Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Wimbledon!

Last Friday, Greer, Caitlin & I met at 5am (I woke at 3:50am) to catch the first train from High Wycombe at 5:32am to go to Wimbledon! Caitlin & I had made a couple of yummy salad and mozzarella rolls the day before to take for lunch, plus snacks like peanuts (which we can't eat openly at school because of allergies amongst the girls), sultanas and apples. It sounds healthy when I write it like that...

As we walked to the station we were pretty excited - it was so light already, I was in shorts due to the nice weather the last couple of days, and we even saw the cute sight of a man dropping off glass milk bottles to people's front doors! We bought train tickets from the machine for the first time, since no-one was up that early to sell them to us. From Marylebone, we caught a train to Waterloo, then onto Wimbledon. Something I'd printed out which was supposed to show us the journey told me it'd take 28 minutes to Waterloo even though it was only about 4 stops. Luckily it didn't take nearly that long. At Wimbledon station there was a little stall set up where the man and woman inside called out to us 'going to the tennis?' then gave us the advice 'there's a good way to get there and a bad way: the bus is more expensive and doesn't get you to the back of the queue and the taxi is cheaper and gets you right at the end of the queue' so obviously we took the taxi (£2.50 each) after collecting some info from them.

The taxi ride was probably less than 10 minutes. We headed in the direction everyone was going and had our first glimpse of 'the queue'. So. Many. People. We followed directions to sit/stand in one line for over an hour, then we all moved and sat/stood in another line for a long time. Finally we started on the final movement towards the grounds, which was a long slow walk. Security checked our bags (luckily they didn't pull out the bigger of Greer's 2 Aussie flags as there was a size restriction) and then we finally got to the ticket sellers and bought our grounds passes! By the time we'd got in it was 11:30am and we'd arrived at 7:30am. Luckily it was beautiful and sunny most of that waiting time.

Games didn't start until 12 noon (that's weird, right? They start in the morning at the Aus Open, don't they?) so we looked at the Order of Play and then went and found the court where Hewitt/Luczak would be playing the second game, and where Aussie Jessica Moore was playing doubles in the first game. That was a pretty weak game all round and Moore & her partner lost. Casey Dellaqua and another Aussie were playing on the court behind so when the people in the row behind us vacated their seats, I moved back and had a view of both courts. Dellaqua's game was pretty bad too, I don't think I saw a rally the whole time I watched. The courts were really cute and intimate though, only 3 rows of seats on each side. You could see (and hear!) the crowd for centre court from where we were sitting. Oh how I wished I was part of it. Usually it's around January every year I get nostalgic about Tennis, when the Aus Open is on, but this year it was in June.

The Hewitt game was much better, the Germans they were playing against were really good, especially one's serve! The Aussie boys came out with their backwards caps of course, and it was really funny when they were letting each other know whose ball it was - 'yours mate' could be heard by everyone. We heard 'come on' a couple of times too, and not just from Hewie; the German got into it too. Unfortunately our boys lost that one too.

We'd already started eating our food during those 2 games, and then we went to check who was playing elsewhere. We bought our strawberries and cream which were yummm, and only £2.50 so not totally ridiculously expensive. We wandered around to court 3, the biggest one that ground pass holders can see, where Tomic was finishing his game from the day before, but there was even a queue there to get in and we had no chance.

We found the court where Sam Stosur was playing doubles against Jankovic, which was also a good game, and Stosur WON! These woman are so strong, just watching their serves, shots and muscles! Stosur's partner was really smiley and Sam even gave a little bit at one stage. The losers were also really gracious and friendly at the end. As we headed away from the court, Sam was signing autographs/taking photos and I just missed out! So shattered. Literally one girl caught her before she totally got away but I didn't want to be too harassing.

Anyway so then we checked out court 3 again, where Monfils was now playing but we were told we had pretty much no chance to get in. So we looked at the game schedule again and saw that there were some singles games on another court (I was kind of sick of doubles by this time). We queued again (pretty much my life on this day), and the weather got horrible and started raining. People started coming out from the court in ones and twos but there were 3 of us so no good. Then they covered the courts to keep them dry and eventually we got in but only to decide that that game was definitely not being finished that day. The guys who controlled who went in and out were from the fire brigade and I think they had to be there as part of work and were told nothing about whether the game was ever going to be restarted. So we waited for a bit once we got in, put the Aussie flags on to keep dry/warm and then headed back out, via the shop. The cashier looked at my flag and said 'you're not going to see Murray by any chance?'. Um, no. There is more to this flag than a Union Jack, lady!

On the way out of the grounds one of the workers told us we shouldn't have been let in with a flag that big, but whatcha gonna do. We caught a double-decker back to Wimbledon station, through Wimbledon town which looks quite cute, then caught the trains back. We were pretty tired by this stage and by the time we got back it was about 9:30pm and raining as we walked up the hill. Pretty much had a shower and went straight to bed at 10:30pm. Good day though.



All the gaps between Turkey and last Friday will hopefully be filled in before I head off for Summer, next Friday 8th July to Athens!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Turkey part 2

So, after that crazy night we woke up at 7am on Saturday 23rd April. J & I both felt pretty horrible, although Janet managed to make up some funny little songs while packing - with a bogan accent rhyming 'today' with 'me' and other things like that. I'm glad I wrote that down to remember actually... We had breakfast about 8am - just felt like basic stuff: cornflakes, plain bread, and stupidly a boiled egg and a piece of cheese.

We left about 8:45am (with me managing to throw up on the bus, over all my stuff but thankfully not on anyone else) for Pergamon, another ancient city which we had to take a cable car up to. It went really high, a bit scary but really amazing views. We saw more cats up the top. We had fantastic views the whole time we were up there, walking around through ruins, discovering a gorgeous lake from high above it. Also another huuuuge theatre. We took the cable car back down after a couple of hours.

We stopped at a restaurant/service station area for lunch, where I got a cheese and tomato pide for 10TL. I regretted that, though, when others got a yummy-looking buffet of rice and vegie sauces for 15TL which ended up being 12TL because a lot of the food was apparently gone by the time we arrived. Obviously I wasn't feeling so sick by this time (although nothing keeps me from yummy food)!

Our next stop was the ex-Greek island of Cunda (Choonda) just as I was falling asleep on the bus. I'm thinking we either must have gotten on a ferry or gone across a bridge. Probably the bridge. It was absolutely gorgeous. There were little market stalls (the ring and bracelet I got both broke that day, but fixable, but the vendor wouldn't give me a discount on another broken ring), restaurants along the water, and a few boats - SO. PRETTY! I have a couple of photos from this place that are possibly the best of the whole trip.

We arrived at our hotel about 7pm (I can't remember where - the itinerary says Bergama but that doesn't really ring a bell), with 5 people in each room this time so I was with Janet, Caitlin, Rose and Kate. I washed my clothes that I'd thrown up on (lovely, huh?)and tried to make them dry by hanging them outside. This was the coldest place we'd been though so not much luck there. We half-packed our day packs for the next day - night at Galipoli - and enjoyed the fact that there were hammocks outside and we were right on the beach again.

We went down to the fancy-schmancy dining room where individual bowls of beans and salad were already on the tables. Then we got our soup (with Janet making animal noises and gestures to ask if it was vegetarian - even though the Turkish word for vegetarian is very similar and we didn't get why he didn't understand!) and vego meal of rice and chips and tomato/cucumber. The desserts sat in front of us for the whole meal - sweet balls of deliciousness which made me so full!

We went back to our rooms, finished packing, walked to the beach to have a look with Caitlin. Had a horrible shower with no light in the bathroom, the showerhead wouldn't stay up so had to hold it the whole time and NO hot water. Slept don't know what time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next 2 days are kinda mixed together because I didn't get much sleep. On Sunday 24th April we got up at 7am after a freeeeezing night when no-one slept very well. For breakfast I had 2 pieces of toast (on an ingenious toaster which you put the bread onto a rotating grate and the bread falls through at the end), honey, feta, more cheese, Nesquik (!), olives.

We left at 8.15am, stopping at Troy for a bit, where we saw 4000 year old ruins, a fake Trojan horse which we took photos in the windows of, etc.

Then we drove on and stopped at a shopping centre/supermarket to get food for lunch and dinner that night, breakfast the next morning and possibly lunch the next day. We were to be at Galipoli for the ANZAC dawn service that night. So I bought really healthy stuff like a loaf of bread, Nutella to share, biscuits with Smartie-type things, Snickers & Twix (it was Easter after all although there were no eggs anywhere!), pretzels, corn cakes, pesto to share, bananas and apples. For lunch I bought a huge (didn't realise it would be that big) baked potato with cheese, corn, olives and carrot which was absolutely delish.

We drove about 15 minutes, then onto a ferry for another 15 mins then a bit longer to Galipoli on the other side. Once we arrived we were in a big bus queue so we had to wait a while. We eventually got out, got our bus number tags and walked along the unmade road to a grassy area near the entrance. It was something like 2pm but we weren't going to be let in till 6pm - but you needed to get there early to be near the front of the line to claim a big enough spot for 300 Topdeck travellers. We sat on the grass for a while, it was really sunny so stripped down to t-shirts and cranked out the sunscreen. The portaloos around the place were horrible; I managed to grab a bunch of toilet seat covers thinking they were paper hand towels and then had nowhere to put them, whoops.

We started lining up at the entrance gate eventually, only to be totally squished, have to squish even more for trucks to come through the crowd, and eventually be told NO-ONE THROUGH TILL 6PM so we sat back down only after being promised chocolate cake by one of the workers. I lost my thumb ring at some stage, I think when I was heading to the toilet and took off my rings before I went. Devo :( I also lost my Murano pendant and a Turkish bracelet the first night out in Kusadasi, not doing well.

We 'lined up' again about 5:15pm and the gates were opened a bit before 6, so slowly though, about 8 people let through at a time for security checks. We picked up arm bands and info packs then rushed to find the hopefully awesome spot that other Topdeck-ers had claimed. We weren't right at the front where apparently we normally would be but they'd laid out a big tarp so we quickly jumped on a bit of that.

We sat, ate, walked around, gradually building up our layers again as the sun went down. Everyone got into their sleeping bags and I was freezing and upset since I didn't have one (couldn't fit it in my backpack). Caitlin had brought some 'space blankets' though so we shared those although they ripped and didn't do much for the temperature.

I think music and things started about 8pm, possibly some before that. Some woman with a great voice kept returning with the Aus/NZ orchestras every now and then. Documentaries on the big screens started something like 9:30pm. Everyone started going to sleep, hoping to be semi-awake for when the dawn service came around. I got about an hour's sleep then woke up freezing and decided that trying anymore was just not worth it.

I went with a couple of women next to me to see a Today Show reporter (Sarah Harris I have discovered) interviewing a few people. Pretty sure I was in the background of a lot of the filming but had no time to let anyone in Aus know to turn on the TV. It was really hard to get back to my sleeping spot without stepping on lots of sleeping people, but I was warmer from standing anyway. I found Rose awake and we just walked back and forth along the road for a couple of hours just trying to stay warm. A young Turkish worker even asked for a photo with Rose, just a little bit funny. While we were still up and walking, a random film came on the screen which looked like a really bad movie trailer but we couldn't work it out.

Eventually everyone was told to wake up and we saw the speeches from the Prime Ministers. Then we saw picture and heard descriptions of ANZACs who had died, the youngest being 15 years 10 months plus mainly 18-23 year olds which was very sad. I didn't really cry though which I was very surprised about, considering my tired state. Following were speeches, odes, the Aus, NZ and Turkish national anthems, 2 minutes silence and The Last Post.

The sun had really started coming up at this point and it was now definitely into Monday 25th April, ANZAC day. It was still really cold, most people packed up and got ready to head up the road for the memorial services. As you can imagine, the line for the toilets was ridiculous but moved quite quickly, thank God. We started walking towards Lone Pine, where the Australian service would be held, and saw a few pretty beachside cemeteries on the way, with flowers around and between all the graves. Caitlin found her ancestor's grave in the first one. Continuing walking, now uphill, we all ended up with really burnt faces. We got to the Shell Beach cemetery - something about a famous cricket game there? - and eventually got to Lone Pine. It was a bit of a tiring walk, but that definitely added to the feeling of empathy towards the soldiers who had walked the same route 96 years before us. We found a spot on the grass in front of the stands and the orchestra was already playing, although we were a bit early. The ceremony started at 10:05am; I lay down with my knees still up but ashamedly I kept falling asleep - and waking up to every applause. We heard the same kind of things as at the Dawn Service - the anthem, silence, Last Post plus a couple of emotional poems.

We started towards Chunuk Blair (the site of the NZ service) where the buses would collect us from. It was a long steep walk, with a couple more cemeteries along the way; this time Rose found her ancestor's grave. We got stopped for a few minutes at the Turkish memorial site then headed onwards and upwards. I power walked the last 10 minutes or so and was hot and sweaty by the time we reached our destination. The grandstand for the service was crowded so we found someone with a big Topdeck flag and sat outside on the grass. We finished most of our food as it was lunchtime by now. Try Nutella and banana in a roll, so yum. Definitely ate too much Nutella overall though.

Our whole group eventually came together and we waited for bus 384 to be called out. Tolga said we'd be third but we weren't... as we drove away, though, we could see hundreds of buses still lined up on the other side of the hill so we did pretty well.

On the bus we had a competition - we paid 1TL to guess what time we'd arrive and the closest person would win all the money. It was 2:08pm and I had absolutely no idea, I ended up being about an hour and half off. We stopped a couple of times for the toilet - I can proudly say I squatted a total of twice the whole trip. I fell asleep a couple of times; Old School and Eurotrip were put on but I didn't see much of either.

We arrived back in Istanbul at 7:34pm and Felicity/Flick (christened Flaps at the start of the tour) won the munnay. Everyone grabbed bags, went inside the hotel (same one as start of tour), got room keys and headed up. There was no real group goodbye which was a bit sad. We had showers then went downstairs to say bye to some people heading out for final drinks - I think we were just tooo tired. We got free baklava from the hotel which was nice. We got to sleep about 11:15pm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So that was basically the end of the tour. But Caitlin, Janet and I were staying a few extra days in Istanbul. On Tuesday 26th April we got up at 8:45am, got dressed and went down to breaky. Not that many people from our group were down there so not many goodbyes :( Delicious breaky but ate too much as usual - chocolate chip bread, olives, cheeses, more bread, yoghurt and fruit syrup, different corn flake-type cereal. We went out and sat in the lobby with Kasia for a bit, hoping to see some more of the group to say goodbye to, but hardly saw any.

We went up to our room, packed our stuff then headed to Georgie, Aisling & Kate's room which G, A and Rose managed to book for that night as well, lucky ducks.

J, C & I walked to our hostel, a good 40 minutes or so (near the restaurants we'd gone the first couple of nights) which was hard with a heavy backpack. The receptionists pretended they didn't speak English at first, thought it was pretty funny. They were actually really nice though, let us leave our bags, gave us maps and things.

We walked back to the hotel to meet the others and then we all went to the Grand Bazaar again. We went via some Turkish baths but they wouldn't do facials without the whole service. I bought some cushion covers for home, bracelets for friends and we all randomly got given free African scarves at a shop where Aisling and Georgie bought awesome hippy pants. We wandered through the bazaar, bought a few things (jewels mostly), got outside and ate at the same place we had the week before. As Kate said, it was like a circle, that we started and ended doing the same thing but we saw a whole lot of Turkey in between. Kind of weird to think about actually, it was crazy that we'd been gone that long!

Kate left to relax, catch a taxi and then fly back to London town and we went back in the bazaar. We said goodbye to G, A & R, they went back to the hotel and we went to check in at our hostel. We had an 8 bed dorm, I lay on the bottom bunk for a while before the others told me I was on the top, whoopsy. We relaxed for a couple of hours, using the wifi, etc., then went to meet any others from the tour who were still in Istanbul in the same area as those restaurants. We sat in the 2nd storey of a shisha bar on cushions which was a nice atmosphere. Some people bought drinks then most of us headed out for dinner not too far away. We got free apple tea and puffy Turkish bread and I had a veg pizza. The view from the top of the restaurant was of the mosques lit up against the sky, again just like Disneyland. I got charged less for my pizza than thought so that was a nice end to the meal.

We went back to the bar, some people had left but we filled out 2 circles of cushions. A couple of fish bowls were drunk (that sounds really weird - we all drunk a couple of 'fish bowls'). A lot of the cocktails were brought out with sparklers which was cool.

We eventually headed across the road to where we'd had drinks on our second night in Istanbul but it was midnight - and therefore closing! Some more of our tour was there so we said goodbye and to others who were now next door to the bar.

We found that our hostel was literally a 1 minute walk away - it took us 15 on the way there because we thought we had to go all the way around the mosque, no thanks to the guys working at our hostel! Still, I found the fact pretty funny. We all had showers then got to bed about 1:30am.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I pressed snooze a few times on my alarm on Wednesday 27th April, got up at 9:20am, dressed, headed upstairs to the 'rooftop terrace' for breakfast. Had yummy brown bread with 2 cheeses and tomato, egg, dried apricots, chocolate cake (what's with having dessert for breakfast in Turkey?), muesli with yoghurt and delish fruity syrup stuff. We checked out the view outside - over the sea and the mosques but with lots of ugly being-renovated or needing-renovation buildings in between plus lots of cats as usual.

We went back down to our room for a relax (still recovering from no sleep at Galipoli) and journal sesh. The workers started making beds so I followed Janet and Caitlin back upstairs to the terrace, and used the wifi and computers up there. The workers were cooking something for lunch and it smelt reeally good. After eating too much of Caitlin's leftover chocolate muesli we went out for lunch near the Grand Bazaar, past lots of tempting baklava places. Caitlin got really salty pasta for 4TL and Janet and I got a plate of 3 things - mine were rice, beans, and cabbage dolma - for 5TL. Yum but smallish.

We walked through the bazaar to find a bracelet place from the first day we were there, then decided we were too tired to think of anything particularly to do so we headed back to the hostel, stopping for baklava and Turkish delight on the way. Amazing stuff. I was still full from muesli/lunch so didn't eat it for a bit but when I did...!

We went back up to the terrace, sat inside and wrote postcards, looked through photos, used the internet.

We went out for dinner about 7:30pm at a restaurant nearby. There was one cheapish cute-looking place with a plastic-covered bit - it was raining so would have been perfect - but it was full so we found a nice restaurant. All the waiters we passed were really nice when we said we needed cheaper places, suggesting others. We got yummy bread and oil with cheese, then I got a tomato soup with mozzarella and C & J got veg noodles.

We went back to the hostel, still laughing about how close we were to all the restaurants/bars. Had showers then hit the sack at 10pm (although I wasted precious sleeping time wifi-ing so it was more like 11pm).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, Thursday 28th April, we got up about 9am and got breakfast a bit before half past. I had cheeses/tomato on bread, olives, sundried tomatoes and a delicious orange. We walked along the tram tracks (the only directions I remembered) to the Spice Bazaar, where we'd briefly gone on one of the first days after the cruise.

We went past lots of cheap funky little jewellery shops where we went a little crazy. We found the Bazaar, and had LOTS of Turkish Delight samples while Janet worked out which ones to get for her house mistresses (C & I had bought scarves for ours a couple of days before). The place she ended up choosing actually let us try whole pieces until the guy was ready to serve us, which was a long time - this place was popular. I obviously took advantage of this but definitely ate toooo much.

After that we walked through a tunnel which goes under the road where there were more shops and we all bought 5TL watches just for the sake of it. We followed the tunnel through to the other side which was on the waterfront, and fish and bread were all you could smell. We sat in one of the little places connected to boats where fish was being grilled and C & J got fresh fish rolls which were apparently very good.

We walked back underneath the road, bought some more rings then headed back along the tram line. We stopped so I could get a plate of rice with chickpeas which was tasty but weirdly greasy. These stupid Turkish guys who were definitely younger than us were harassing us as we walked so we stopped in a ceramics shop to get away from them.

We found a park and sat down for a bit, still struggling with what to actually do with our time. There were tulips everywhere plus bridges and fountains so we spent some time taking photos.

We continued on back the way we'd come, stopping at a guy on the footpath selling 1TL bracelets and all bought one. We got back to the hostel at 3:30pm - such bad tourists - and napped and used the wifi.

We went to dinner at 7:30pm, this time to the covered-in place we'd seen the night before - kind of felt like we were intruding on a possible date before another table vacated. I got potato borek which actually looked like 2 really long spring rolls but was still nice.

We were thinking of walking to the water/actually doing something but Caitlin was getting sick and we didn't think it was a good idea just 2 of us walking around Istanbul in the dark. Instead we went back to the hostel, packed our stuff, found out about the bus to the airport the next day, had showers and got to bed at 11pm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday 29th April - got up about the same time as yesterday, breakfast about 9:30pm: we sat outside that morning and I had muesli, yoghurt, jam, dried apricots and an orange. Wasn't too cold so therefore quite pleasant. We finished packing totally, paid for the shuttle to the airport. We were told that we could just chill upstairs all day if we wanted, even though we'd checked out which was nice. It was Royal Wedding day and we were a bit annoyed we were missing it, while the others back at High Wycombe were heading into Hyde Park.

We headed out, with not really any plans again, looked at some shops in a little mall-type place nearby. Walked to the Spice Bazaar again. We went to find an ATM and found a whole strip of stores on the outside of the Bazaar full of cheeses and things - the one sample of Turkish mozerella made our day. Then we went inside to the same stall as the day before and I bought a bag of Turkish Delight for myself (which I still haven't opened almost 2 months later, how good am I?).

We went through the tunnel again, and the others got the same lunch as yesterday but from a different place. I bought spinach borek which didn't have enough filling :(

We headed back, buying a couple more bracelets and a ring, and a little bowl which I'd wnated the whole trip. Back at the hostel we went upstairs and watched the balcony part of the wedding on TV.

We caught our bus to the airport with a few other people from different hostels and I was really glad I sat backwards and could not see the scary driving, because I could definitely feel it!

We got to the airport at 4:50pm; our plane wasn't till 8:30pm so we waited, checked in our luggage, waited some more, headed to our gate which was changed 3 times. We were meant to start boarding at 7:30pm but didn't actually until 8:15pm and didn't leave till 9:20pm, since we were "15th in line for take-off".

The veg meal was okay - eggplant and a tiny piece of tomato with rice, salad, fruit salad, and for some reason didn't get the tomato olive dip that Caitlin got in her non-veg meal. I slept a bit. At the start the lights in the plane were off so you could see outside.

We arrived 10:50pm London time (12:30am), which was actually only 20 minutes late in the end. We went through passport control (the line for 'other nationalities' was actually shorter than the EU line this time), collected our bags and headed out to the taxis. We were told it would cost £85 and it ended up taking less than half an hour so that was ridiculous and kind of a crappy end to the holiday.

We checked out our new bathroom, which couldn't be used till Monday, grrr. Got to bed about 1:30am (3:30am for what we'd been going with).

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Turkey part 1

On Sunday 17th April we got up at 5:30am to give us lots of time to catch our bus to the airport from Rome to Istanbul, via Budapest (crazy, I know). The bus left a bit late, after 6:50am, but it still got to the next stop early and arrived at the airport early, about 8:00am. We found our terminal, and the check-in gate eventually. I got patted down at security - do I really look that sus? We got breakfast at the airport but my chocolate croissant was disappointing.

Eventually we got on our plane, via another bus. We left 20 minutes late which was quite worrying seeing as we only had 35 minutes leeway to catch our connecting flight at Budapest. We literally had to run from one end of the airport to the other for the 'last call' for our flight, but, luckily, we made it! We got a cheese roll for lunch, nothing compared with Lufthansa on our Berlin trip.

Descending at the end of the flight, it felt like we were going to land on the water, the airport was that close to it. The queue for VISA/passport control took ages, then, after we waited for the whole conveyor belt full of luggage to go through and no hint of ours, we got a bit worried. At lost & found they told us our luggage was still in Budapest. Of course it was - we'd had to run to catch the plane, how could our luggage have got there? One of the guys working there came with us to find our Topdeck representative who was picking us up for our 9 day ANZAC tour, to get the address of the hotel we'd be staying at so they could send our bags.

We got a shuttle with a few other people to our hotel (yes, HOTEL, no 's'!). I sat in the front and it was a very scary ride - the driver drove like the worst drivers in Melbourne, weaving in and out of gaps, on the phone, almost ran people over.

Once we checked in, we took our bags up to our room... verrryy nice! So good after a bunch of hostels. We went back downstairs to 'meet people' but as you can imagine we were all very tired, so I had a short nap then Rose, Aisling & Georgie arrived and we all headed out for dinner. Since we'd arrived a day early, we were with a lot of Aussies/NZers doing the 10 day tour plus our tour leader Michelle and Turkish guide Tolga. We walked a fair way, on a pretty confusing route. We got to a little strip of restaurants/bars and Rose, Caitlin & I ended up sitting with some Tassie guys and some others. Instead of boring bread you get while you wait for your meals, we got REAL TURKISH BREAD! So yummy. Then I had cous cous with tomato and vegie sauce which was tasty too.

We got tired and left eventually, finding our way back somehow. It started raining a little bit and the mosques looked incredible all lit up against the night sky, almost like Disney Land (is that disrespectful?)! Luckily I'd packed my toothbrush and toothpaste in my carry-on bag so I could feel somewhat clean when we went to bed at 11pm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We got up before 9am on Monday 18th April, chucked on the only clothes we had and went down to breakfast. It was so different from any other breakfast we'd had at places we'd stayed - 3 different types of olives, bread with choc chips, real honeycomb (crunchy but soft at the same time), delicious cheese, dried apricots, sultanas, dried figs, fantastic breads, chocolate brownie thing, some sort of soup, scrambled egg, tomato, cucumber, weird Cocopops. Yum!

We went back up to our room and, still quite tired, relaxed for a while. We went down and sorted out our change in accommodation - 2 double rooms plus a triple (Georgie's friend would be joining us) for the next 2 nights instead of 2 triples.

We headed out to check out the Grand Bazaar and by now it was raining. The place was amazing though - a big indoor market with over 4000 stalls full of gorgeous jewellery, scarves, lamps, plates and so much more, with all the vendors trying to get our attention by calling us 'Charlie's Angels' or 'Spice Girls'. Pretty funny. We weren't really sure what a reasonable prince was yet, plus the courtesy is to haggle (but we didn't know how much), so we just looked. It was VERY crowded as you can imagine.

After a couple of hours of being amazed mostly by jewellery we came out at a different exit from the one we came in. We found a place on the street to eat, I had a cheese/egg/vegie pide for 7 Turkish Lira (less than half for £, about 3/4 for $AU?) which was yummy. Almost made me feel like I was back in Sydney Rd.

We walked back to the hostel via one of the many baklava shops. Janet and I swapped a piece each but for some reason they tasted weird and almost fishy to me. When we got back our luggage had finally arrived so we had showers, got into new clean clothes and relaxed a bit more.

We headed downstairs for a briefing at 6:30pm then headed out to dinner about 7:30pm, just like the night before. We even ended up eating at the same place as the night before (as a group this time) - I had a vegie kebap - before moving next door for more drinkies. There was another ANZAC tour group there called Fanatics and they were already totally out of it, but very funny, a huge blowup kangaroo and cheap Turkish hats included. And I drank more than a sip of wine for the first time, which we felt a bit when we got up to go to a karaoke bar across the street. Didn't stay too long, some of the Fanatics were dancing on verrry precarious tables. So Caitlin, Sarah & Kasia (on our tour, who we met that night) and I headed back. I got ready for bed then took our room key down to reception so Janet could get it when she came back. Realised just 3 glasses of wine makes you a lot tipsier than the same amount of other drinks. Slept about 11:30pm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We went down for breakfast at 8:30am on Tuesday 19th April, where we met G's friend Kate who arrived late last night. We started our walking tour at 9:15am, which took us down the main street past the Constantine Column, traditional Turkish baths, the Grand Bazaar and the Blue Mosque, where we all lined up, took our shoes off and carried them in plastic bags inside. It was dark with beautiful ceilings, candles hanging down, stained glass windows. Outside stood a tall obelisk, complete with Egyptian writing. Kate & I decided that we would go to the expensive (125TL = £50) traditional Turkish dinner that night so we paid for that and got a bit excited.

We had from 11:30am till 2:15pm to do our own thing so we went back to the Bazaar. Kate was really good at haggling (we found out you should be able to haggle down to about 1/2 the asking price) so we all got into it and I ended up with a scarf for Mum for fairly cheap. Some more funny salesmen: 'Are your eyes from your mother or your father?' and 'Are they real?' while gesturing at his eyelashes. Also ended up getting pretty matching bracelets with Kate since we got the price down a lot.

We went outside for lunch, us vegos got vegie wraps with lots of sauces, salad plus chips - inside the wrap! - for only 4TL. We also bought yummy honey sweets from a little stall on the road on the way back to our meeting place. After meeting with the rest of the group we walked a fair way to the sea and caught a ferry down the Bosphorus, which separates Europe and Asia. It was a bit hard to hear Tolga explaining things over the PA but it was just nice to relax. We saw a castle-type structure, graveyard, few bridges and biiiig buildings. An hour and a half later we hopped off. We went inside the Spice Bazaar with lots of free Turkish Delight samples, plus lots of teas and, you guessed it, spices. Like the Grand Bazaar but smaller, and almost more crowded because of that.

We followed the tram tracks all the way back to the hotel. It was about 6pm and we had until 8pm to meet for dinner so we just relaxed some more, utilised the free wifi, had showers, tried on Mum's scarf and ended up wearing it out. The bus took about half an hour and Kate and I chatted all the way.

The place was pretty amazing - a dark and crowded restaurant (not just our tour group), with a stage in the centre, chandeliers. Over the night the entertainment was 4 belly dancers, a couple of traditional dance groups, a Turkish singer and a magician (awesome). Getting food for vego (me) and gluten free (Kate) was a bit of a hassle but we ended up with 4 dishes each - for me antipasto platter to start with, cheese/potato samosas, vegies/rice/chips/salad, and fresh fruit and ice-cream for dessert. Plus we managed to get through a bottle of wine just the 2 of us, even though neither of us liked wine. So full by the end!

After the acts they started playing mainstream music so the section where the stage was turned into a dancefloor and we all had fun dancing all the food off. The bus ride back seemed a lot shorter, I guess there was more traffic and we were hungry and desperate on the way over.

I picked up the key from reception, assumed Janet was still out but after turning on the lights, had a bit of an 'oh s*!t' moment when I saw her in bed. Slept about 12:15am.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Had to wake up at 5am the next morning, Wednesday 20th April, to get packed, take our bags down and have breakfast at 5:30am. Felt like I was still full from the night before. We all got our tour hoodies which was very exciting. They were really warm and snug but left fluff on whatever you wore underneath.

On the bus I sat next to Margot, a woman in the group, and opposite Rose and Caitlin. We drove about an hour and a half to the seaside then drove onto a ferry and were on there for half an hour. We went upstairs to watch the journey from higher up but it was very windy outside, although the cold sort of woke me up. We all got back into the bus before we hit land again then we drove a bit more. A car drove into the bus as we were nearing our stopping place so that slowed us down: had to wait ages for the bus driver to fill out forms, etc. Apparently the car's driver was intoxicated and ran away from the car because it is a huge offence in Turkey.

Eventually we stopped in Bursa; the Grand Mosque we were supposed to be visiting was closed to tourist groups on that day - bad planning? I think yes. We did have a bit of a wander through the silk markets and went with Kate to find a padlock (which we discovered is 'kilit' in Turkish), finally we found one at about the 3rd place. We wandered back through what we supposed was the silk market, felt nice scarves and piles of silk/wool. I got a non-silk scarf for 1TL. We also found a stall with awesome gem rings for 5TL but they were all too big for me :(

We waited for the bus then drove 1/2 hour or so more. During the driving bits we did a bit of get-to-know-you come-up-to-the-front-of-the-bus stuff - name, nicknames, where you're from, travel plans, 'traffic lights'/relationship status, embarrassing moment/random fact which was entertaining in parts. We stopped at a big shopping centre for lunch. We even had to go through a security thing like at an airport to get in, crazy. We found the food court but didn't know what anything was, how the prices worked, or what was vego so I just stuck with spaghetti with tomato sauce/olives/feta.

Back in the bus... we stopped a while later at a service station for toilets, massive line for the girls' of course. Gorgeous scenery surrounding us though, and all the drives were just beautiful. On the last part of the journey we watched Wedding Crashers & Anchorman, then slept. We finally arrived at Pamukkale a bit after 7:30pm.

We got our room keys, took our bags up, then took our cameras up to the incredible white hills at the end of the street. It was raining lightly but nothing could dull how excited we were all feeling. We walked back to the hotel and got dinner, which wasn't meant to be one of our included meals but was because we arrived so late - a huge buffet + desserts. Ate lots then had a shower and got to bed about 10:30pm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can't remember what time we got up on Thursday 21st April but we packed all our stuff up and went up for breakfast, another yummy buffet - proper chocolatey cereal, random cheeses, olives and more. Then we drove to the calcium hills we visited last night and wandered around for a couple of hours. Amazing views. There were also thermal springs, which I was eventually persuaded to put my feet in. I was told it wasn't slippery and my camera would be looked after but I still managed to slip. Straightaway. In front of everyone. Very embarrassing. Decided I might as well just go in now and the hot moving water was very nice. Hopped out and kept walking around for a bit, taking lots of photos (need I even mention that?).

Back at the bus, we then headed to Aprodisias, which was lots of old ruins and things. Took group photos in the 'theatre'. On the way to Kusadasi we stopped somewhere for lunch where we got lentil soup, cheese/meat pides, vegie skewers with cous cous, and strawberries. There were adorably cute little puppies just wandering around and our group kind of adopted one that came inside. We were also serenaded by a guy playing mandolin around the table.

We watched 40 Year Old Virgin until we arrived at our beachside resort. We put our things in our room, then came out onto the balcony only to find the rest of the group doing the same. We didn't have the best view but you could see a patch of sea. Georgie, Aisling & Kate's view from their triple room was much better - higher up with a view straight over the sea including sunset. We all put on summery clothes (feeling optimistic) and walked over the road to the beach, took photos of the sunset. We found a 'supermarket' - very small - and bought cornettos and corn thins (about the only thing that wasn't chips or biscuits). We sat on the beach and ate our food then got ready and went up to the others' room for a bit of pre-drinking before we went out with the entire tour group plus the other Topdeck group.

Instead of Turkish clubs, we were taken to 2 'Irish Pubs' opposite each other. We had lots of fun dancing on tables, getting free shirts advertising the places, trying to steal roses from guys walking around with them. We left about 2:30-3am and pretty much went straight to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being on a mainly Aussie tour, they understand that you need your sleep after a big night out. So we were able to get up after 9am on Friday 22nd April. Didn't feel too bad either. We had a nice breakfast - real cornflakes, cheese, olives, and took a boiled egg for later. Maybe weird but turned out well. We brought our packed bags downstairs, then walked along the beach road to a proper supermarket to buy lunch stuff - got a big loaf of bread, 2 apples and 2 bananas for Janet and me to share.

We left for Ephesus, another ancient city with another theatre, a 'library', ancient toilet holes,and a random fake gladiator fight. We got a 'pro' group photo taken in front of some ruins, the library possibly, which a few of us bought later for 5TL.

We then drove to a restaurant for lunch, where some people had a buffet inside, and we sat outside and ate the things we'd already bought - egg then banana in roll. We sat in the sun, and sap unfortunately, which still hasn't come out of the skirt I was wearing.

We randomly stopped at some leather place for a fashion show, free apple tea and people trying to sell us €1000+ leather jackets. We think they must have been Tolga's friends or something.

Back at the same hotel as the night before, we relaxed on the beach for a few hours - writing journals, eating ice-cream, and talking to young Turkish girls trying to practice their English, very sweet. Everything was gorgeous, with an amazing view of the sea in front of us and a huge hill to the left covered in buildings (lights the night before).

We got dinner about 7:30pm, another included meal of bread, soup, cheese, pasta, rice with vegies, potato salad. We sat outside to take in the gorgeous sunset over the water again. Another cat was hanging around too. There was also so much dessert: profiteroles with so much chocolate sauce, 2 cakes, plus more, and baklava appeared after we'd finished :(

We went back to our rooms, got ready for another night out, back up to G, A & K's room. Rose, Kate & Georgie decided to stay in that night (very wisely) so Aisling, Caitlin, Janet & I headed out, while the rest of the tour had gone a bit earlier. We had a much shorter night, but with more free tops and a free shot. Stuff happened and we ended up leaving very early, not particularly happily. It was also very interesting back at the hotel but that needn't be explained (read: don't ask). Let's just say Janet ended up sleeping in the bathroom in our room. Literally got into bed at 12:30am, how embarrassment.

~~~~~

The last week of our holidays to come soon.