Turkiye!

Yes, I know I suck at keeping everyone up to date with what's going on but you just have to accept that about me. But, even though I may suck with posting the narrative, the pictures from my trip to Turkey have been up for almost 6 weeks so it's your fault for not seeing them until now!

Anyhow, back to the beginning of this story...As you may or may not know, for a while I thought I was going to be mobilized with my Army Reserve unit for a deployment to Afghanistan. Back in March and early April, I thought I was going to have to leave the Balkans in early June to start training and I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my time here. One of my goals in coming to Europe was to do as much traveling as possible - if I'm gonna be on this side of the world, I might as well see as much as I can, right? I already had a trip to Florence (more on that later) with my mom, aunt, and grandparents planned for the end of May so I needed to get something scheduled for the end of April or very beginning of May. Turns out I'm not getting mobilized, at least not anytime soon, but it gave me a good excuse for a trip!


As you may or may not know again, I've been dating a really cool Macedonian chick, Julijana, for the past 7 or 8 months and I wanted to be able to do something fun during what I thought was going to be our last month together. I had heard a lot of good things about a Turkish resort town called Antalya from several contractors and a Turkish friend of mine (Sevinc!) so that's where I decided we would go.

For the past 20 years or so, Antalya has been developed as the "Turkish Riviera" with dozens of 5-star, luxury, all-inclusive resorts stretched up and down Turkey's Mediterranean coast. I could have picked one of these but the history nerd in me wanted to find a hotel in the center of the old Turkish town. Our hotel, the Marina Residence, isn't exactly 5 stars but it can't be beat for location. If you want to be in the middle of all things Antalyan, that's the place to be. I do have to admit, the taxi ride from the airport was a tad harrowing as our driver flew down these narrow-ass, cobblestoned alleys. How we didn't kill some poor tourist hugging the walls I don't know.

Getting there was fun, but we had a blast exploring the city. The old town (Kaleici) is full of crappy souvenir stores as well as genuine crafts shops. Of course there are some overpriced tourist restaurants but there are also a lot of reasonably-priced, excellent eateries. One up-market restaurant I will recommend is the Vanilla Lounge, which is managed by a Turkish girl who lived in England for a while (at least from judging by her accent). We had to wait for a table but my steak was one of the best I've ever had.

The local beach had awesome views but unfortunately early May is a little too soon to plan on swimming in the Mediterranean. I got in up to my knees but not a step further! At night we hung out at a nearby hookah lounge (also known as Nargilah or Wasserpfeiffe) ran by Adnan, who wore white jeans and one of the raddest, greasiest mullets I've ever seen. We were in Turkey, so of course we had to try the coffee and went to Starbucks! Don't judge me - sometimes you just have to have a taste from home. It might not have been Turkish coffee but the cheesecake was delicious!

On our last day we took a guided tour of the ancient sites of Aspendos and Perge and the waterfalls at Kursunlu. It rained the whole day and we got soaked but it was still a lot of fun. The older Canadian couple with us didn't agree though. The Aspendos Theater is one of the best preserved Ancient Greek theaters and was amazing to see. The place could seat over 15,000 spectators which is an absoluting astounding feat. After Aspendos, one of the stops we had to make on the tour was at the sponsoring leather factory's store. This was billed as a chance to have some tea and warm up, however it was really a chance for some pushy Turks to make sales pitches for 600-euro leather jackets. Thank you, but no. After the leather factory it was lunch time so we went to an out of the way restaurant (another tour sponsor) that was conveniently co-located with a souvenir shop. Then we went to the ancient Roman city of Perge which at one point was visited by Paul the Apostle. This is where the rain really started pouring down and the damn Canadians wanted to cut the visit short. We did manage to drag our feet and climb on some ruins and pose for some pictures though.

Our own transportation would have allowed us plenty of time to explore but then we would have missed out on our guides corny spiel. I hope she was still new to the job. I kind of wished there were more people on the tour so I could have taken a nap but when there's only 4 people on the bus you feel sort of obligated to listen. Between Perge and Kursunlu, our guide wanted to take us to a jewelry store in order to "wait out the rain" but by this time we were soaked and just ready to finish the tour. When we got to the falls the rain really started to come down and the wind picked up. The Canadians chickened out and sat on the minibus but we insisted on our money's worth! The falls really were beautiful and would have been even more so without the rain - not so much for their size but for views around them. Everything was so green and lush - it would have been an awesome place to swim in. After practically swimming all afternoon, we were thankful that the tour was finally over.

Our trip was basically 4 nights and 3 days which is probably a day and a half too short to see everything in Antalya. It was fun, but, as with most vacations I take, was shorter than I wanted. Oh well. Good food, good sights, good company. That's about all you can ask for on any vacation and that's what I had.

So now, I promise I'll get the pictures and story of my Italy trip up next week. I can't promise which day, specifically, but I know you all check this blog every day so you'll see it when you see it!