Summer, soccer, and sarimsak

The heat's finally settled in this week, and even the cats have noticed. It was hot throughout June, but now it's really hot! Our cats have been laying in all sorts of strange positions to try to stay cool.

This month Turkey played in the European soccer tournament. Turkey's always excited about soccer, but especially when the national team is playing! Every day they played a game, they put flags on the city buses, and the bus drivers wore Turkey soccer jerseys. My roommate and I only watched the last game, but we could hear the results of every game from our apartment! With the windows open for summer, it sounded like we were in a crowded room every time they scored a goal, and the noise outside after they won lasted from midnight to 1:30 or so.

I've been having cooking classes as part of my language classes this week. One of the things I learned to make was "sarimsakli kofte." You make a sort of ball-shaped pasta with bulgur and cover it in a homemade garlicky tomato sauce. I can't wait to make it back in the US, it's one of my favorite foods here. After all, I'll need little pieces of Turkish culture to keep with me when I return home. This place will always be special to me after spending 2 years of my life here.

Traveling: The road trip

My mom and I took a road trip all around Turkey. We spent a lot of time in the car, but we got to see a large part of Turkey in its many faces. As a side trip, we also got to visit a little part of Greece! Here are some of the highlights.

The first stop was Anamur. Outside of the small beach town is Anamurium, ruins of an ancient city that was abandoned after being destroyed by pirates in the 7th century. It also has a lovely beach with wildflowers.

The next day we drove to Marmaris. We were supposed to go to Rhodes by ferry the next morning and catch a plane from Rhodes to Athens that afternoon. Unfortunately, the daily ferry was canceled that morning for a festival. Luckily we had a lovely view of the harbor from the internet cafe while we re-arranged our plans. Lots of European tourists in Marmaris.

We took the afternoon ferry to Rhodes and spent the night. We stayed in the old medieval city and took a day trip to Lindos. We rode donkeys through the winding streets crowded with white buildings to the top of the hill, the grey, fortified acropolis where the ancient temple and other historic relics lay.

After Rhodes we headed back towards Antalya by way of Derbe. Derbe is the hometown and burial place of St. Nicholas. Outside the city is a fascinating ancient historical site of the Lycians. They were a fiercely independent people who assisted the Trojans against the invading Greeks in The Iliad, and had independence on and off until 43 AD. They also built elaborate tombs for their kings on the hillsides of the coastline, out of the rock.

Heading north into Anatolia, the heartland of Turkey, we stopped at a well-preserved caravansarai from the 1200s where caravans would stop for lodging on the well-worn Silk Road. Camels and all would come inside for a cross between an inn and a truck stop.

Finally we reached Cappadocia, the perfect crowning point for a visit to Turkey. We enjoyed the sweeping Grand-Canyon-esque views, the change in culinary specialties, the underground city from 800 BC, and the cave churches from 300-1000 AD.

That's just the highlights, if you want more details (or more pictures) click on the links above or just ask!

Traveling: the Istanbul trip

I took a trip to Istanbul last month with my dad and his fiancee. Since I had been to Istanbul before, my dad took far more pictures than I did, and I haven't gotten his yet. But here are the highlights from my camera.

I finally got to visit the Egyptian spice bazaar. It's kind of like a smaller version of the Grand Bazaar (what I call the original shopping mall), but it originally sold only fresh spices.

Next we visited the Hagia Sofia. This 1500-year-old church was used as a mosque for centuries. Now it's just a museum. Outside the Hagia Sofia are several old pieces of the church lying around, like this stone with 2 crosses. In front were black tulips. Tulips originally came from Turkey, but Holland stole them and made them popular around the world.

We also visited the underground cistern, originally used by the Eastern Roman Empire to store water for the citizens of the city. It's the size of 2 football fields, and they've pumped most of the water out so you can walk among the hundreds of old Roman columns on a boardwalk. There are upside-down Medusa heads at the bases of 2 of the columns. One conjecture is the heads were intended to scare off intruders.

After hearing mixed reviews, I finally visited Topkapi Palace, the original palace of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire (in use until the Empire was disbanded and became Turkey after WWI). I think it might have been my favorite part of this trip! It looked like a real medieval castle set in Eastern culture, the stuff of books. It had a view overlooking the city, but as you can see the weather wasn't ideal for us that day. We saw many couch-like thrones, but the one in the photo above was from the harem, where the sultan's concubines lived.

The interesting thing about the Istanbul Archeological Museum is that most of the relics don't look Turkish, because they aren't. The Museum features ancient relics from all over Turkey, long before Turks ever got there. The carved Greek-looking marble figures in the picture were from a sarcophogus, and the figures are women in mourning for the king who was buried there.

Last we visited Chora church. This church is around 600-800 years old, and is full of the most amazing mosaics. Unfortunately, my camera couldn't do justice to the mosaics. You can't use a flash on paint that old, so all my pictures came out blurry.

I guess the neatest part of visiting Istanbul is that you can span 2000 years of history and 3 different empires in a weekend! It's truly a crossroads of civilizations.

Traveling: The beach trip

Last week I went to the beach with my roommate. She loves sunbathing, the beach, the pool, whatever. What she wanted to do most to celebrate her birthday was go to the beach. It's a bit of a trek by train and mini-bus to get to the nice beach, so we decided to get a room at one of the many reasonable hotels and stay overnight to make the most of it. Originally we were going to get a really cheap room, but then our friend got a great deal for us at a nice hotel for a reasonable price. It was worth it!

I think they had 4 rooms (out of 50 or so) booked in the entire hotel when we were there. They gave us a free upgrade to a suite with a huge balcony overlooking the sea, pool, and garden. Bonus points for great landscaping! We ended up spending most of our time at the pool. We brought pool rafts and lounged on the water, or just laid in the comfy lounge chairs with cushions. We read and listened to our iPods. It was great. I thought I was going to get bored, but after I got by that pool I realized I really did need to relax. It felt like I was in Florida again. There was only one other couple by the pool the entire time, and they were German! We had dinner at the hotel, in a garden, and we even got them to bring a birthday cake with dinner.

Two thumbs up for the Turkish beach hotel! We definitely need to go back in the fall.