I apologize for the delay in time between our blog posts. I will try to stay more up to date...
As many of you have probably heard by now, Brian and Steph came to visit us for Christmas (barely). We had a pretty nice week planned out for them. I left on Tuesday morning to head to the airport to pick them up. The plan was to spend Tuesday night in Istanbul and finish our sightseeing on Wednesday before heading back to the school in the evening. Thursday evening we would fly to Cappadocia and then return on Sunday to give them one final night of rest before departing for Italy on Monday morning. It sure sounded like a good plan...
After I dropped my bag off at a friend's hostel we were staying at in Istanbul I began to walk to catch a bus when I receive a call from Katie telling me their flight has been canceled. I decide to travel north to stay with our friends Ben and Courtney that we met while in Santorini.
Wednesday I head back to drop my bags off at the hostel again and as I'm walking to catch the bus to the airport I receive a call from Brian telling me their flight has been canceled. I get my back, jump on the subway and head back north to stay with Ben and Courtney again. Thursday is a little better since they are actually set to arrive in the early evening (4:30). The only problem is the flight is delayed an hour or so and our flight to Cappadocia is leaving from the other airport at 7:40. We wouldn't have a chance with Istanbul rush hour so I began calling a couple hours before they were set to arrive to change our flight to the next morning. After two hours of calling with declined credit cards (Ben even let me use his to try) and calling Capital One to find out that there is no problem, Pegasus Airlines finally tells me the international credit card system is down and that's why it isn't working. They give me a travel agents phone number to call so I have a guy I met on the bus call for me and the travel agent says Pegasus has to change the flight. I gave up. No Cappadocia for Christmas.
At least Brian and Steph arrived, but the bag with our Christmas presents that was checked did not arrive. We spent Friday and Saturday sightseeing in Istanbul. We took them to the Underground Cistern, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar. We dressed up like Sultans in the Underground Cistern (it's a pretty funny picture). Friday night we had a traditional Turkish meal with them off of Istiklal Street. Saturday late afternoon we headed north to go to Ben and Courtney's for Christmas dinner. They were very kind and we had a ton of food. It finally felt like Christmas... We stayed the night at their place and on Sunday we visited Rumeli Fortress before heading back to school.
That was it. We wish we had more time with them. They left the next morning for Italy, but at least we were able to spend three and a half days with them. Many people in Europe were stranded at airports for four or five days so they were actually lucky arriving two days late. Now we are back to our normal lives and looking forward to our safari in Tanzania which we leave for on the last weekend in January.
Hopefully they find our bag...it's still missing.
I just arrived home today from a weekend in Selcuk, Turkey (where Ephesus is) where I attended the Selcuk Camel Wrestling Championships with 6 friends. On Saturday there was a parade for the beauty contest. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing as three guys went to Ephesus and the other four of us hung out in a park and played Backgammon while we waited for them. Sunday was the day of the actual wrestling event. We took a minibus from Selcuk to the "stadium". I was about six kilometers away, very close to the beach. The atmosphere at the event was incredible. I would guess that there were about 5,000 people there, and mostly locals. Everyone had their grills set up and full meals prepared. I never knew Turkish people were such great tailgaters. We spent the day at the event before heading back into town in the late afternoon. You'll notice in the pictures that the camels all have white foam coming out of their mouths. This is something that never stops, but we couldn't figure out why it happens. Here is a website with some pretty good information on camel wrestling:
Our time in Selcuk was awesome and if anyone is ever visiting Turkey in January you have to go!
