...aaaand, the rest of turkey.

so, having a travelling companion seems to make one a worse blogger than when travelling alone. now that patrick has gone home, i suppose i might blog more frequently. but then, the last week has been the most action packed, so we'll see what happens. as a result of all that has happened since ephesus and selcuk, and because i spent 3 hours in the internet cafe working on a housing application yesterday, this might be more of an overview. but then, i've said that before...

so, wednesday morning in selcuk was spent teaching a trio of lovely canadian children how to play backgammon. patrick had the two girls on his team and i had the little boy on mine. the game took forever due to an increasingly elaborate system of luck (my fault, i had one of the girls blow on the dice in the game patrick and i were playing before).
after this, we got on a bus down the coast to go to bodrum. upon arrival, we checked in at the "bodrum backpacker's" which is not, despite claims in lonely planet clean at all. most people put their stuff in the room and slept outside because of how stuffy (and gross) the room was. patrick and i went straight to the beach, which was clear and gorgeous, but full of restaurants, etc. so we found the one with couches on the beech and had a couple beers. yup, couches on the beach with beer. before going back to the hostel we had pide, which we decided was quite like the pizza that often comes from the fischer's woodburning oven. back at the hostel, we had one more drink before turning down the advances (possibly meant in multiple ways?) of our 30-year bartender who let us know that we were not experiencing the real bodrum without getting ragingly drunk on the boat club. we went to bed. i will not return to bodrum.

except for perhaps the really cool underwater archaeology museum we saw the next day. unfortunately not an aquarium, it was still great- random rooms and towers an old castle held all kinds of treasures, many from shipwrecks. maybe i'll move back to archaeology and go the underwater route, because it was really interesting. i was especially a fan of the reconstructed roman boat and the exhibit from the copper age shipwreck, man!
before going to the museum, we went up to the tomb of mausolus, who gives his name to mausoleum. being one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, we checked off (after the temple of artemis near ephesus) 2/7 in 3 days. not bad.
then, we got the hell out of bodrum. its basically a really terrible tourist/party place. while the water was beautiful, in fethiye, where we went next, the water was just as clear...
we had a relaxing evening drinking with a couple from belgium and then the owner and some of the workers at the pension on the balcony of the ideal pension (that's the name) and contemplating going on a boat trip.

well, friday morning came, and we decided the price was right for the one-night cruise on the mediterranean. we gathered provisions and set sail by 2. to give all the details of the trip would be too much. simply stated, its one of the best things i've ever done, and if patrick wasn't on the trip, i'm sure i wouldn't have decided to get on the boat. way cool. highlights:
1) bayram, one of the hostel workers who came along. a great guy and a lot of fun.
2) miabella, the 5 year old australian girl (whose parents were also lovely), that i taught to play backgammon. we also did some multiplication with the pieces in between games. this girl was a riot, although she never stopped asking questions. luckily there were 12 of us to make sure she was constantly entertained.
3) turquoise water for 24 hours.
4) a gozleme (turkish pancake) boat that came up to us at the place we let anchor for the night.
5) singing "don't think twice" with brian the australian, who is planning to bring crooning back to europe.
6) talking about homer and the odyssey while the waves of the mediterranean softly hit the boat.
7) diving over and over and over again off the front of the boat.
8) diving into the water at 1 in the morning, staring up into the perfect sky and the milky way, thinking about greek myths and the stars.
basically, it was amazing.

we let off in kas saturday afternoon and got straight on a bus for olimpos. another incredibly strange place, other than the nighttime trip to the naturally occurring constant flames that come up out of the rocks (and part of the hike up there), olimpos reminded me of summer camp. "treehouse" rooms, named dorms, camp-kitchen meals. except of course for the crazy bar/nightclub that gets going around 10. summer camp for adults? we had beer and decided to pass on the nightclub part.

sunday, once we got moving, we basically spent in transit, going further east where we slept in silifke. the hotel was nice and relaxing.

monday, we moved by minibus across the coast east of silifke. first, we visited "the chasm of heaven" and the "pit of hell" and the "asthma caves." the last being self-explanatory (a good, not a bad thing), the first two were related to greek mythology and zeus fighting a dragon of sorts. also, the river running through the area is supposed to connect to the river styx! there was an old byzantine church on the very long (and hot) walk down the chasm of heaven. it was a worthwhile stop.
next was kizkalesi, where a castle sits on an island just off the coast and looks like it is floating. if i remember how to put pictures in, there should be one right here:
from there, we got to mersin, where we hoped to go straight to cappadocia. however, we were too late, and took a bus to kayseri instead. although this time was slightly better, i really didn't want to go back there.

tuesday morning, after feeling kind of sick on the road, i woke up and threw up. patrick got me some water and then went shopping while i stayed in bed until 3. he now loves kayseri, while i had another wonderful experience there. that afternoon we made it goreme where i went straight to bed and spent the night feverish.

wednesday, patrick went to the open air museum while i continued recovering, and then we spent the rest of the day with some epic games of backgammon and another serving of manti for patrick. at 8 o'clock he got back on the bus to istanbul, and should be almost home by now. that evening, i met christian in the dorm room i moved to. studying islamic history and sociology and having a year of turkish under his belt he is definitely my german counterpart, and we had a great time the last couple days practicing turkish, wandering around goreme, and playing backgammon (i thought i'd lost my partner after patrick left!)

tonight, after resting a couple days in goreme, i get on a bus for the border between turkey and georgia. it is going to be a very long ride, but sometime tomorrow night i should be in tbilisi, geogria! i am very excited, although sad that patrick has gone- a travelling companion was really fun. and, this part is the real adventure, where i don't speak a lick of the language. i've spent a lot of today preparing, booking a hostel and printing out pages of the georgia lonely planet. here goes...!