Been a long time gone, Constantinople

This time, as I sit writing this blog entry, I am on a bus from Cappadocia to Istanbul. Possibly not as exciting as being on a ferry on a double decker bus but I’m excited to go back to Istanbul. It’s really my home now and I long for its delectable food and comforting feeling. Though my room at the Superdorm is reminiscent of a prison cell with a rock-hard bed, I really love the neighborhood I live in (Etiler) and all of the different things to do in Istanbul. That being said, this past weekend was quite an adventure in itself (though it’s impossible to compare this weekend and last).

Tuesday night we (5 of us this time) left the European side of Istanbul on a ferry to the Asian side where we caught an over night train to the capital city of Ankara. We arrived in Ankara before 7am on Wednesday which, if you know me, you know I do not enjoy being up before 10am. This travelling is making me get used to sleeping wherever I can whenever I can. Once in Ankara we walked around and decided to stop in a nice-looking hotel to ask for directions to the main bus station to buy our tickets to Cappadocia for the evening. The hotel staff pointed us to the metro station where we rode several stops towards the end of the line and purchased our tickets to Göreme (Grr-em-ehh). After purchasing our tickets, we found breakfast and delicious tea in a café in the bus station where I ordered kasharlı tost (kash-ar-luh toast), which is basically like a Panini-grilled version of a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s always cheap but is always delicious. I ended up getting a tea as well. I came to Turkey with a bit of a bias against tea, thinking it was something that people with British accents (and my sister) like to drink. However, Turkey has completely changed my biased perspective in that all of its many flavors are just too delicious to turn down for any reason-especially if they’re free. My current favorite is apple tea, which is kind of like apple cider/apple juice but even better. It’s just beyond words. Aside from my tea rant, we left the bus station and went back to near where our train took us. We walked around and asked several very nice Ankarans (I probably made that term up) where we could find Ataturk’s Mausoleum. This was actually a very stupid question as Ataturk’s Mausoleum was in the direct middle of the city on top of a giant hill, several hundred feet above the tree line. The mausoleum had a gorgeous view of the city from all sides and contained a very interesting museum chronicling Ataturk’s life. The Turkish nation was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after World War I. The Turkish found a long war against several different nations (UK, French, mostly) with Ataturk being their hero. As a side note, he chose Ankara as the capital as it is a lot easier to defend than Istanbul (which is easily accessible by sea, land, and air). There was a movie at the Mausoleum which basically just said how awesome Ataturk was, which does make me somewhat question the cult of personality that the Turkish have for Ataturk. On the day of Ataturk’s death, everything stops. At the exact time of his death, cars stop in the middle of the street, people stop breathing; it’s just something that is completely unparalleled in the US. Maybe if you combined Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Franklin, and the Adamses, you would get maybe half an Ataturk. Ataturk himself actually did very well with the country, I think. The movie stressed that he was not a dictator despite a 15-year term until his death. However, despite the length of his rule being close to what we might consider dictatorship, the social programs and equality efforts brought about by Ataturk completely defied the stereotypes of a dictator. Ataturk gave women equal rights, expanded education efforts, opened up the Turkish economy to foreign trade, and started a period of slow but steady growth for the nation. Conclusion: Ataturk was pretty bad ass. The tomb itself is in a giant hall reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial but gold-plated and 10x larger. The entire area is guarded by different members of each military branch and some of them are in glass cases (a friend thought they were fake and got a little too close to the case which made for a good laugh). The guards are kind of like a mix of those at Arlington Cemetery and Buckingham Palace. It seemed like a very big honor to work and guard Ataturk’s grave. After leaving Ataturk’s grave and the rest of the museum, we got a guard to take a picture with us, which was a bit terrifying with his sword and machine gun. It was also kind of creepy but in reality, he was kind of just a creep. Creeper magnet is apparently still going strong here in Turkey. Our journey continued towards a place for lunch where my friend Emily and I split a pizza, which was unfortunately not delicious. I guess somehow they interpreted sausage as bologna. Bologna pizza is never okay. After lunch we ventured on towards Kocatepe (Koh-ja-tep-eh) Mosque near the business district in Ankara. The mosque is supposedly modeled after the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It’s very similar in size but nowhere near as old or touristy. The centerpiece of the mosque had this giant hanging golden ball (kind of like the size of the ball they drop on New Year’s). We never figured out where that came from but it was very interesting nonetheless. After leaving the mosque, we took the metro back to the bus station again where we stopped for ice cream sandwiches. My friend Emily and I got dark chocolate with brownie while others opted for caramel or pistachio. Obviously we chose the superior option. After scarfing down our ice cream, we got on our bus to Göreme, which is a little more than a 4 hour bus ride from Ankara. I dozed off a bit and was not woken up to see the sun setting over a gorgeous lake. Some friends! We arrived in Göreme and headed to the pension I had booked for us ahead of time. It was super nice and heated and quite a wonderful find. We dropped our bags and ran to the nearest place for dinner. I got the local special called guveç (goo-vech) which was beef cubes, tomatoes, and green peppers in a wondrous broth in a pot cooked over a fire. It was served with bread for dipping which was quite excellent. After dinner was bed time after a nice warm shower. Having heat was much appreciated and I slept like a rock.

Thursday began after a wonderful night’s sleep. We all got dressed and went to breakfast together. The five of us ended up being able to stay in the same room with a shower and bathroom inside the hostel dorm. Breakfast happened to be included in the fee and I chose French toast as my delectable option. It was of course delicious and made to order, which is appreciated (and wonderful for the price we paid for the room). After breakfast, our “mother” Zeyda (or Zaida, not sure, but pronounced Zey-duh) gave us a lot of travel and sightseeing options for the day. She works at the reception desk of the pension and is from Durban, South Africa (the Turkish accent and South African one mixed together make for a very cool combo). We headed out towards the Göreme Open Air Museum where we were able to convince them that we were all students so they let us in for free. The museum is a group of rock dwellings you can explore. The majority of the ones you could walk into were churches which generally outdated the spread of Islam. They were very well-preserved for being thousands of years old. Coincidentally, we saw the same Canadian/Belgian (I can’t remember his place of origin) who was at our hotel last weekend at the open air museum. Small world. After leaving the museum, we headed for a leisurely hike through the muddy, icy hills of the Cappadocian valleys. My Sperry’s were definitely not equipped for the terrain but I managed. I really didn’t think I’d be hiking through muddy, gross hills. However, the views from the tops of the climbs were completely worth it and absolutely gorgeous. Cappadocia is one of (if not the) prettiest places I have ever been in my entire life. After competing our hike, the owner of the restaurant we ate at the previous night randomly happened to be driving along the main road we were on (we were waiting for a local bus). He stopped and offered us a ride back into Göreme in his very nice car despite the fact that we were sporting muddy shoes. I suppose I have now hitch hiked. One more thing off the bucket list, really. In Göreme we hung out around the hostel/pension for a bit before getting dinner at a place Zeyda recommended. The place served börek, which is philo dough stuffed with different options (chicken, veggies, sauces, dessert items) and fried lightly until crispy. I had tavuk gozleme (chicken) which is the same consistency but kind of egg-roll shaped. It was served with the yogurt they eat here as a dipping sauce and was quite delicious. The five of us split a chocolate gozleme for desert which was magnificent. The owner of the shop spoke to me in Spanish (he spoke 8 languages) which was enjoyable (a foreign language I do understand!). We had an early night because we had to wake up early for…

Hot air ballooning! We woke up around 5:45am and were picked up from the hostel around 6:30 to head to the fields (which happened to be across from the Open Air Museum). There were more than 20 different balloons there preparing for take off. The five of us were also in a balloon with a group of South Korean tourists but the basket was compartmentalized so that the 5 of us had our own space together. The balloon took off and flew around the area for about an hour. The pilot was excellent, flying between rock formations and even touching the ground momentarily before lifting off again. His favorite phrase was “Don’t worry! Be happy” which kept that song in my head for the duration of the day. I honestly cannot describe how gorgeous the flight was but hopefully my pictures (and my friends’ pictures) will do it some justice. The flight was a little pricey but absolutely worth it. We landed after about an hour and were greeted with a celebratory glass of champagne mixed with peach juice as well as flight certificates for successful completion of our hot air balloon ride. We then had to trek up another muddy field (my shoes were about 2 pounds heavier after this trek) to get to the van that would drive us back to the hostel. It was only around 9am. We had another bout of French toast before heading out to rent a car for the day. Emily was the only one who knew how to drive stick shift and thus became our driver for the day while I served as navigator. The rental company asked for no proof of insurance, driver’s license, passport, or anything. Amazing how things are different in Turkey. We drove towards Derinkuyu, one of the underground cities in the area. We explored the 8 underground floors they excavated within the area. The underground city itself was apparently supposed to hold almost 20,000 people. It was very interesting to see how they lived and very cool to explore around (though most things were very well lit). In Derinkuyu we stopped to eat lunch (delicious pb&j’s). We accidentally sat outside of a middle school where the boys opened the windows and started yelling “I love you!” and then proceeding to throw rocks at us. Needless to say, we departed very quickly from Derinkuyu after that. Eventually we made our way to Urgüp (Er-goop) and parked (after some help). The area is well-known for its wine and a group member wanted to go to a wine tasting in the area. The wines that were tried included pomegranate, cherry, mulberry, sour grape, a white wine, and strawberry. After the wine tasting, we headed to a baklava place that Zeyda recommended where we had pistachio baklava (which is traditional Turkish baklava. I prefer walnut, which is more Greek-style). We left the town and headed back to the hostel, stopping to race up a hill to watch the sun set. We got there about fifteen minutes before the sun went down and we watched its progression. It was definitely the best sunset I have ever seen. Again, no words to describe it. We then headed back to town where we went to dinner at the same place from the first night. I had pide this time rather than the house special (I mentioned pide in my previous post-it’s the Turkish pizza equivalent but without sauce). I really love me some Turkish food. So delicious.

Saturday began with French toast for breakfast again (it was just that good!). Three of us decided to go to the nearby city of Kayseri (kaiser-ee), which houses an immaculately preserved 14th century house. The house also had coins and paper money from the 600s in great shape as well as some papyrus scrolls from the time period. They were so well preserved which is amazing. After the house, we went for waffles, which I don’t think I’ve explained yet. The Turkish enjoy taking a Belgian waffle, covering it in nutella, chocolate sauce, fruit slices (banana, apple, kiwi, strawberry-today’s even had pomegranate seeds which were amazing), and sometimes a pistachio spread. At times they put chocolate/vanilla ice cream on top. If not, the waffle is wrapped up like a pizza and shoveled into one’s mouth. It is beyond delicious. I could eat a waffle a day because they are just so amazing. We took a taxi back to the main bus station where we caught a bus to Avanos (a city to the north of our hostel). In Avanos we caught a bus back to the hostel, said our final goodbyes to Zeyda (she’s like my adoptive mother), and headed out for dinner. I got a cheese gozleme but this time it was not fried, rather, it was cooked in a pan and was extra crispy. Kind of like a quesadilla. After dinner, we got baklava for the road (don’t judge me) and now here I am, writing this in the mountains of Cappadocia.

I know this entry was very long and probably a little more information than you wanted about my journey but oh well. I start classes this week (after being out of school for about two months) and hope my classes will be interesting. As of right now I have no classes on Mondays and Fridays but my schedule does need a little tweaking.

Anyways, moral of this story: Cappadocia is amazing. Go there if you ever get the chance. You really won’t regret it, no matter what kinds of things you like to do while traveling.

Transportation recap: total number of modes of transport: 10 (bus, feet, ferry, train, metro, mini-bus, “hitch hiking,” hot air balloon, rented car, and taxi).

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the wonderful weather I’m hearing about back home!





Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034813&id=1391040260&l=91e2a908ec