Living the Dream

we couldn't get the they 'they might be giants' song out of our heads during our two weeks exploring western turkey, and we had some very memorable experiences... some for how great they were and others... well... someday we'll look back and laugh i'm sure. we spent 4 days sailing down the mediterranean coastline of turkey, visiting ancient ruins, tiny villages, secluded bays, and reminscing about laura's glory days of study abroad in sydney with the fun group of australians that were also on board our 'sailboat'... (that never actually sailed... but i guess you can't have everything...)

we also spent several wonderful days in cappadocian region of central turkey. this was truly one of the highlights of our time in turkey as well as on the entire trip. hiking through the beautiful valleys, rock formations, and entire cities dug out of the rock was like walking through a star wars set. we felt like we were on tatooine in our cave hotel room carved into one of the rock formations.

we finished off the trip visiting the palaces, mosques, and the grand bazaar of istanbul, picking up the obligatory turkish rug and some souveneirs -- the first we'd really bought on the entire trip.

can't say much about the turkish food, as either one or both of us were sick for the entire two weeks -- we spent several days lying around in bed recovering... a highlight was kirk vomiting all over laura about 10 minutes into a 4 hour busride across the desert... we were quite a spectacle on the side of the road with the bus driver dousing laura in bottled water while kirk was doubled over in the ditch... we also loved our overnight 'express' bus ride across turkey where we stopped -- literally - 6 times in 8 hours for 20 minute food and bathroom breaks... with the lights on the whole night and a little boy in a boy tie waking us up every 15 minutes to ask us if we wanted any more tea... we were there during ramadan, so all we can figure is they were all trying to catch up with their meals during the night... but we'd go back to turkey in a second. the people were amazingly friendly and there were an infinite amount of things to see and do... it was fantastic.