"Squeeze the World"

Though yesterday morning did not promise great improvement in the weather, we decided to take a chance and brave the storm. Since the hotel is a significant distance from daily traffic, we had to take a taxi in a ways before catching a bus. It was a cute little mini-bus, and nobody spoke English, Hebrew or Spanish so we were pretty much at a loss for what to do. We knew the name of the place we were going, but we didn't know how much, when or how to pay for the ride. Thankfully, a woman boarded soon after us and passed her payment up. The driver quite easily took it and made change, then passed it back to her. Several more people boarded afterwards, and it was impressive to see such free and safe money transactions between people.

After the driver told us to get off ("Kalichi?" "kalichi." "KALICHI *point*"), we wandered around looking for the old things that they show in postcards. We ended up in a cool marketplace, which was conveniently covered since the heavens broke forth just a minute after we entered. There were a few glitches in the cover, but the street was engineered well and the water gathered into a tidy river in the middle. That might not seem like a perfect solution, but it's much better than the stagnant floods at the hotel. We ended up talking to a guy selling huge rugs and nomadic gear, and he served us the "famous" yogurt drink unique to Turkey. We decided that it was unique mostly because it tastes disgusting. Of course, we were obligated to buy something, though he drew us in by saying "just look! no obligation to buy!" So I bought a nifty Turkish flute, which I'm actually very pleased with so far.

We left the marketplace after the rain cleared up and found the old things, which were a bunch of mosques. As we were looking around confused and trying to find the marina, a man stepped out of nowhere and started telling us about the mosque and other places around there. He took advantage of our incredible confusion by handing us off to his "brother" who made up a story about a house nearby and managed to corner us into his shop with tea. We made the most of our situation to ask him questions about the culture and whatnot, and tried to have as pleasant of a time as possible. We managed to get out of there before his "father" could display his various perfumes to us.

He had told us before that he was going to show us "Turkish hospitality" and indeed he did. It goes: deception, tea, swindle, ask out, attempt to swindle again. All in a very polite manner, of course.

The marina was really cool, and the mountains were mostly visible. Hopefully it'll be clear enough on Thursday to get a good picture of them. Since the waves have been violent the last couple days, the effect of the place was greatly increased. After a boy tried to sell us Turkish flags (which are everywhere by the way- the guy I bought the flute from said that their Independence day was just last week), we went to a little restaurant for a cappechino so we could employ their clean WC. It also overlooked the water well, but it began to pour soon after and the mountains were lost to us again.

After venturing out again, we managed to find a good Turkish Delight shop and Hadrian's Gate. The latter took about twenty minutes with several conflicting directions to find. Then we managed to find the right bus back, then taxi, then we were able to finally dry off from our adventures.


We aren't exactly sure what to do today. The weather seems even less pleasant than before, but there is another place nearby that we might try out. The novelty of huge lightening crashes is wearing down, but the sea is still amazing.

Anna, Thanks for all the update's.
We really enjoy them.
What a great adventure your on..