Living the Dream

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.

at the start of september, we took a fantastic break from the backpacker lifestyle on a 7 day cruise around the mediterranean with laura's parents. we loved not having to figure out a place to stay or a place to eat or worry about much of anything while floating from country to country and working on our bridge skills and our tans. we introduced jim and joan to kayaking in croatia, climbed around the ancient ruins of ephesus in turkey, explored the beaches of santorini, greece, drove a scooter around corfu, and floated down the canals of venice... and we ate a ridiculous amount of delicious food about 6 times a day... adjusting to hostel beds, public transportation, and carrying around our 35 pound packs after the carefree week of luxury has been a challenge.

but seeing lauras parents in germany was a close second. we spent a great week in southern germany, visiting the surrounding castles and villages and just catching up.

it was so wonderful to visit with them and comforting to spend a few days around some familiar faces. we loved staying in a real hotel room, riding around in a car, and all of the goodies (everything from board games to toothpaste) they brought. they even baked a birthday cake for lauras 30th birthday and checked it on the plane to germany -- we had a great little party with cake, streamers, and party hats.

we also got jim and joan into the backpacker adventure spirit with some alpine hikes, a few trips down a luge course, and a trip into the salt mines.

we had a great time hiking and exploring the amazing peaks, valleys, waterfalls, glaciers, and mountain huts around innsbruck austria. we spent 4 days, but could have stayed a month as there were dozens and dozens of amazing trails and hiking areas. we also went on a hike to watch the sunrise over innsbruck and the surrounding alps -- seeing our first sunrise on the trip!

our favorite phrase as we raced through the triglav lakes valley on our 4th hour in the freezing, pouring rain... actually it was 'show me the hut' and also 'i really should have brought my rainpants'. turns out the trashbags we were wearing didnt provide too much rain protection. we had a great time hiking hut to hut in triglav national park in the julian alps in slovenia. the hiking was fantastic, and eating and staying overnight in the mountain huts was a great experience as we were able to really interact with local slovenians. we got really rained on on the second day of the hike (keeping the percentage of european hikes that we've been rained on solidly at 100%), so were unable to summit mt triglav, slovenias highest peak.

we spent another few days in the lake bohinj and bled regions doing short hikes and swimming and paddling around the alpine lakes. we also went on a fantastic canyoning trip -- loving the waterproof camera.