A Gorgeous Bride

My cousin got married 2 weeks ago. She was stunning. They have so much love for each other. It's a beautiful thing. Once I put together the highlight video of their day, I will post the link here. In the meantime, drool over how utterly beautiful Mrs. Sarah Teachey Cooper is...

Day Five: You Are Freaking Kidding Me

Today is THE day of ALL days. It was hectic, caused a lot of anxiety, and raised my blood pressure A LOT, but it was also really, really incredible.

We were supposed to be outside our hotel at 6:30am. I wake up to a knock on our room door and Christine yelling, HANNA! It's 6:37!!! I literally flew out of the bed...while yelling a few expletives. Orhan is on the other side of the door, "Are you coming?" YES YES YES, we yell. We get out of the room in about 3 minutes. Orhan is in his pajamas still waiting for us. He takes us to the lobby to pay our hotel bill and the tour guide comes in yelling at us to hurry up. We get on the bus and it's filled with about 15 other people...oops, sorry you all had to wait (is what I should have said...but instead I avoided eye contact). We drive for about an hour, a different tour guide gets on our bus (thank goodness!) and we stop for breakfast on the way to Ephesus. While at breakfast, Christine and I go over to our tour guide to double check that Orhan talked to him about dropping us in Milas on the way back from Ephesus...and what do you know...he has no idea what we're talking about.

Why am I not surprised?

After a bit of pleading, he and the driver agree to drop us off on the way back from Ephesus. Lucky it was him we were asking and not the tour guide rushing us out of the hotel yelling. Along the way we stop at some jewelry-making store where they tried to get us to buy jewelry. Lame. But finally, we made it to Ephesus.

Sadly, my neck and back were killing me this day so I couldn't carry around my good camera, but my iPhone proved to be extremely useful for picture-taking on those days where my body couldn't bear my monstrous piece of equipment.

 Ephesus is pretty darn awesome. Lots of Roman ruins about, but the main attraction (at least for me) was the Library of Celsus. I learned about this structure in my Seven Wonders of the Ancient World class and have been dreaming about it ever since. It is so surreal to be so familiar with a piece of art or architecture from studying slide after slide and then seeing it first-hand. Right in front of your eyes. You can touch it (sometimes). You experience it in a whole new way. A deeper way. Sometimes, I find I actually hold my breath. (I know I sound like an oober nerd...and I don't care). This did not bring me to tears, that happens later, in Istanbul. But this is close.

While visiting the ruins we start talking to two girls on the tour with us. Their names are Hala & Lama (beautiful twins) and they are traveling with their father. They are Lebanese, but currently call Dubai their home. They were incredibly sweet and gave us some pointers for Istanbul.

Afterwards, we leave for lunch. Those of us that wish to visit Mary's house jump on the bus and we practically drive straight up a mountain. The grounds are covered with roses, Mary's favorite flower, as Christine shared with me. I have no pictures of this as they were not allowed. This is the house where she lived with John the Baptist and the location where she was assumed into Heaven. When we walk inside there are head scarfs for us to put on. It's a tiny room with an alter in the back. This is one of those places where you can feel the spirituality of it all. Of the air, of the walls. It has an invisible presence about it. Remarkable. Outside there are faucets where you can collect or wash your hands in holy water. As you walk on, there is a section of the wall that is covered in papers, napkins, wrappers, etc. with prayers written to Mary. What a place.

We spend some time with Hala, Lama, and their father as we wait for the rest of the guests who were still visiting. Then back on the bus to return to Bodrum. We remind Ismail (our tour guide) that we need to be dropped in Milas. He remembers. Once we get to Milas, the bus pulls over outside the Otogar for us to jump out. It's of course monsooning. Now, I have no intention of believing that a bus is actually going to stop here from Bodrum on it's way to Konya.  I will believe it when I see it. Christine tries to call Orhan from a pay phone and I start wandering the bus station trying to find anyone who speaks English. Eventually an older man that works for one of the companies assures me one is coming. Like I said, I'll believe it when I see it. If I've learned anything from this trip so far it is that things will not go our way. Always have a plan B and always double, triple, & quadruple check.

Once I realize all we can do is wait, I decide, hey, we're in a bus station, let's go ahead and buy the last bus ticket that we need for our trip. I find the man I was talking to earlier and he takes me into the office and tries to help me. I didn't say this earlier, but he really doesn't speak much English. He knows yes. And maybe no...We want to travel from Safranbolu to Sile (a small city on the Black Sea with supposedly good beaches). A great location for us to relax and recover for a couple of days. Guess what: buses don't go to Sile. OOOOOF course not. Instead, he says, we can take a bus from Safranbolu to Istanbul and then an hour bus from Istanbul to Sile (which would be backwards because Sile is in between Safranbolu and Istanbul). Seeing no other option, I say okay, fine. We buy our tickets from Safranbolu to Istanbul. We'll worry about Sile later.

I don't believe I have yet described the sheer number of stray cats and dogs in Turkey. It's unimaginable. They all seem happy. People throw cat food out in the streets every day and the dogs hang out around restaurants where proprietors and patrons feed them table scraps. They tend to be sweet, happy dogs. But it is still so heart-breaking to see them without a companion, shelter, and someone to keep them healthy. So while waiting for our bus to arrive, Christine befriends two beautiful (though dirty) white dogs. They sit with us and we talk to them sweetly and pet them. Then when the bus comes (YES! MIRACULOUSLY IT ACTUALLY COMES!!) they follow us out to the bus. It was so sad. They wouldn't leave us.

We get on the bus (we have the first two seats with a wide view of the road). We chat for a bit and do this and that. Now I stressed over if I want to write this next part. Do I want to remember this years from now. But, it's no use avoiding the bad part of a trip. You can't deny something happened. The bus hit a dog. Christine saw it happen. I felt it happen. It was horrible. I have never in my life felt so instantly sick than at that moment. It was heart-breaking. And sadly, I'm sure it happens a lot since there are so many strays that don't know any better. But it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. That was quite an ending to our day. It was a roller coaster of emotions for sure.

Now we ride through the night to Konya.

Day Four: Things Are Looking Up

We hop on the bus at 12:30am for a 6 hour drive to Izmir. I semi-sleep. It's dark and dreary at 6:30am when we arrive in Izmir. The otogar is immense and one of the most depressing public transportation system buildings I've seen. It's dark, cavernous, and filled with stray cats. We hop on the bus to Bodrum at 7:30. The drive is STUNNING! Mountains and lakes, open land.

We arrive at Bodrum before noon and are picked up by hour hotel's transport service. Once we arrive, Orhan, the proprietor of the hotel, sits us down, gives us coffee, and shares with us the run down on Bodrum. We mention we want to go to Ephesus the next day and ask about the hotel's excursion to the site. Unfortunately we have a bus scheduled to leave the next day at 3:30 and the Ephesus tour runs from 6:30am to 7pm. Problem. We absolutely CANNOT miss Ephesus! Orhan has a solution! He has a friend at the otogar and he says he can have the tour bus drop us at a bus station on the way back from Ephesus and from there we can catch a later bus to Konya. He assured us he would inform the tour guide of the situation...We just wouldn't get our money back for the ticket we had already purchased. It seemed worth the lost cash. Orhan sent us to the otogar with one of his employees and he assisted us in purchasing our new bus ticket for tomorrow from Milas to Konya. Perfect.

Christine and I wander around Bodrum down along the seaside and through the shops. It was a beautiful relaxing seaside town on the Aegean. Apparently it is a city that is very popular for Turkish families and couples to vacation to during the summer.

We attempt to walk back to the hotel, only to discover that it is out of reach by foot for our tired bodies. We catch a dolmus and arrive at the hotel in time for Orhan to pile us, along with 2 Australian students traveling together, into the hotel van and take us to Etrim. Billy & Rachel (I believe) were two friendly girls, loved to laugh, and were very open. The ride to Etrim was rough...too fast, bumpy, windy roads, hard braking...but we made it in one piece.

We make it to Etrim, which is a small village where the woman make carpets, and the people live in simplicity and peace. It's extremely beautiful. There were chickens and cows meandering, old houses, dirt roads, etc.

A man who is friends with Orhan and who claims to be the Mayor of the village (he's lying...) greets us. He takes us into the village mosque and provides us with a basic understanding of Islam. He then takes us to what appears to be a type of cafe where we all share tea and where the local men play each other in backgammon (a common occurrence in Turkey). I tried Apple Tea this time which essentially tasted like a sour apple jolly rancher in liquid form. It was good, but sweet!

He then takes us to watch his mother demonstrate the methods used by the local women to make the carpets. Their work is incredibly detailed, uniquely dyed, and altogether beautiful. Girl's learn by first observing their mother's through early childhood and, if I remember correctly, begin making their own carpets (practicing and such) around age 14.
 

Afterwards, they serve us dinner and we then are shown carpet upon carpet upon carpet in their "showroom". Some of them really are quite stunning. We finally get on the road after 9pm to head back to the hotel. Christine & I pack our things for the morning since we have to be outside the hotel ready to go by 6:30am. I am beyond eager to actually lay down in a bed at this point and get some much needed sleep. Tomorrow will be an interesting day, to put it mildly.

Peace

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day Three: Almost Smooth

Task for today is to visit Troy. We gather bread, tomatoes, nuts, and fruit on our way to the bus center for Troy. We arrive to find that we are taking a minibus, which is called a "dolmus" in Turkish. We are a bit sketched out, but by the end of the trip we ride these like pros as they are the most common and cheapest form of transportation in Turkey.

After a cramped, smelly, but beautiful hour-long drive into the country we arrive in Troy. It was beautiful!  Red poppies everywhere. Most of the ruins left are Roman, not from the original Trojan city. But it was still too cool to look out over the water and think, this is where they stood to spot any incoming ships, friend or foe. At Troy we meet an avid traveler in his 70's from New York, eager to grace us with his seemingly unending knowledge of Turkish history...Nick. Now he was a talker. 

Nick ends up talking our ears off on the dolmus ride back to Canakkale. When we arrive he walks us down to an old naval museum on the water. It had beautiful views:

Then we catch a ferry across the water to Kilitbahir which is kind of a weird town across the water. Here we decide to try Turkish coffee...it feels like your teeth are rotting. So thick & strong. I love strong coffee but this was like someone ran a pound of espresso into a tiny espresso cup.

The two young men working at the cafe try really hard to talk with us and one claims he was a professional Turkish basketball player. After the disgusting cup of coffee we run back to the ferry in the rain so as not to miss it (it literally pulls out once our feet are on board) and wander around to find dinner. The highlight of dinner comes when our waiter (who had an excellent sense of humor when it came to dealing with our Turkish) pulls out a dust-buster and proceeds to vacuum our tabletop before he brings us our plate of watermelon. Clearly we were unusually messy or he was just trying to be funny.
We hang around until our bus is supposed to leave at 10:30pm for Bodrum. We walk to the bus station and guess what...our bus had broken down and we had to now catch the 12:30am bus to Izmir which will arrive at 6:30am and then we switch to a bus that will arrive in Bodrum at 11am. FANTASTIC. So we hang around and then hop on the bus 2 hours later and we're off...

Day Two: Playing Catch Up

We arrive in Canakkale at 6am, but our hotel will not let us into our room until 10. 10! I cannot sleep sitting up on a bus unless I'm drugged. It has been 40 hours since I have slept. We are both slightly delirious. Kindly, the hotel desk clerk offers some coffee. We have breakfast in the hotel at 7 and we are let in our room at 9. We plan to sleep until 12:30pm so I set my alarm. We don't actually get up until 4 because I set it for 12:30am like a moron. As I said, we were delirious. But the rest is needed.

View from our hotel room

We wander around the small city of Canakkale, which is a cute little seaside town. It's your typical small, seaside European city. Calm, yet with plenty to do. 

We stop to eat dinner and share some wine by the water. Our waiter is patient with our poor attempts at speaking Turkish and this is when we fall in love with Ezine peynir. Head over heels in love....with sheep's cheese. Ezine is a region in Turkey that produces the most amazing cheese. The Turks, as we found, call it Feta cheese. They say "It's just Feta cheese". Of course, it's nothing like the Feta that we are used to. And thus the addiction begins.

Tomorrow we go to the ancient city of Troy!

Biggest Adventure Yet...

I've returned from a 15 day adventure in Turkey with my dear friend Christine. Here I will begin posting photographs and entries about the trip chronologically. This trip can certainly be defined as an adventure. It started as a week in Greece and a week in Turkey and three days before we boarded our flight, we nixed Greece completely due to the not-so-healthy political climate. We opted for two weeks in Turkey and figured, hey, we have the basics, we'll figure it out as we go along. Piece of cake.

Right.

Wrong.

Day One: What Were We Thinking...


We landed at Ataturk Airport at around noon...paid $20 for our visa to enter the country, which was far too simple...and hopped on an airport transfer bus to the area of Taksim in Istanbul (not sure why we decided that was where we wanted to go). We drive for 15 minutes, Christine dozes, and I'm wide-eyed and somewhat concerned as I have no idea what we are going to do once we reach Taksim. The bus makes a stop, we jump off, thinking we are in Taksim (in about a week we discover that we were not in Taksim). We see a ferry station and walk in asking to take a ferry to Canakkale. This was our plan. It was going to work.

Wrong.

There are no ferries to Canakkale. You must take a bus. Walk to the metro, take it to the Otogar (bus station), and take a bus to Canakkale.

These were the instructions, more or less, that we received from the ferry ticket-seller. So we walked in the general direction that he pointed searching for a metro station. We stop, needing a break from hauling our backpacks and I'm sure are looking pathetic. A kind guy walks up and asks where we are trying to go, hails us a cab, and sends us on our way to the metro station. We finally make it to the Otogar and walk in one of the bus companies (the most reputable one according to our book) and find that we missed the bus to Canakkale by 15 minutes and now have to wait until midnight. This sucks.

The Kamil Koc station:

We decide to make the most of the time and start better planning our trip, because I am not dealing with this every time we want to go somewhere. We try to buy tickets for other parts of our trip. This proves to be more difficult that we thought as the busses don't always leave at convenient times or perhaps don't even go to the cities you wish to reach. Problem. Around 8pm I'm trying not to panic and to come up with a logical plan. Then, another angel comes to our rescue. His name is Jay. He is a graduate student at Georgia Tech that has returned to Turkey to visit his family. He whips out his laptop and starts planning our trip. Magic. We purchase some bus tickets and make plans for the next few days and hop on our bus at midnight.

Here we are in the Kamil Koc station trying not to look like zombies & doing our best to stay optimistic.

On the bright side, thus far we have learned that Turkish people will go out of their way to help you. Thank goodness or we would have been seriously screwed, to put it bluntly. This is the hardest country I have every attempted to navigate. 

I assure you, the trip gets more exciting...and less depressing.