Merhaba!

Tuesday night I got back from an amazing six-day trip to Antalya, Turkey.  At the same time that I’ve been excited about writing a blog post about the trip, I’ve dreaded it too.  So many exciting things happened in such a short time that I knew it was going to be a long post.  Hopefully you don’t get too bored or jealous reading through this, so I will provide a summary for those of you who want the quick version:

•  I like to eat
•  Turkey is old
•  Mountains look really nice falling into the Mediterranean
•  I encourage everyone to go to Turkey

For anyone else who is interested in the trip (mom and dad), here’s the longer version with pictures:

Last Wednesday morning, I felt super cool and experienced as I took the bus to the train station, train to the airport, and finally hopped on my flight from Frankfurt to Istanbul.  The flight from Germany to Turkey is actually only three hours, but for some reason, it still feels like it takes an entire day to get there.  Aubrey was flying back to Turkey after a surprise visit home to his family in the States, and we got to make the quick flight from Istanbul to Antalya together! For anyone who hasn’t flown Turkish airlines before, you should know that they feed you no matter how long your flight is.  The flight from Istanbul to Antalya is only an hour and we still got sandwiches! Needless to say, I love anyplace that provides you with a lot of food. So Turkey was already impressive from inside an airplane.

The view of the mountains near Aubrey’s apartment.

Luckily, Aubrey is somehow a jetlag superhuman, and we woke up relatively early on Thursday to walk through the old town of Antalya.  After explaining to a few people that my boyfriend lived in Antalya, I had been surprised to learn that it’s a pretty well-known city amongst the Germans.  Still, it was a super mind-blowing to hear the call to prayer while having people yell, “BITTE BITTE, KOMMEN SIE REIN. DEUTSCH?! ENGLISCH?! VIELE SCHOENE SACHEN!”, while you walk through a beautiful old city.  Which was also really cool, because as I apparently don’t look very Turkish, people were assuming I was German.  Boom.  My work here is done.  You can even pay at shops and restaurants in the old city in euros and the signs are in German.  It’s that touristy.  (Aubrey and I spent a good part of the trip spotting the German tourists from their Jack Wolfskin jackets.)  The rest of the day we stared at the Mediterranean and I even convinced Aubrey to take a super touristy boat ride before the afternoon was over.

Snowcapped mountains bordering the Mediterranean.

Thursday evening I began my love affair with pomegranate sour sauce when we had dinner at this delicious soup restaurant.  A super fantastic appetizer that seems typical for Turkey is a simple salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olive oil, and, the most important part, pomegranate sour sauce (aka angel tears).  It’s sweet and sour at the same time with the texture of olive oil and I have literally had dreams about eating it.

On Friday, we stayed in Antalya and traveled to the beach so we could continue oogling at the mountains and the sea.  That evening, Aubrey suggested that we make manti, which is another typical Turkish dish.  It’s basically lamb ravioli in a yogurt-butter sauce and holy crap, it tastes like unicorns dancing to Beyonce on your tongue.  It’s really, really delicious.  Although it may seem like I spent six days eating my way through the city, while looking at some mountains with my manfriend, we did do some other noteworthy stuff!

Beach in Antalya.

Saturday we ventured out of Antalya and Aubrey’s comfort zone and took a somewhat short trip to the ancient Greek city, Perge.  The city is only seventeen kilometers from Antalya, but took us about forty minutes to get to with the city bus.  If you know exactly where the buses are going and coming from (aka, you’ve lived in Antalya all your life), they’re super awesome, because they will literally pick you up and drop you off wherever along their route.  You can literally get on a bus from the side of the highway if you just stick your arm out as it passes by.  It’s convenient, but it also takes a long time to get anywhere.  Anyway, we had read up a little on the internet about Perge, but actually arriving in the city totally blew our minds.  We casually had a picnic lunch in an empty ancient Greek stadium before we continued to the inner city ruins.  The city itself is unbelievably big and it was super cool to casually tour ourselves through the ancient streets.  There’s signs explaining what certain ruins are and everyone is free to meander around and on top of everything.  It was super wild and at one point, Aubrey and I looked up to see a shepherd casually herding his sheep (tea in hand) throughout the ruins.  Saturday evening we decided to head back into the old town to grab a beer when we got a hankering for…ahem…McDonalds.  (Toblerone McFlurry, people.  You can’t get that in America.  That’s our excuse.)  As we’re walking out, an older gentlemen said something in Turkish to Aubrey.  When he realized we were speaking English he immediately said, “AMERICANS?! I’m an American citizen!!!!” Then, in perfect English, he told me I looked like Grace Kelly.  So when he asked us to sit down and chat, I spoke for both of us and said, “sure!”  For the next forty-five minutes Aubrey and I listened to this nice gentleman talk about astrological signs, Virginia, Turkey, Germany, my freckles, the Mediterranean, and the five different languages that he spoke.  Although he more or less talked at us rather than with us and it was the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever had, it was super entertaining.  When he finally took a breath, Aubrey and I managed to slip away and a grab a beer.

Our lunch spot in Perge.

Just a few sheep taking a casual stroll through the city.

Sunday we SUPER amazing and we took another day trip to the city of Olympos.  It’s about seventy kilometers from Antalya and we were somewhat winging our way getting there.  We jumped on a dolmush and after about an hour the bus driver pulled over and let the two of us out before continuing on his way.  Looking around, we found ourselves at the top of a mountain with a giant “Olympos” sign pointing down the mountain.  For a few lira we got a nice man to drive us down to the bottom where we got to explore the ancient ruins of the city.  Hooooooooooooly moly, this place was insane.  Again, like Perge, tourists are free to explore around the ruins themselves.  Unlike Perge, the ruins are dispersed throughout the woods.  On one side of the main road you have what might have formerly been homes or shops directly next to a creek.  On the other, you have a forest and if you hike your way through, you find all sorts of cool ruins.  The really amazing thing about Olympos is that the ruins aren’t just from one era, but multiple.  There’s stuff from the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire, and castles casually built into the side of the mountain from the Middle Ages.  It’s really a great example of the extensive history of the country.  Once you meander your way to the end of the main road, the whole city opens up onto the Mediterranean beach.  Guys, this place is absurd.  You gotta go.

 

Aubrey and I made our way down the beach and walked a bit through the next town over, before turning around to find a way back to Antalya.  On our walk back through Olympos, I looked up and said, “OH, they look German.  I’ll ask them to take our picture.”  After this amazingly nice couple took our picture, they asked us what we were doing there (with a confused look of, “you’re speaking to me in German, with an American accent, and we’re in Turkey…)  Before we knew it, Aubrey and I were in their rental car, heading to the next town over, Cirali, to see the eternal flames of Chimaera.  Schicksal!  If we hadn’t have been in the right place or the right time to ask such a nice couple to take our picture, we would have never made the trip out.  After an evening hike up the mountain with our new friends, we found ourselves looking at a super cool phenomena where fire is just casually popping out of the ground from the natural gases under the rocks.  There’s probably some super scientific reason for it and a better explanation, but I don’t know it.  It was just really neat.

Castle built into the side of the mountain at Olympos.

Standing on the beach in front of Olympos. This is also one of the pictures taken by our new German friends!

Hanging out with some eternal fire.

When we got back down the bottom of the mountain, our new friends took us to a bus stop off the side of the highway.  Crossing our fingers, Aubrey and I sort of waited in the dark and frantically waved when we saw what we hoped was a bus back to Antalya.  And viola! We made it back!

Monday, we meandered more of the old town, visited one of the old mosques in the center of the city, and I got suckered into buying tea when all I wanted was a postcard.  Before I knew it, Tuesday was here, and I had to jump on an airplane back home.  I have to say, it’s sort of bizarre and really awesome to leave a vacation to go back to Germany.  It makes it easier to leave.  Until I have the opportunity to go back to Antalya, I guesssssssssss I’ll just hang out here in Germany.  It’s a hard life.

[Note to travelers: I am writing this only out of the goodness of my heart.  Bring toilet paper with you on your excursions.  There is nothing more heart-breaking or more #firstworldproblems than searching for toilet paper or paper towels or ANTYHING after a number two.  You’re welcome.]