Antalya, Part 2

Well, I spent most of the flight from Antalya to Cologne sleeping (Marcos and I had our entire row [ie, 6 seats] to ourselves, so we both took one side of the aisle and napped away), and then going through photos took a good hour, so this will be another relatively wordless post. Don't worry, though, there's photos enough to make up for it!

Antalya Museum: We'd read it would take no more than 1-2 hours. Maybe if you didn't actually stop to look at anything, but we spent 3 hours there and Marcos only got through half of it. Museums are fun!

Part of a series I deemed "creepy faces", ranging from 4000 to 2000 years old

Little figurines! The one at the bottom is a horse,
but I'm not sure what the top one is––pig? Dog?

A variety of terra cotta vases with glaze. Widdershins from top left: "We are men!",
"We are pegasi!", "We are on horseback!", "We are in a parade!", and "I am an owl!" 

Things you can drink out of: A ram, a foot, and what Marcos
deemed a clam with eyestalks

Various pottery with glaze––amazing how intact the colors
are, even after several thousand years! The one in the top right
was used by soldiers to carry alcohol. An ancient hip flask, if you will

Some nice glazed green pottery

Some old treasure––the stuff on the right was salvaged from a wreck,
hence the atmospheric blue lighting

Statues of dudes: Headless Emperor Hadrian, headed Emperor Trajan, headed Emperor
Hadrian, and armless Alexander the Great

Statues of ladies: Not sure who these all are (at least one was labeled "young woman"),
but golly, aren't they beautiful?

Pretty, nearly perfectly intact statuette (I say "nearly"
because I assume she was once holding something in her right hand––
but maybe she's just flexing real hard?)

Statues of dude gods: Hermes and some M-dude (Marsyas, maybe?). These were
taken from the Theater at Perge, and they are huge, at least half again as tall as a normal person

Statues of lady gods: Nemesis (left and right), Hygeia (center, from whom we get the word hygiene!)

And the sarcophagi! Were amazing! I want one when I die.

Example 1

From an angle

Up close; look at that exquisite detail! 

Example 2

Example 3

Close up of Example 3 (Dionysus inspired): I like the hermaphrodite!

Gorgeous glass: The bowl edition. So much vibrant glaze! Don't remember
how old these all are, sad

Gorgeous glass, vase edition

Goodies from the Byzantine/Ottoman eras: Iznik tiles, gold illustration,
gorgeous Arabic script (and look at that blue!!!", and some crazy wardrobe doors

Ottoman ladies' prayer scroll necklaces

Selection of Ottoman-era dress, though no dates were provided

Ottoman Anatolian example rooms (plus a nice rug)

And there were peacocks!

Majestic flag

Beautiful mountains, courtesy of Marcos

Ditto

Mountains at sunset!

My almost-mosque-appropriate outfit (just add headscarf!),
so worn because I was out of other
clean clothes. The face is due to the heat.

We went to the grocery store and found these Cheetos, biftek flavor,
aka beefsteak. We did not purchase them, opting for the Doritos a la Turka
(tomato and sesame seed, from what we could tell)

After museuming, we ran around town some (visited the Sephora, because I wanted to see how it compared––basically the same, plus Chanel, but they got mad when I took photos), then Marcos did sunset pictures and then we went to Sim for dinner. It was amazing.

Widdershins (=counterclockwise, in case that wasn't clear) from top left:
Garlic-herb butter, the mysterious meze, a half-distributed mixed grill, and
part of my half of the grill. The chicken was Granary kind of good––I KNOW, RIGHT?!
(For anyone not my mother, go to The Granary and have their herb chicken.
Then you will understand.) All the meat was equivalently delicious, yum yum.

We got the mixed grill, which was 6 (or 7?) different meats, and every single one was delicious (though Marcos wasn't fond of the lamb, that's because he doesn't like lamb––it was a great "do" on the meat). We also got a cold meze (starter) of sesame oil, cumin, garlic, and pepper, but I cannot remember the name. It wreaked havoc on my tongue, but it was so tasty! Very rich and creamy and tangy, mmmm.

I'm really glad we're going back to Turkey for a week at the end; there's still so much more I want to see/do/eat!

Waiting for our flight to Berlin out of Cologne. It's been delayed, for some reason, but there's free internet and not at all free water (6 € for a liter?! I could buy 3 bottles of wine for that much back home!), so things could be worse.

Antalya, Part 2, Draft 1

Today was our last full day in Turkey (for this leg, anyways). We went to the Antalya Museum and ran around town some, finishing off with a really awesome meal. I have a ton of pictures of ancient stuff, but I am very tired (it was 99 today in the shade, blech, and I had to pack up my stuff), so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll work on it on the plane! Whee.

Our flight out is at 12:10, so we're leaving the pension at 9:00––have to return the rental car and get to the airport using a sometimes-glitchy GPS. Maybe we should leave even earlier...ugh. At least we're going back a timezone! It won't be extra painful to wake up on Monday: I guess I'll consider it the world's birthday present to me.

Hoşçakal, Türkiye!

Antalya

It was very, very hot today, and we all know how well I do in the heat––not very. As such, I am quite tired and lethargic and I do not really want to write anything. Fortunately, not a whole lot happened, but I'll be keeping it super brief even so:

Kaleiçi: Super cute

And they hate cars so much you have to go through this
toll gate to even get into it. Those who stay at lodging inside
are absolved the traffic fee, fortunately.

Set my alarm for 8:30 to check if the language schools had responded, went back to sleep until 9:30 when they had not. Got up around 10:00 to eat breakfast, then went back to sleep. Woke up at 2:45, still no response from the schools. Tried to find them on Google Maps, but was completely unable to locate one of them (Antalya Language School). The map on their website didn't work, either, so for all I know, they do not exist. Took forever to get out of the pension, and also awhile to find our way out of Kaleiçi, what with the tiny winding streets and dearth of street signs. Made our way to the other school, but it was closed; seems conveniently located (a block away from the tram), but I don't know if I'd be able to bear going to school here in the summer anyways: the lack of cooling down at night is really a bummer, though our pension owner said this is an unusually hot time, so I'll try not to write it off entirely just yet.

Weird statues of Roman/Greek ancients using modern technology
along Atatürk Blvd

I love this guy's expression

Ate pide for dinner––basically pizza on pita bread, and it was delicious.

Free starter salad

Karışık pide (beef, cheese, and peppers)

Kıymalı pide (spiced ground beef)

Wandered some, checked out some stores, and got some baklava and a weird kiwi slushy.

Subpar, as far as baklava goes.

Total spent on food for the day: 34 TL. Better than last couple days! Drank a lot of water. Now relaxing in our somewhat air conditioned room, though it is still quite humid (and even with a/c on full, upwards of 75 degrees). Tomorrow, we will visit the Antalya Museum, which apparently has all the most awesome finds from the ancient ruins around the southwest Mediterranean, so it should be fun!

Mountains across a harbor

Then packing in preparation for our flight to Berlin on Sunday. Crazy that we're almost done with this leg of the trip!

Next post, I will include all the subject pronouns. 

Pamukkale, Part 2: The Real Deal

The highlight of today was, of course, Pamukkale ("Cotton Castle"). For those who don't yet know what it is, let me show you some pictures (you'll probably want to click on them to make them bigger) (and sorry for the number––this is culled down from 200):

Chilling out in my castle

Aaaaaaah

AAAAAAAAAH

Even Tibs enjoyed it! (Though I misplaced the labeled bag, so had
to make do with a sample baggie. Sorry, Mom.) 

How regal, how serene 

That's more accurate.

The ground was not slippery, unless you were walking in a pool with
clay lining the bottom. It was not the most comfortable to walk on, though, and
my feets are ready for some TLC.

A rare undisturbed pool 

Until I tromped through it 

Weird texture! It's something about the minerals in the spring water;
when exposed to air, they form calcium compounds that are bleached by the sun.
It makes for very bright, very beautiful, and very sun-reflective terraces.

It was absolutely amazing, stunningly gorgeous, ethereally beautiful and heartbreakingly strange. I nearly cried. (No, seriously. It was incredible.)

There's also some ruins, Hierapolis (built by the King of Pergamon, who you might remember from here), which were very nice and all but I couldn't much care next to the glory of the travertines. If you're into columns, though, here:

Gymnasium

Part of the Temple of Apollo, Plutonium, supposedly
connected to Pluto's underworld, from which poisonous gases emit.
It's been covered up now, unsurprisingly.
Here you can also see an archaeologist, hard at work! 

More Temple of Apollo

Another theater

More archaeologists!

While Marcos walked back up through the site to the car, taking stock footage on the way, I chilled out at the pool at the base of the hill. We'd worn our swimsuits in preparation for the Ancient Pool in the ruins, only to discover that it costs 32 TL to swim in, to which we said "pshaw, as if" and just creeped on people who'd paid.

It was a very pretty shade of aqua.

And there's submerged ancient columns!

The pools I hung out at instead. I swam some in the far left one, and also took
a dip in the mini-travertines with healing clay. Cost 15 TL to get in,
but it was a nice way to while away a couple hours.

Our pension owner had let us keep our luggage in their lounge area while we visited Pamukkale, and offered to let us shower when we got back, but we wanted to get on the road. He gave us each a bottle of water and some peach juice before we left and refused a tip, saying we should instead write a positive review for the place, which we gladly promised to do.

We stopped at a restaurant outside of Denizli (lit, "with the sea", which is ironic as it is 3 hours inland) that the pension fellow had recommended. We were the only customers, unsurprising at 3:00 pm, and the family that owned it spoke very little English. We halfway communicated for a few minutes until one apologized for his English and said he was from Germany, at which point we switched into German. I had to ask him to repeat a couple things more slowly, evidence that my German has slipped, but it was definitely more effective! Though not entirely so, as I thought he said it was 15 TL for the both of us, only to get the bill and see it was 50. Not entirely surprising, given how much food we got:

Oh my gosh so hungry. The pitta was amazing, and topped
with the yogurt and kebap and salad, it made for a delicious
little sandwich

It was a very relaxing time, and since we ate so late we didn't need much for dinner (a shared tost, or panini, did us). During this time, Marcos also declared that the salt shaker is the one with only one hole and the pepper shaker has more holes. He bet me $50 that he was right, and though I was 95% sure I was correct (my mother is Home-Ec-y Beckie, after all) I didn't want to risk losing 50 bucks. Instead, I looked it up on my phone (hurray for international data plan), and I WAS RIGHT. Which I proceeded to crow about, and it will probably continue to be a point of great pride until I die.

I WAS RIGHT!

I also drank a Turkish coffee and tried to do as Deniz showed me, covering the cup with the saucer and swishing it around 3 times (I couldn't remember if it was supposed to be clockwise or widdershins, so I did it both ways) and then upending the cup on the saucer and reading the trails, but I couldn't remember what any of it meant. So Marcos took pictures instead, so we can ask Deniz when we get back :-)

I don't know what it means?

Antalya is very, very hot, even late at night, which is a definite something to keep in mind when looking at language schools. Our air conditioner is rather persnickety and doesn't like to continue working without frequent prodding, but we're hoping it gets its act together. Our pension is in Kaleiçi, or old town Antalya, which is an absolute nightmare to drive through––half the roads are blocked off, most of the others are one-way in the wrong direction, and it is a nightmare. If I had been driving, I would have had a complete mental breakdown in the middle of a market street, but Marcos was calm and collected through it all––he's an excellent travel companion! But if you're visiting Antalya by car, do not stay in Kaleiçi. It is not worth the hassle.

Now I must shower off the day's sweat and grime and go to bed––I hope to visit a couple of language schools tomorrow, so need to get up before too late!