Pamukkale

We spent today playing in Pamukkale's terraced pools created and warmed by calcium rich mineral springs!

Scrub a Dub Dub

Getting our culture on at a traditional Hamam (Turkish bath house)!

Blogger pulls it together

You may notice that we've just added about a million posts today. Blogger finally got their act together and made a much more user friendly app allowing us to beef up previous posts (we've made some changes to our posts from Santorini till now) and has now made adding pictures a whole lot easier, although it's screwed up our spacing and captions, our apologies. 

But Watch out; our blog is about to get good (really just meaning we might finally post with some regularity)!

Land of the Free (stuff)

In Malawi you would occasionally get a "maprizey," typically something like one free tomato if you buy  5 or an extra handful of rice. I love this type of thing.  However, I was never prepared for Turkey's maprizey culture. I love it even more. You get free bread with dinners (it's €1 in Greece), restaurants bring out free appetizers, free tea at the end of meals. Jake and I were walking through a square where they were passing out free Turkish flags, of course Jake eagerly went running to collect it (I seriously think I should start checking to make sure he hasn't secretly cancelled our tickets home). The hotel owner loves Jake so much that he made him a free omelet this morning saying that Jake's smile "brings him much positive energy and luck for his business." They bring out free popcorn or other snacks if you just order drinks, or free shots at the end of dinner. Sometimes they just wave you through instead of charging you for tickets. And, as the final and best maprizey of Turkish culture, the townspeople make free fried donuts for everyone to celebrate the anniversary of a loved one's funeral, which is pretty much every day. Can you imagine a bag of 5 donuts every day there was a funeral? Personally, I can think of no better way to honor the life of a loved one then with free donuts. Although, this tradition also explains the abundance of free outdoor exercise facilities.  

Our lemon cheesecake does a very good job expressing the way I feel about Turkey right now

      

Kayaköy (what could have been)

Jake and I made a special day trip to visit the ghost town of Kayakoy. This is where we had originally planned to have our tiny destination wedding, now of course we've moved it to Portland and are very excited to be able to include more of our loved ones in our big day. Anyway, we wanted to go see it both for sentimental reasons and because it sounded amazing. The basic backstory is around the 1920's, during the Turkish war, Turkey and Greece agreed to mutually expel their Turkish and Greek expatriates. As a result, thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in Turkey and Greece, some with no more than a days notice, and move back to their countries of origin. Kayakoy village was home to hundreds of Greek families on the Turkish coast who were forced out, and the houses were never resettled. The wood has now rotted and all the belongings are scattered, but the walls and foundations still remain. There are over 400 abandoned houses for tourists to walk through. Jake and I had a great afternoon exploring and poking around this strange, and sad but beautiful village. I'm afraid my pictures just didn't do it justice but I'll post them anyway. 

They are so cute from far away and so gross close up

   Houses on the Hill

  

The Abandoned church we had hoped to get married in. Strange, I know, but so cool. 

 

  The "never ending wine tasting" at the "would be" reception restaurant

Ephesus/Selçuk

Ephesus is the oldest city in the world (circa 8,000 BC) and the final resting place of Madonna; the mother of Christ, not the pop star (I cannot help myself making that joke). (seriously, I've heard this joke at least 4 times now) Selcuk is the nearest town to Ephesus. We spent three nights there which is 2-3 more than most. Our first full day we spent at the ruins and I spent the whole time (as I have done the whole trip) asking Katie what the Chewa (Malawi's largest) tribe was doing during this time. The crown jewel is the entrance to the library which is spectacular but we were blown away by "The Terrace Houses". This area of the world has been plagued by earthquakes and while it was clearly devastating, it also helped with preservation. The mosaic floors were being painstakingly uncovered as well as the layers of fresco on the walls. The knowledge of all the details of life is incredible. They had crates and crates of broken marble they were reassembling in the world's most insane/OCD jigsaw puzzle. We had a nice picnic outside with sausage, fresh bread, olive tapenade, pistachios and children's yogurt (it was the only one that came with a spoon).

The next day we took a couple minibuses to a nearby national park and spent the warm, but overcast, afternoon on a secluded pebble beach.

Today (5/17) we went to see a 14th century mosque before our train left a little afternoon. On our a way a salesman from a rug weaving co-op stopped us and asked us to come back by after seeing the site. We did, and were not prepared for the tour, the skill, and the time it takes to create each rug. We were the perfect suckers. I took comfort believing that we had no cash and no cards on us and virtually no time to retrieve them, that is until  Katie pulled out a Visa she's evidently been secretly carrying around (for emergencies only!). After the creation process was revealed, the show began. Rugs from across the country were brought in and unfurled before us, each with unique styles, colors, symbols, materials and characteristics. The silk shimmered and Katie's eyes got bigger and bigger. Each carpet snapped as it was being unrolled and laid before us, "Smiley" working his greasy magic. We were great customers. We both wanted one and we had a credit card.  We hemmed and hawwed and sipped tea. We fantasized about saying "Oh, this rug? We bought it at a cooperative in Turkey on our honeymoon." (Un)fortunately, we didn't pull the trigger. We'll have to save it for our trip to democratic Iran sometime in the future. (Persian rugs) 

 

     Ephesus drinking fountain 

   Frescos discovered in Ephesus' preserved terrace houses

Library facade

 Can you Find Jake? 

Refreshingly Fethiye™

Turkey is awesome!  We arrived in Turkey through the port town of Fethiye, which the lonely planet guidebook essentially ignored and breezed over, so we weren't expecting much, but I suppose that just made it even better when it turned out to be our favorite town yet! 

Fethiye is more like a small city, sprawled several miles down the coast, but only going a few blocks back from the water. The entire waterfront is gorgeous with sidewalks, benches every few meters, crazy topiaries, big city squares, great lighting, little outdoor public gyms, and even a running track that follows along the sidewalk. 

The Turks seem to be very concerned with good health, all of them jumping around on their outdoor gyms and speed walking everywhere.  When I went on a morning run I had not one but two people yell out reminders to " bring water next time!" 

Jake is so enamored with this place I'm pretty sure he's secretly picking out property to build on, and he seems very concerned with their marketing schemes and keeps muttering "you know what their slogan should be, Refreshingly Fethiye!" I had no idea I was dating a PR exec. 

                                           

 

     Jake has a go at the outdoor gym

    Look at that crazy topiary!