The irony of the title being that we spent the Christmas season in Turkey and didn't eat Turkey at all. Anyways, below is basically what I wrote down while we were traveling through Eastern Turkey.
Most of the good photos can be found on facebook
here.
Day 1 - Culture Shock
Nothing here is familiar. It's positively and negatively amazing. I don't know a word of their language or a speck about their culture. I haven't the slightest idea of how to say thank you. In the first 24 hours there were a lot of feelings of helplessness and a lot of adventure but also feelings of guilt for not knowing more or at least wanting to know more until 8:27 AM the morning after a night bus to Selcuk. Eventually, the culture shock wore off after situating ourselves into touristy places and spending a little time by ourselves. The first real day was spent in Ephesus where we saw the purported house of the Virgin Mary where she fled after the crucifixion as well as a crap load of very well preserved ruins. The most impressive part about Turkey in general is the cheapness of the food (a sizeable lunch for 2 dollars if you know where to go).
(Chris and I in an ancient latrine)
Day 2 - "I'm from Spain"
The heckling done by Turkish people is quite unprecedented in my life. As you walk down the street in your culture-shocked-visibly-foreign clothes they pick you out and start yelling at you to gain your business - "My friend! Yes Please! Very Cheap!". Every store and every restaurant was the same. It came to the point that we began to say we were from Spain to deter the vociferous ferocious street vendors. The most absurd part of the whole thing is that, in Turkey, everyone uses the phrase "Yes please" to mean something like "hello", as if someone played a big joke on Turkey and purposely taught them all poor English. The most eventful part of the day was the night bus we took which involved us getting dropped off on the curb and told to get into a random taxi and not to pay him, then driving at 160 km/hr with a driver who spoke no English to a place where we had to transfer to another bus company who magically had reserved tickets for us. Yay for Turkish public transportation.
(Take note here that one bus company is called StarBatman and another Camel Cock)
Day 3 - A different Christmas
Today was Christmas but it wasnt quite like the ones past. We barely slept on the crazy night bus and arrived at 4:30 AM, checked into our hotel at 9 AM, wandered around, found food, and then went off to explore the ancient city of Troy. Troy, my friends, is no Brad-Pitt-Bad-Ass-Beautiful-Maiden Troy. Troy, my friends, is a pile of stones. Really haphazard excavations have left the sight unintelligible to the average tourist and totally not worth seeing. The only interesting parts are to see the geographical positioning of Troy (on a hill, next to the ocean, views of the valley all around) and get a feeling for its size. Anyways, the fact that the only historical reference to Troy comes from Homer makes the "purported existence" of the city of Troy seem like a little bit of bullshit. After Troy we had a nice dinner and opened our stockings since we had each brought some stuff to put in the others' stockings.
(Posing on some piece of history)
Day 4 - Foiled Plans and Beautiful Land
The plan for today was to go to
Gallipoli, famous for the battles fought during WWI.
Bad weather and the fact that we forgot that Friday was the Muslim holy day made for a difficult time. But we walked around for hours in the cold and then hitched a ride with a random trucker because we couldn't get in touch with any taxis. An uneventful day bled into an eventful night where Jess and I downed a few shots of Turkish liquor and then we all went out to a bar. The bad happened to have live Turkish music which was folled by traditional Turkish dancing after some of the other patrons had some beer. It may have been the beer talking but it felt really cool to be sitting in a Turkish bar with all Turkish people listening to Turkish music and watching / attempting to partake in traditional Turkish dancing.
Day 5 - Out in Istanbul
Most of the things we did in Istanbul were sight seeing minus a few select jewels. So I'm going to skip the litany of mosques and museums and get to the good stuff.
First things first, I discovered this dish called Iskender which is normally some bread covered in mystery meat and a tomatoey sauce with a side of some type of Turkish yogurt to dip the stuff in. Its especially delicious when you get it with chicken instead of mystery meat. Get it if you go to Turkey. The best part about our first day in Istanbul was our first night in Istanbul. After a few more shots of Turkish Rakisi we went to a hooka bar that "had cheap beer". In reality, after we ordered the beers, the owner ran down the street and bought canned beer from the corner store, came back, and poured it into glasses for us. CLASSY. After fighting with a taxi driver who tried to rip us off and then threatened to call the police Jess and I found ourselves in the thick of the nightlife of Istanbul. We bar hopped a bunch to every free bar we could find, including a drag bar which we backpeddled out of after sitting down and realizing where we were. The night ended at Burger King which was delicious.
Day 6 - Turkish Delights
It poured on our last day in Istanbul. I had only brought one pair of shoes and they were soaking wet by lunch time and my feet were frozen. I swallowed my pride and bought a pair of used shoes in a sketchy alley for about $7. The absolute highlight of the day was the
Turkish Baths that we all made reservations for. Aparently, the word "Bath" in Turkish translates to mean "large fat men splashing you with unnecessarily hot water, exfoliating you rather harshly, and then giving you an extremely unpleasantly forceful bubble massage accompanied by intermittent hitting". Jess and I also saw a
Whirling Dervish ceremony but it wasnt nearly as memorable as getting the shit kicked out of you by a fat hairy Turk.
