WOW, Cappadocia

I’ve seen pictures of this place in travel magazines for years and now we’ve been there.  Pictures can’t do the landscape justice, it is like a fairyland.  The valley was formed when a volcano erupted and then people carved  cave churches with frescos which were still beautiful) and homes which housed thousands of people.  We had a beautiful morning when we saw most of the area so  I wasn’t too disappointed when it rained in the afternoon.  We visited a Turkish rug coop where they showed us how they spun the silk, dyed the thread and made the beautiful rugs that we were able to resist.  The other two families each bought a rug.  It was tempting.  We ended the day with an entertaining performance of the Whirling Dervishes.  No photos allowed.  So we got a picture of a picture. On to the Mediterranean Sea today

Tourists Everywhere

We arrived in Istanbul on Saturday and are already into the third day of our tour.  Two action packed days of mosques  (gorgeous tiles), churches (beautiful frescos), a palace (Topkapi), and bazaars (shopping overload).  While we expected crowds in a huge city like Istanbul we didn’t expect to see so many tourists this early in the season.  Germans, Russians, Spanish, etc, etc.  Couldn’t begin to tell you what languages we are hearing.  We were told there were many more tourists due to cruise ships diverting from Cairo.

We have a very nice family of 4 from India on our tour with us.  They lived in Burbank for 12 years and are now back in India.  The husband travels with a large company doing IT.  They have beautiful  girls 16 and 8. Another couple is from the Denver area and are giving us information about what will be our new home in Ft Collins.

Our hotel is close to a busy pedestrian and trolley street that we have been walking on each evening.  Attached are  pictures of some of the food carts (roasting chestnuts, corn, and Turkish bagels) and other food stores  that you find all over the place, tulips blooming this time of year, and general street scenes. 

Final Good byes and the next stage of the adventure

Friday was an emotional day for us as we continued to say good bye to our friends in Eskisehir.  We had dinner Friday night with our former co-workers who you have seen before in pictures but here are some more.  Ayse, Melda, Evrim, Merve  and Cijan the mover and so to be computer teacher.  Fortunately Merve could make use of our beds and refrigerator so we moved them to her place Friday morning with the help of her boyfriend and her roommate’s boyfriend.  We spent the night at the hotel that had been so nice to allow us to use their lobby to use their internet.  Our final  farewell was to the staff of the Irish Pub.  Halil, the Irish Pub manager, surprised us when we checked out of the hotel at 7:30 Saturday morning with a tape of Turkish music. 

OK, I know those of you in the US are probably tired of hearing us talk about our farewells, but we’re done now, the rest of the blog will be about all the sites we see in Turkey.

We arrived in  Istanbul about 2:00 and had a late lunch, good fish and pasta, and the best gelato we’ve had anywhere, even Italy.  We were quite surprised.  The tour of Turkey starts on Sunday.  Not sure how often I’ll have internet but we’ll post pictures when we can.