turkish.

I kind of wish they taught us more helpful phrases for the countries we visit…oh well. In Turkey I traveled with Ellen and her roommate Erica, Adam, Nate, and Bryce. Bryce goes to UW so I was glad he was on the trip. Adam and Nate did all the planning – so they’re champions, because they planned an amazing trip!

When we got off the boat we made our way via public transportation to the airport. We took a plane to a city in southwest Turkey called Antalya. From there we took taxis and busses to a smaller city called Olympos. Olympos has a population of about 200 people. In the summertime, this dream-world Mediterranean town gets about 2000 tourist visitors. So being there in November…means that it was a little bit colder, but we had the place virtually to ourselves! When we arrived it was dark and chilly, but we dropped our stuff down at our lodging (we rented out one tree house and one bungalow!) The difference between the tree house and the bungalow was that the tree house had no heating and you had to climb a few steps to get to the door. I stayed in the bungalow the first night and the tree house the second night. The people working at the resort place home cook all their food, they kind of take turns trying to outdo each other! Thus, our food was delicious and authentic and fully cooked (yay!) We had a yummy dinner and were pretty tired after traveling all day, but decided to go on an adventure! In the dark. We walked down some dark road towards the water, we kept passing by creepy ancient ruins and a dog found us and tagged along with us for the whole evening. Finally we made it to the water…it was gorgeous. The beach was covered in small pebbles, and out in the middle of nowhere there were no lights and no pollution to detract from the brilliant night sky. I saw more stars than I think I’ve ever seen. We saw shooting stars go across the black and it was outstandingly beautiful. We played the ha-ha game on the pebbles and finally us and the dog (Rabes, short for Rabies) headed back to base. We hung out in the lodge-esque building with a heater and cushions and had a relaxing evening.

The next day we got up and ate homemade breakfast (scrambled eggs, omelets, fried eggs with Greek olives, baguettes and cheese). Then we headed out for our sea kayaking adventure!!! We found a guide and went kayaking on the Mediterranean!! The temperature was about 75 degrees, unlike Istanbul which I think was cold and rainy (hah!) The water was clear blue and gorgeous!! Oh yeah, and warm…it was like pleasant bathwater. Adam flipped over in his kayak twice – which was hilarious both times. Bryce flipped over once. I didn’t get to enjoy the excitement of capsizing. We kayaked for a pretty long time and were all feeling it in our arms when we arrived at some sort of far off private beach. We played around in the sea for a little while and then headed back. After that we were all pretty tired. Back on shore we stopped by a little pancake place. This old woman who had only a very few teeth made us potato and cheese pancakes (and by pancake I basically mean a crepe). They were really good and we also had Turkish tea with them. It was awesome because it was a farm-type area so there were lots of chickens prancing about and…and bunny rabbit!!!! I promptly named him Oreo, and for good reason. He was so cute. After that we were all exhausted!!! So we lounged around on the outside cushions and listened to music and napped until dinner time. Part of dinner was stuffed green peppers and it made me miss Mommy’s cooking a lot. After dinner we went on this amazing night hike tour!!! The hike was harder than I expected, but after about 20 minutes we arrived…at this hill…where there are natural pockets in the earth’s crust where methane comes out and is burned. Naturally. Like the eternal flame of life. It was SO freaking cool!!!!! The whole hill side just had little flares popping out of it…so weird. It was amazing. After that we were even more tired and lounged around until it was bedtime.

Alright day 3…we ate breakfast again and used the internet for a little while. Then we went on a self-guided hike through the ancient roman ruins that were, you know, just laying around. We found a roman bath, a roman amphitheatre, a church, a castle, a sarcophagus, some tombs, and some other random old things! It’s crazy just walking around like normal…through ancient ruins. Bizarre. This whole experience is surreal, it’s like we’re all constantly dream walking through some fake fantasy life going, “are we really here? Is this really happening? We’re in Turkey?!?!” We climbed to the top of something and were rewarded by the most amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, picturesque view EVER!!! We went on a picture taking frenzy and could probably get rich off of making postcards out of them. We could see the blue water and the pebbly beach and paragliders and the rocks and trees and ruins and everything!! Then we walked around on the beach, looking at / collecting cool rocks, the boys did some small scale cliff jumping while the girls took a little model photo shoot on the beach J Then we headed back for lunch. After lunch we took a bus to another bus that took us back to Antalya. Then we took another bus, this one was one of the worst bus rides of my life I think (it was crowded and smelly and we had no idea where to get off and ended up getting off way past where we needed to be…and it was just bad). After we back tracked to our hotel we found out that it was way more expensive than advertised online. So we only got one room and planned on all 6 of us crashing there. We went up and set our stuff down and then went out to dinner. After dinner we met some random guy that drove us all around the town and took us to clubs and hotels and it was so much fun. We just ran around everywhere and had a blast! Then we got back to the hotel and they knew our scheme…and made us pay for another room, so that was a huge bummer. Anyway we were slightly too exhausted to care so we paid for it and crashed.

The next morning, after not very much sleep, we got up, packed up and took a taxi to the airport. We flew back to Istanbul where it was rainy and not 75 degrees…boo. We got some food before heading back to the ship. It was so nice to get back and have free food and a sanitary shower (the hotel’s bathroom / everything was disgusting!!) Then I group hopped how I do and met up with Mary, Allie, and Jesse. We went to a hookah bar that had free wireless internet and I tried Turkish coffee. Nobody warned me about how freaking disgusting it is!!!!! EWW. Anyway internet was good, and after that I was ready for sleep.

The next day we got up early and after breakfast that same small group and I headed out for the Blue Mosque. It was big and beautiful and a mosque. I don’t know what else to say about it. Then we went to the palace and saw some sweet expensive looking ancient objects…thrones, jewelry, seals, goblets, knives, wedding headdresses, the works. It was gorgeous! Then we had our Turkish Bath experience!!! We were separated from Jesse and changed carefully into our towels. Then we were taken to a 300 year old communal bathroom and promptly had a woman remove all three of our towels. We sat down on warm tiles and the woman poured bowls of warm/hot water over us. Then one by one we were selected to go into a different room. In this room you lay spread eagle on a slab of marble. Another lady pours more water on you and then brings out the scrubby weapon. It was in between a loofa and the dishwashing sponge you use to get the hard stuff off of skillets. It was a little painful but so worth it. After it was all over I’d never felt so clean before in my life. They scrape LAYERS of dead skin off of you and you can see the black peeling off in clumps. It’s disgusting. After that this pillowy, silky thing washed over my body, no idea what it was other than Amazing. When I opened my eyes I was covered in millions of bubbles. It was like being in a bubble bath without the … bath. They soaped us and massaged us and washed our hair. Then they rinsed us all off and sent us back to the first room where we continued to pour bowls of water over ourselves. Then they wrapped each of us in three towels each and we met up with Jesse and the guys that happened to also be in his bath. We all sipped on apple tea and rejoiced in our cleanliness and finally put our clothes back on. From there we got chicken pitas for lunch and then temporarily separated. I went to go see the cistern (ancient water reservoir for the city…amazing). Then I met back up with them and we wandered the streets and bought fun things. I headed back to the ship with Allie and another girl, Kendra. We grabbed our computers and went back to the internet café. We drank more apple tea (it’s huge here) and skyped and interneted. I made it back to the ship with only 10 minutes to spare! It was a little nerve racking but not too much. I wrote some last minute postcards and then chatted with people and cram-read my politics book that I had to do a book report on.

Back on the ship…I spent the whole next day reading and sleeping and trying to write my stupid book report. I had to give a group presentation in my leadership class which went better than I thought it would. My part went really well – I didn’t talk too fast!!! And my professor really liked the examples I used and…yeah I felt really good about that, even though my group is like beyond dysfunctional. I don’t know how we pulled it off. Anyway. I eventually got my book report done, thanks to Joe who is smart and helped me. I went to bed late and got up early to finish it up and go to class. The good thing about that class period was that I got my last quiz back – which I somehow aced. I think he might be grading me easier than everybody else cuz I highly doubt I deserve perfect scores on anything politics related…yeah. Other than that things are fun on the ship. It was stormy and everybody felt sick that night. I’ve been hanging out with Mary a lot and very much enjoying her company. I might be traveling with Kat and Mere again in Spain so I’m pumped for that. Dave, my surrogate grandfather, is taking me out to formal dining, which is where you pay $25 to eat food significantly better than the normal ship food, and you have to dress up to go. So he is treating me and another girl he’s adopted on the ship and his wife is coming and we’re all SO excited!!! Also, the Ambassador’s Ball is coming up and I got my table figured out for that. It will be Ellen, Erica, and Nate (who I traveled with in Turkey) plus two other girls named Brittany and Stevie. That’s the night where everybody dresses up and everybody gets good food and then there’s some kind of dance afterward. Should be really high school-esque and fun. Other ship board news / drama, some kids did a variety of bad things and were supposed to get kicked off, but their rich parents called and got them to be allowed to stay. Captain Jeremy said no, I have final authority on this ship I want these idiot immature children off. ISE said, no, we’re vetoing your power as a CAPTAIN (you are NOT supposed to do that!!!!)….so after this Captain Jeremy will not be participating in Semester at Sea voyages. It’s really sad. He’s been with us for a while and done a ton of voyages. And those kids are just retarded. They wonder why they supposedly don’t get treated as adults…come on. A lot of people are pissed that they’re allowed to stay. Anyway drama drama drama, but I’m not a part of any of it. Life is good, I can’t believe how soon I’m coming home!!! I’m starting to have extremely mixed feelings about all of that…everybody’s shocked we only have 2 countries left…it’s weird.

Alright thanks for reading however much of this you did; take care!!

Love,

Hilary