My Last Day in Istanbul

I returned to Istanbul and had one final day before my flight back to the States. How would I spend it? Well, I saved one tourist attraction for the final day. It was kind of a present to myself, something big in Istanbul to give me something to look forward to. This was the Church of St. Chora. None of the exchange students had talked about it too much but it took up two full pages in my Istanbul guidebook (the same amount as the Hagia Sophia), so this meant it had to be big! Unfrotunately, I would never find out. It turns out that the attraction is closed on Wednesdays, which was what my last day in Istanbul happened to be. Oops.

Anyways, after that didn't work out for me, I basically walked around it and took pictures of the outside. I also got some pictures of a section of the nearby city walls I had not seen.






I then went to Taksim Square to do a bunch of souvenir shopping. I had neglected throughout most of my time to buy people things as I went, so my goal was to find things for everyone at one time (including myself). I was able to buy quite a few things to take back for people. I also met up with Alex and Crystal and we went to a baklava place.

Now I don't actually like baklava but I wish I had known about this place before the last day I was here. It had the best baklava I have ever eaten! It was amazing. It was called Karakoy Gullogllu if anyone reading this ever gets a chance to go to Turkey and eat baklava. You must go here!






It was a good time and it would be the last time I would see either of them for a while. I was one of the last exchange students to leave. Most of them had left earlier in the summer. Alex was still around because he was taking summer classes there and Crystal was around because she liked Turkey a lot.

That evening I went back to the apartment and I went out for my last evening with Umut, Elif, and Egemen to our favorite local establishment - the Bu Cafe. Umut and I played backgammon as we had often done before. As I was sitting with them, I told them about my travels and was even speaking some Turkish with them. Elif was impressed with how much I had learned in the previous month (that's how long it had been since I had seen them). I even beat Umut at backgammon. I felt as if things in my time in Turkey were coming full circle. I remembered back to the first time I went out with Umut and we played backgammon and he asked to play for the bill. I laughed to myself as I remembered getting my ass handed to me and foolishly thinking that I was as good as he was even though I hadn't played the game in years. Things were the same and yet they were different. Sitting on that balcony, overlooking the Bosphorus, I thought about all of the times I had in Turkey. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I don't remember much about what we discussed that night, I just remembered having a good time (and making Umut pay for the bill because he lost in backgammon).



That night I went to pay him for the month of July's rent. I had not been there since the end of June but my stuff had been. I gave him the 350TL. He said to me, but you didn't stay here at all. I said I know but my stuff was here and I agreed to pay you. He gave me 100TL back and said, "It wouldn't be fair for me to take this from you. Keep it." I smiled and thanked him. Umut was such a good guy...probably one of the best people I will ever meet in my life. From the beginning until the end of my time there, he had been nothing but kind and helpful. He helped me deal with the airlines in Turkish, he lent me his clothes, he told me where to buy new clothes, he took me out when I didn't have anyone else to spend time with, he helped me learn Turkish, he didn't take advantage of me (like so many other Turks did to their foreign roommates who didn't know the prices). He is just an all around great guy and I hope I will stay in touch with him for the rest of my life and that one day I can help him the way he helped me.

I woke up very early the next morning to take a cab to the airport (with all of my things it was much easier than taking the public transit). It was early so the roads were not busy. I woke Umut up to tell him goodbye, loaded my stuff in the taxi and was off. As I rode to the airport, I began to talk to the taxicab driver. We talked about where I was from, why I was in Turkey, talked about his kids, whether he liked being a taxi driver, etc. It was fairly mundane conversation that one could have in a taxi. The point was that I was actually able to have these conversations with him! It was amazing to think how far I had come in 6 months. 6 months ago, I was in a taxi and I did not even know where I would be staying. I had lost my bags at the airport and with nothing more than the clothes on my back, I got into the taxi cab and gave him a sheet of paper with an address on it. I had no idea where it was or how to get there or even if he had taken me the shortest way. I was completely at his mercy. Not knowing the culture, I tipped him (not usual) after he overcharged me for the distance he drove. How different it was 6 months ago to now as I rode on the expressway through the Turkish suburbs to the airport.

I arrived in Miami to find that the airlines had lost one of my bags (shocker). I ended up in Florida that night, in my own bed and it was all over.

The plane ride was very sad for me. I knew I was going to miss so many things about Turkey -- the people, the traveling, the food, the walks along the Bosphorus, etc. For the first time in my life in Turkey, I wasn't looking forward. I was living in the present. Every time in my life I always feel myself looking to the future. When I finish high school, I am going to go to college and it will be so much better. When I finish college, I will go to law school, which will be so much better. It goes on and on. However, when I was in Turkey, I never thought to myself, "when I finish my time in Turkey, I will go back to the US and do X." I was living in the present. I hope that I can have that feeling again, for I fear otherwise that I will spend my whole life wishing it away and then one day I will wake up and realize it is over. That thought scares me, which is one of the many reasons why I fell so deeply in love with Turkey and it's people and it's culture. I hope one day to return. To this day I still miss it. I can't help but think how lucky I was to have the experience I had and meet the people I met. There were so many times where bad things could have and should have happened to me (see the trip in Eastern Turkey). There were times where people were nicer to me than I probably ever would have been to them if the situation were reversed. I also got to see so much history and culture and met so many great people while I was there. I was so lucky to be able to go to Turkey and to have this experience. As I sit here in the US, I can only hope one day that I will get to return.

Yusufeli

It was my last weekend in Turkey. I had to make sure whatever I did was awesome and tons of fun. Luckily, I had the opportunity to do just that. Husniye and I were staying in Trabzon and we talked about what we could do for the last weekend that would meet that criterion. We decided (well rather I decided and she went along with it) that it would be amazing to go white water rafting.

Going back to my June post in Trabzon, you will see that we met a police officer in Trabzon by the name of Necmettin Coskun who stopped us on the street because we were foreigners and gave us his white water rafting card. So we gave him a call. Luckily, it turns out that he was in Yusufeli that particular weekend. Normally, he requires a party to have 4 people to raft (b/c otherwise it is not worth his time to pay for the raft itself and the guy who picks us up in the van). Anyways, he told us on the phone to come and that he would not charge us extra and that he would take us out for the same price he charges individuals in groups of 4. It was incredibly nice of him.

We made the trek to Yusufeli which involved 6 hours on the bus. It was an ambitious journey for a two day trip. The plan was to take the bus up there on Saturday to get there by Saturday evening, spend early Sunday rafting and be back in Trabzon by the evening. We got on the bus and started towards Artvin, where we would change busses and get in a smaller van to Yusufeli.

On the way we stopped in the very same rest area I complained about during my trip to Gerogia. Did I mention that I STILL hate Turkish toilets? Why do these bus companies all stop at the same bathroom stops if they are disgusting? Wouldn't someone say something about it? Also, why the hell do they give you one little piece of paper when you go in? That's not nearly enough for anyone! It wasn't enough for me! That's for sure. I had to go buy tissues at the nearby store. Also, if you are not feeling well and you need to enter the bathroom multiple times because you aren't finished, they charge you for each entry. So I left the bathroom and then had the urge to go back and had to pay the fee again. If I had just stayed in the bathroom, they wouldnt have charged me! Furthermore, the guy recognized me. I mean COME ON. Sorry for the rant. The Turkish toilets make me that angry. Anyways, after my little bathroom fiasco, we got back on the bus and continued for Artvin.

When we arrived in Hopa, we took a right off of the main road that paralleled the Black Sea. After a few minutes we were increasing our elevation and weaving into the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, complete with mountain lakes and trees. I took several pictures from the bus. It is amazing that such beautiful places exist on Earth. Some of the valleys were filled in with water but this may not have been a natural phenomenon due to the dam project.




On the bus we started to get into a conversation with a Turkish guy sitting around us. It turns out that he was the owner of the bus company (or something like that). I can't remember what he did exactly but it was somehow related to the bus we were on. He was curious about me because I was a foreigner. Somehow we started talking about Jewish people and Israel (I can't remember how we got onto that subject) and he actually seemed OK with Israel. He asked me my religion and I contemplated telling him the truth. Husniye gave me a look that indicated that I should not do that, so I didn't.

We eventually made it to Artvin, which was a surprisingly small town considering it was the provincial capital. It is built on the side of the mountain and has a pretty view of a mountain stream/river below it. The bus station was also small and we waited for the van. The mountains were so steep that there wasn't a lot of vegetation right outside of Artvin. It was another different landscape than any other place I had seen in Turkey.

The ride on the van took a while. The roads were not that great through the mountains (as expected). Also, riding in the small van was uncomfortable (also expected). There was a road block for a wedding party on the way up there and we were forced to stop for 20 minutes. I didn't mind, as I was able to get out of the bus. We stopped near a small waterfall coming down the mountains and I took a picture.



We finally got to Yusufeli around nightfall. We met Necmettin at the bus stop and he took us to the hotel he had arranged for us. Instead of having us go through the trouble of finding a place, he booked a room for us for 30 TL for the night with his friend in town. We put our things down and went out to dinner at a restaurant on the Çoruh River. The dinner was decent. Necmettin asked me if I wanted a beer. Husniye really really does not like beer or alcohol. However, since he was technically my host, I felt it was the right thing to do to accept him. I don't think Husniye was happy with me for that...especially after offering me a beer, he didn't have one! At least I enjoyed mine.

After dinner, we took a walk around town. Necmettin could tell us a lot about the town because he had been born there. He told us about the future dam project, which threatens to submerge thousands of houses. We talked about how he works in Trabzon but prefers Yusufeli. It was interesting for me to learn that the police in Turkey are not allowed to be police in the same province in which they were residents. This is why he had to move to Trabzon (he was considered a resident of Artvin). On our walk we also saw a Turkish wedding going on outside. The party was dancing a traditional Turkish dance (the same one we did with our Kurdish friends in Urfa and Dogubeyazit). Necmettin asked me if I wanted to join in but I respectfully declined. I did not have nearly enough alcohol in my bloodstream to attempt any form of dancing.

Husniye and Necmettin talked quite a bit in Turkish too, which was a little boring for me but understandable. Necmettin had pretty good English though.

After our walk we got back to the hotel and were in for quite a surprise. We went downstairs to check into the rooms. As per the norm in Turkey, they required a form of identification for each of us to check into the rooms. I gave my passport and Huniye gave her Turkish ID. At this point, things got interesting. Husniye and I had only booked one room (we would be sharing, which would not be unusual at all in the US). It turns out that the owner of the hotel had a problem with us staying in the same room for the sole reason that Husniye was a Turkish girl and we were unmarried. If we were two foreigners, he would not have had a problem with it, but because Husniye was one of their own, he did not like it and refused to allow it in his hotel. He told us that we would be required to sleep in separate rooms. He apologized for the misunderstanding and offered to give us a "discount" to 20TL for each room. If we shared a room, the total would be 30TL (15 TL for each of us to pay) but now he would be charging us 20TL! Is 5TL that much to quibble about? Probably not. It was the principle of the thing that bothered me. If you give someone a set price, you do not increase it just because you didn't know that the girl I was staying with was Turkish! That is absolutely preposterous!

It turns out that the guy who owned the hotel was actually an imam (Muslim spiritual leader akin to a priest or a rabbi). He obviously felt very strongly about the situation.

I got really angry about the situation and asked Husniye to translate exactly what I was saying. She did so. The man was genuinely sorry but stated that the Koran required him to do this. I believed the Koran should only have required him to govern his own life but not that of others. I told him that I would not accept the deal and that if he did not lower the price to 15TL for each of us (I was even willing to accept sleeping in separate rooms though I did not like the idea), that we would be finding another hotel. He refused to lower the price so we left.

The very first hotel we walked into down the street quoted us the exact same 30TL price. My first question was whether they cared if we slept in the same room or not. I was worried that this town was particularly conservative and that perhaps everyone in the town cared about something like that. Luckily, they did not care. We moved our stuff in and settled down for the night. We would have to be awake at 8am for our rafting adventure.

I reflected on the evening's events with the imam and a few things were interesting/surprising. Firstly, I was warned that something like this could have happened when we were traveling in Eastern Turkey. I found it ironic that E. Turkey is supposed to be the most conservative of areas in Turkey and that this particular incident happened in another region and not E. Turkey. Secondly, I was thinking about this situation and how it would be handled in the US. No one would have cared who does what behind closed doors whether they were American, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, French, or any other religion or ethnicity. Here, not only did the imam care, but he cared so strongly that he was willing to give up business to preserve his ideals. At the late hour that we left, there is no way that those rooms were going to be filled that night. In some ways, I respect him for feeling so strongly about his morals. It is also interesting to observe the differences between the cultures. Thirdly, I was annoyed that the guy felt like he should be the parent of a 25 year old girl. Truthfully, whatever she decides to do is none of his business. I think he may have made Husniye feel bad because he was implicitly judging what she was doing and suggesting she was a bad person (which she wasn't because she didn't do anything wrong). This obviously pissed me off. At any rate, it was over and we found a place to stay for the same price any way. If nothing else, I had another interesting story to tell in this blog and to my friends back in the States.

Rafting

We woke up the next morning and met with Necmettin. We told him about the events of last night and he apologized profusely. He had no idea his friend was like that. He told us that we normally need 4 people in addition to himself to navigate the raft and that he had some friends (Turkish) who wanted to go rafting. After a tea and a quick breakfast, we met them. One was a dentist and the other...I can't remember what he does. I remembered the dentist because I thought it was ironic since Husniye was also a dentist. We were taken over to the place where we would put in the river and we got the equipment ready and had our safety briefing.






We were finally ready to go out on the water. The expedition was only supposed to last about 2 hours or so and we'd go about 11km. We had to do the shorter one because we were constrained by the need to catch the last bus to Artvin and Trabzon. I thought it was silly that the last one leaves so early in the day, but I guess the demand is not that high, as Yusufeli is a small town.

We started by practicing on the water. Oddly enough, even though I was the only one who spoke English on the boat as their first language (the other two did not even speak any English), the commands would be forward and back, right, and left paddle rather than their Turkish equivalents. I suspect that Necmettin only rarely takes out a majority Turkish group, so that is probably why this is the case. We practiced and everything was good to go and we started off down the river.

At first it wasn't too bad. I learned that the rapids we would be doing would be class 4 and 5 on a scale of 1-6. Nothing like really jumping straight into the fire, eh? Anyways so the rapids got very intense. We passed rapids such as "King Kong Rapids." There was also a point where we had to get out of the river and drag the raft around one of the rapids because it was impossible to pass without flipping the raft. Oddly enough, Necmettin stood over the rapids and was watching the water flow. He was clearly trying to figure out exactly how to pass that area and not flip. One has to be careful in areas like that because there are rocks sticking up in rhe river, which if hit could be very dangerous (also the reason why helmets must be worn).

There was one point where we got really close to the rocks and the raft went almost vertical. It was a huge adrenaline rush. After we passed, Necmettin told us that we were about one or two strokes away from completely flipping the raft. Speaking of which, Husniye couldn't swim (which we didn't realize until afterwards). Had she fallen in, it would have been bad. She also made me promise to jump in with her if she fell in. Luckily, we never had to test whether I actually would :)

At one point, the raft did flip up and we didn't quite paddle fast enough. The raft reared up and I fell into the water as did one other guy. I had underestimated how strong the current was. I kicked upwards but at first I could not get to the surface. Eventually after a few seconds I popped up near the raft with my paddle floating closely by. I think I may have been under the raft at first. They pulled me back into the boat and everything was fine. We then paddled over to get the other guy that fell in.

The rafting wasn't quite as scary after I fell in since I knew that was the worst that could happen. It was still a ton of fun though. Every time we passed a really rough rapid, we all clicked our paddles together. I guess it was a showing that we were victorious. Also, it was interesting to note that we were the only raft on the river. I saw no others the entire time I was there. This surprised me since the Coruh River is supposedly one of the primier rafting places in the world. It's going to be hard to try out hamburgers after I've had filet minion.

We finally got to the point where we were supposed to get out around noon but the others (and myself) were having a ton of fun and we kept going. We rafted for almost an hour longer than we had planned and ended up rafting something like 20km. I wish we didn't have to go back to Trabzon. IF we didn't, I suspect they would have rafted longer. As it was, we were cutting things very close. Luckily, Necmettin knew the bus people and called them and asked them to wait on us. I think we put them about 15 minutes behind schedule. I thought it was super nice of him to do that for us. The entire time he was very nice and accommodating and I don't think I would ever raft with anyone else in Turkey. You can see how dirty the water was by our appearance after the ordeal.



Husniye and I changed clothes and got onto the bus to make the long trip back to Trabzon. I snapped a picture of the river we rafted on a little further downstream so you can see what it looked like.



Necmettin also did a good job telling us about the wild life during the less tumultuous parts of the rafting trip. The scenery throughout the whole trip was incredible.

Speaking of incredible scenery, I got some great pictures of the landscape as we drove through the mountains on the way back to Trabzon.





We also stopped once more along the Black Sea in time to see the sun set over the water, which was beautiful. Then our trip was over.

In two days time, I would say goodbye to Husniye and Trabzon. It was a tough goodbye because I had enjoyed being with her and enjoyed my time there. It was also tough because of what it meant. The sun was setting on my time in Turkey and I was genuinely disappointed about that.

Trabzon A Third and Final Time

I didn't do much while I was there. Toured around Trabzon a bit more (but since it was my third time, there was not much left for me to see!). I enjoyed relaxing and also did some work for Dr. Beardsley. There were a few highlights from my trip to Trabzon, however.

1. On the first night I came to Trabzon, I decided to surprise Husniye by making dinner for her. I went to the market and got a fresh fish. (I think I got alabalik, which is a local fish found in some of the lakes around here). It's kind of like a grouper and is quite tasty. I prepared it by seasoning it with pepper, lemon, and butter. While this is a pretty normal and simple seasoning, it was more of a traditional American way to prepare the dish instead of a Turkish one. She hadn't had anything like it before and really liked it, which made me happy. We also had macaroni and cheese with it, which was also another first for Husniye. Now I send her boxes of it occasionally because you can't get it in Turkey.

2. Speaking of food. Husniye and her friend Bahar also taught me how to cook a couple of Turkish dishes. The first, karniyarik (I think that's how it is spelled), is an eggplant and meat dish with a tomato sauce. I tried to make it in the US afterwards once but it fell apart when I tried to pick it up and only mildly resembled the Turkish original. Oh well. It still tasted pretty good. I also learned how to make kisir, a traditional dish with bulgar and other kinds of vegetables. I have not attempted to make this one in the US yet. I didn't like kisir as much as I liked some other things in Turkey. Husniye also taught me how to make pilav (rice) the Turkish way. It involves mixing in a lot of butter and cooking the rice grains before they absorb the water. This method of cooking makes the rice more buttery and creamy tasting (quite yummy). I tried to make this one in the US but it wasn't quite as good as it was in Turkey. I am not sure if the differences in taste are because I did something wrong or because the ingredients here are just not the same.

3. Going for walks: In the evening, we would sometimes go for walks along the Black Sea. I would meet her after work and we would walk there. We also walked on the main street in Trabzon that had all of the shops (Uzun Sokak).

4. Drinking tea on Boztepe. There is a tea garden at the highest point in Trabzon that overlooks the Black Sea. We went there a couple of times and I loved it every time (I described it in a previous blog post and you can read about it there).

5. Movies and Bowling: We went bowling. The bowling alley was just like in the US, except more expensive. We also saw the Harry Potter move (number 5) in English with Turkish subtitles. Husniye didn't like it...and now I think Harry Potter has been ruined for her even though it was the worst of the 5 movies. We went to a local movie place that had English movies with turkish subtitles. I wanted to get Austin Powers for her to watch. Sadly, they did not have it...but I wish they had!

5a. We also tried to play tennis one night on some local tennis courts.

6. We went to the nicest restaurant in Trabzon for dinner one night. I took her out to dinner. Their specialty plate was a fish dish with cheese on top. It sounds weird, but it was absolutely delicious. It was a 3 course meal and it was fantastic. Best part of all is that the nicest restaurant cost only about 50 TL for two people.





7. Talking to Tiffany on skype randomly at 4am because we couldn't sleep.

8. Learning more Turkish (most of which I have now forgotten unfortunately).

Otherwise we just spent time together and enjoyed each other's company. It was nice to settle down after all of that traveling and it was a nice way to spend my last two weeks in Trabzon. On one of our weekends we went to Yusufeli, which was its own adventure (see next post). I hope to visit the Black Sea region again sometime soon. It was a beautiful place and I liked it a lot!

Day 17: Cappadocia (July 16)

This would be my third and final day in Cappadocia. I probably could have done more on this day, but I decided not to. The truth of the matter is that I had been traveling for 17 days straight without much rest. I was exhausted and frankly tired of traveling (I never in my life thought I would ever be tired of traveling). After 17 days of it though, it is definitely possible.

At any rate, the plan for the day (my last in Cappadocia) was to hike the Pigeon Valley to Uchisar (I figured the hikes would be as awesome as the first day). Basically, nothing remarkable happened. I started hiking and made it about a third of the way through the valley. The trail was not well-marked and I eventually got to a point where I could not go further. I had lost the trail and could not find my way. I also twisted my ankle or did something. It was sore and painful to walk. I decided to turn around and walk back to Goreme before I got lost. I went back to the hostel. I stayed in the hostel for the rest of the afternoon until it was time for my overnight bus to Trabzon. I was tired of traveling and enjoyed hanging out with the Turks who worked in the hotel. I had quite a few fun games of backgammon! :)

i still managed to get some cool pics of the short hike I did take in the two hours I did hike.







I rode the bus overnight. It sucked as usual but after a 12 hour trip I had gone from central Turkey to the beautiful Black Sea region once again to meet Husniye. I would be staying with her for almost 2 weeks, spending my remaining days in Turkey with her.

Day 16: Cappadocia (July 15)

Today was the day of the tour. I was going to get up very early (around 8am) and I was excited. It cost 50 TL, which was reasonable for an all day guided tour that included lunch. My Canadian friends decided not to come because the one girl was still sick. This turned out to not be a very good trip for them. I feel bad for them to have come all this way for such a short amount of time and not being able to enjoy it.

I went alone on the tour. It was in a minivan which would carry us to our various destinations throughout the day. Our first stop was up the ridge from Göreme to get a good view of the area. Here's what it looked like.



She told us a little about the area, how it was settled by Christians and all of that good stuff. Then we got back to the car and drove towards Derinkuyu. After a 45 minute drive or so, we arrived. Derinkuyu was one of several underground cities built in this region. This particular city was built either in the 8th or 7th century BC by the Phyrgians (though they aren't really sure). The underground city was also used by the Christians to take refuge from Romans persecuting Christians. The city itself was large, 11 levels. It went 85 meters deep (the passageways were very very narrow though). It could hold several thousand people and could even store livestock. The city had everything needed for a city including cellars and storage rooms, etc. They even had a room for religious studies.

It was an amazing place to walk around - to imagine how people would have lived here in hiding for years. It was also amazing to me to think how they built something like this without today's technology. There were no bulldozers, tractors, cranes, etc to build this 11 story underground city. It was all done by hand.









One memory I wont forget is trying to climb down and back up the 55 meter staircase. It was so steep and narrow. There were several times that I thought I wouldn't make it out of there. It was actually built this way for defense purposes. No more than one person could ever enter the stairwell at a time, so if they were ever attacked, they could pick off the attackers one at a time as they tried to enter the lower levels of the underground city.

After we had left the underground city, it had started to rain. It was only about 8C outside. i didn't know it was going to be that cold. The tour guide told us that she had never seen it rain in Cappadocia in July in all of the years that she's lived here. She was just as surprised as we were.

We then took the bus to a volcano lake. Although it was no longer geologically active, the lake water is undrinkable and no living things live in it. There are still poisonous gasses bubbling up from beneath the earth's surface. The gases also make the water a slightly different color, but it was hard to see the difference because the weather was so bad. The clouds were rolling over the volcano lake. I braved the rain to get a picture.




On the bus, I started talking to these two British guys sitting next to me. They were touring around Turkey and we were swapping stories. They had already been to Van and some other portions of Eastern Turkey. Originally, they had wanted to go to Iran and tour there. They had come all the way out to the border with Eastern Turkey when their visa got denied. This was when all of the journalism stuff was going on in Iran and the "Green Revolution," which wasn't really a revolution at all, was occurring. Iran didn't want any more westerners in their country for any reason that summer. So these guys had to change their plans and here they were. I was jealous that they even had the chance to go to Iran. As an American, they wouldn't have let me in regardless of whether there were political uprisings. There was some other guy I talked to on the bus for a little while that was an American. I can't remember his name or what he did (I should really write these things down on my trips) but he was a nice guy.

The bus made it to our next stop, the Ilhara Valley. The Ilhara Valley is a 10 mile gorge cut out of volcanic rock by the Menderez River. The reason it is so famous (in addition to its beauty) is that it has numerous hiding places and entrances to Byzantine churches built to hide from the Romans and access points to underground cities. We, as a bus, had to decide whether we wanted to do the 3km hike through the valley. It was lightly raining and once we decided to do it, we could not turn around. The bus would leave the starting point and pick us up at the end. We decided to make the hike anyway (the rain was not that bad).

Here are some pictures from the hike (and we went inside one of the churches too).













After the hike we stopped for lunch, which was pretty unremarkable. Then we arrived at the Selime Monastery.

The monastery is the biggest rock-cut monastery of Cappadocia with a cathedral sized church. Selime monastery was carved by the monks in the 13th century and apart from the church has monks quarters, a large kitchen, and stables for animals. The walls were once decorated with frescoes of which very little remains. The inside was pretty cool to see and the view was great. Our tour guide told us some other cool stuff about it but I can't remember exactly what she said!











After the monastery, we rode back towards Goreme. On the way back we passed Mt. Hasan and Mt. Melendez, which were the two largest mountains in the region. In fact, they were even snow covered in July!

Our last stop brought us to overlook Pigeon Valley (Güvercin Valley). This valley was the gorge that connected Goreme to Uchisar. The pictures should reveal why it is called Pigeon valley!







Also at the Pigeon Valley was the inevitable jewelry shop. They took us for a tour of the jewelry store and at the end was of course jewelry that if bought would be a commission for the tour guide. I didn't buy any, obviously. All in all the tour was great and i was really glad I took it.

That night it was raining more (surprising for the region) and I went to a local kebab restaurant. The local kebab here in Cappadocia is known as a Pottery Kebab. The weird thing about it is that it is actually served in a piece of pottery (I think cooked in it too) and the piece of pottery is actually broken upon serving it. I am not sure if this is just for show or if they ruin a piece of pottery every time it is made! It was tender and good. I really enjoyed the meal. I then went back to my room and hung out a little while before going to sleep.



Sharing my room with me was an interesting couple from New Mexico. They had lost their jobs in the bad economy and instead of living in the US, they travelled to poorer third world countries and were seeing the world and using their money on that. They explained to me that traveling around the world was actually less expensive than living in the US because the cost of living was so much cheaper. They had bought one of those around the world air fares and had been going to places like Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey, etc. They told me that Thailand was the only place they had been to that was better than Turkey. One day I hope to find out if they are right. They were certainly an interesting couple to say the least. Soon after chatting with them for a little while about their life and what they were doing, I went to sleep.