Coreyography

Farewell Summer, Farewell Europe

I´M BACK IN: Istanbul
HAVING VISITED: Vienna, Austria and Basel, Switzerland
NEXT UP: India!!

I had a wonderful last week in Europe.  Vienna is a city everyone should visit as it has tons going for it: culture, beautiful buildings, great coffee houses and a thought-provoking modern art scene.  For me, it also has my friend Hubs, who I met in the jungle in Laos.  Hubs and his fabulous girlfriend Julia are both studying to be dentists (which involves extensive slave labor and little free time) and they were incredibly kind to host me (brilliantly) with little warning.  At some point I will master the art of planning my travels ahead of time, but this is not the case at present.  Hubs and Julia have a large group of friends who were equally gracious and fun.  We had such a great time that I did not want to leave Vienna on Sunday at all, but did so en (a very circuitous yet thrifty) route to India.  Right, so I had no problems at all getting my visa in Vienna, all I needed was a way to get my tail over there.  Funds are low these days, and I felt like I could definitely do better than the $1300 flights that I found from Vienna to Delhi.  My final travel bill will come to less than half of this cost, but this will involve lots of layover ludicrousness (boo) and a trip back to Turkey (yay).

My flight last night (Basel to Istanbul) started this string of dubious travel.  I arrived in Istanbul's secondary airport (one hour out of town) this morning at 2:40 a.m.  Yikes.  Quite serendipitously I met a woman in my dorm in Basel who was on this same flight!  So at least I had good company for this adventure.  We were both able to get a bus into town and a dorm bed with little to no hassle.  Indeed, I hope the journey to Delhi goes half as smoothly.  Here is the plan: on Saturday night I fly from Istanbul to Kuwait.  Then after a six hour layover (lasting from 2-8:00 a.m.) it'll be Kuwait to Dubai where I have a twelve hour layover, then from Dubai to Delhi, where I arrive at 5:00 a.m Monday morning.  Clearly I was wearing my Bad Idea jeans when I booked this.  Here's hoping that Indian customs officials have liberal policies regarding Zombie Admittance.

But in the meantime, I am back in Turkey and it is a beautiful thing.   A la Bangkok, it is so nice to visit a place where you have a notion of which way is up, even if it is a vague notion.  If only I could get that They Might Be Giants 'Istanbul not Constantinople' song out of my head for more than five minutes!  As recently as this morning I was planning to go around to various Turkish cities I did not get a chance to see on my last visit, but I have revised this plan (in no small part because of my fond feelings for this city) to just chilling in Istanbul.  Full disclosure: there are also movies in English here.  But my goal for today is to get my hair done, always a dicey proposition when there is a language barrier involved.  Wish me luck!

Yeah, and...

I'M IN: Selcuk having visited Ephesus today
NEXT UP: Istanbul

So the weather the other morning was stormy, so no paragliding.  Guess I will have to hunt down the best place in the world for this after all!  Also, I mentioned but didn't elaborate on the fact that I'm coming back to the U.S.A. for three weeks for a little vacation from my vacation.  Doing a brief tour of the Southeast just in time for Thanksgiving - if you live in North Carolina or Virgina and are reading this I probably want to see you, so email me and we will figure it out.

Today I visited Ephesus, but I can't tell you too much about it because the folks that rent out the audioguide equipment were 'on holiday.'  It does seems that they've done quite a bit of restoration of the ruins here, which really gives you a sense of the city (more so than piles of rocks on the ground).  I gather that there is some controversy in archaeological circles about restoration - I'm not sure if it is generally something that is frowned upon or what.  Pictures (including me driving the boat!) are updated. 

Out of Season

I'M IN: Fethiye, having visited Olympus & Kas
NEXT UP: Selcuk, Istanbul then London en route to the U.S.A.

Despite a lot of stuff being closed for the season, I'm having a great final week here in Turkey.  I've been making my way along the southern coast, traveling earlier this week from Antalya to Olympus, where they claim to have invented some games...  Sounds familiar!  Olympus has two main attractions for the budget traveler - backpacker 'cruises' and staying in treehouses.  Neither of these proved forthcoming.  First of all, the cruises have stopped for the season, which was a bummer.  Second of all the treehouses are bungalows made of wood.  I had a fun night regardless, learning to play Tarot with a vacationing French family.  They even had their own little mat that we played on!  Very fun.  The next day I continued on to Kas, which is a very cute little town.  While there I searched unsuccessfully for more cruise options (all closed for the season) and otherwise hung out around town amongst the Lycian ruins.  After huffing and puffing to the top of the Roman theater, I encountered a friendly woman (aged somewhere between 80 - 105) picking herbs on whom I inflicted my rudimentary Turkish.  'Merhaba!  Nassesem?'  She began talking to me in Turkish and then started scampering up a hill motioning me to follow her.  I was astounded by her pluck and spry-ity!  She showed me the way to two ancient tombs in the hills, pointing out the interesting features of each.  Afterwards I asked (in English) what her name was.  Puzzlement.  I pointed to myself and said, 'My name is Corey,' and pointed and her and said, 'Your name?'  She said, 'Money?  Money.  Money!' and pointed to my purse.  I only had a 50 YTL note (about $40) and she shook her head disgusted and pointed for me to go down the hill.  As per just about always, I have no idea what that was about but it was interesting!

I came to Fethiye a few days ago and even managed to get myself on a boat yesterday.  It proved to be a most interesting trip as Captain George took a shine to me bestowed me with lots of special 'treats' including getting to drive the boat, free wine and a jet ski ride.  He told me, 'You a very lucky lady.'  Yes indeed.  I declined his subsequent offers to come to his village for dinner and to return to the boat as his special guest today.  I know - I have no idea!

Tomorrow I plan to paraglide!  Apparently this is the 'second best place in the world' to do this.  I can find no online substantiation of this fact, but it does beg the question, why not go ahead and claim to be the best in the world?  Assuming I survive (just kidding loved ones!) it's onto Selcuk, base for exploring Ephesus, before heading back to Istanbul Wednesday.  There is a huge Champions League soccer game that night - Fenerbahce (who beat my fave Turkish team Besıktas last night with the help of a last minute horrible call - injustice!) vs. PSV, so I'm looking forward to that fun atmosphere.  So not many days left in Turkey but many adventures to come!

Tryptophan

I'M IN: Antalya (the beach!), having visited Konya, Capadocia and the Turkish capital Ankara
NEXT UP: More beach, then some more beach

All this turkey is making me lazy!  Sorry for the lack of posts and the plethora of Turkey/turkey jokes (I attempted to put jokes in quotes there, but I can't find the dern quote marks on this Turkish keyboard). At some point, surely, I will tire of these quips but that point has not yet come.  So much to cover as I've been an unproductive blogger so let's get to it!  My visit to Trabzon was not blessed by good weather, but it was great nonetheless.  My friend Caglar's parents were extremely gracious and v. lovely people.  One of my favorite things about Turkey is the Turkish breakfast, which Caglar's mom provided with panache every morning.  The spread includes olives, bread and lots of cheese and it families have a little tray they keep in the fridge with individual dishes of these items.  What a great idea!  Also included: cups and cups of tea and coffee.  Caffeine intake here is astounding.

I also met several of Caglar's friends in Trabzon, with whom I had a nice time talking politics.  Several folks have emailed me that there is a lot in the U.S. news about anti-Americanism here in Turkey, but I have not experienced any of that personally.  I did see a protest (or something) yesterday in the bus station (?) but Caglar said that the people were chanting pro-Turkish army and anti-PKK slogans.  Turkish flags are everywhere and patriotic sentiment does appear quite high, reminding me of late 2001 in the U.S. 

Caglar and I then went to Ankara where we were put up by his brother and sister-in-law, who again were incredibly hospitable and provided great breakfasts.  In city analogies, Ankara is quite D.C.-like (clean, sort of suburban-urban, solidly middle class) and Istanbul is New York (crazy, big, fun, a little dangerous).  In Ankara, we visited the Ataturk mausoleum, which had great life-sized dioramas about the Turkish war of Independence and a lot of info on the most impressive Ataturk.  I was astounded with how far-thinking Ataturk regarding forging a modern nation, insisting that the Turks not only adopt the Western alphabet and have a secular government, but also seeing the need for creating a Turkish identity by funding fine arts and history projects. 

Then it was on to Capadocia, which is one of my favorite places I have been so far.  There are caves and fairy chimneys for miles, and I felt like I could just look and look at them for three days.  So I did!  I took a tour that included several churches (Capadocia was a center for early Christianity - who knew?) and an underground city and a walk through a beautiful canyon.  It was all just so neat - one of those places I think everyone would find amazing.

And the-en it was on to Konya, home of the great Islamic mystical thinker/whirling dervish guru Mevlana a.k.a. Rumi.  I forgot to tell you about seeing a whirling dervish performance (recital?  ritual?  not sure what to call this) in Istanbul.  I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but it was beautiful and sort of soothing to watch.  Konya had a great museum with more information about Mevlana and the dervishes, but I still feel like I have the barest grasp of their complex beliefs and symbology. 

Last night I arrived in Antalya on the coast and I'm happy to report: it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarm!  I'm staying here in the south for the next two weeks.  OK, promise not to let my frustration with and mistrust of the Turkish keyboard keep me from postıng again soon.

Gobble Gobble

I'M IN: Trabzon, Turkey having visited Istanbul
NEXT UP: Capadocıa, home of the Fairy Chimneys

First of all I have to say that I have yet to master the Turkish keyboard (which has several different letters on it and several characters not where I'm used to finding them) so I apologize in advance if this post is more incomprehensible than normal.  I really enjoyed Istanbul, but I am kicking myself for not doing more climatological research before coming to Turkey in October.  As many of you know, one of my goals for this trip was to remain warm and toasty for two years straight and today's high of 15 degrees Celsius has shot that right out of the water!  Tomorrow will include some shopping time for long sleeve shirts.

Backing up a bit, the overnight train from Greece was quite neat.  I had a two-person cabin to myself and it was v. relaxing just being rocked to sleep as we chugged along.  What was not relaxing was crossing ınternatıonal borders at 2:00 and 5:00 a.m., but I arrived in Istanbul mid-morning pretty well rested nevertheless.  I couldn't check into my hostel until the afternoon and was a little grungy so I decided not to put off my visit to the Turkish Baths.  Getting scrubbed by a Russian woman was just what the doctor ordered!  The rest of the days in Istanbul, I visited lots of different mosques and historic sites and pictures are updated.

While in Istanbul I met a really nice Turkish guy (actually I met a TON of nice Turkish guys, but most of them just wanted to talk about me buying carpets) and he invited me to stay with hıs family in Trabzon on the Black Sea.  Trabzon is pretty far off the tourist track (not even in my Lonely Planet) and so this seemed like a great opportunity to see some of the "real" Turkey and also to be a guest in a home.  After six months of hotels, this was too nice to pass up.  The hospitality has been extremely warm and lovely and I'm hoping the weather will follow suit tomorrow!