Here we are in Turkey!!!! I always knew my favorite color was Mediterranean Blue...as evidenced by this photo from our hotel room balcony.
Our hotel is a big fancy 'resort' type hotel right on the cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We're on the 8th floor - you can see Dad standing on the balcony, holding up one of our white pillows.
The grounds are beautiful with all manner of tropical trees and bushes - Dad was in plant heaven ....and I was impressed too. Of course, we'd just come from the middle of the Siberian steppe where the buds on trees haven't even begun to swell with the beginning of spring. You can't get close to the cliff because it is fenced off, and there is a lot of vegetation between the fence and the rocks.....but this is what you can see.
There is a breakfast buffet which isn't as good as the one at The Paris in Las Vegas (of course it didn't cost $75.00 either) but it is a close second. We ate outside because we could hardly get enough of the fresh cool delightful air - and there is no delightful deck in Astana where we can eat breakfast.
Eating outside in Turkey does have its hazards. In Turkey there are gazillions of outside cats which aren't feral, but people don't have them as house cats. So here, there are, I guess, what you'd call hotel cats. If you take your plate of food out to the edge of the deck, remember that you've forgotten your chocolate croissant, and return to the buffet line.......then you've made a mistake, because a cat (or several) will get your 'everything' omelet.
We ate dinner one evening at the hotel's dinner buffet, which was nice, but for the price, I wasn't impressed......except for the dessert table. I'd made a covenant with myself that I wouldn't take pictures of the food...........after I'd watched a Chinese woman taking photos of the breakfast cereal bar and fruit toppings..........but this dessert bar was too much. The 'delight' which was most popular at our table was the chocolate mousse with fresh strawberries.
Our first activity after arriving on Sunday afternoon was to find the DHL Service Center so we could send our 1st (old) passport to Helsinki to get our new Russian Religious Visa glued into our 1st (old) passport so we can officially and legally go to a Zone Conference in Yekaterinburg in May. You're confused aren't you? What is this with two passports? Well, we have our first (old) passport, that we've had for several years, and into that passport was placed our Kazakh religious visa which was only good for one year and which can not be renewed. Because of that, the church gets us a second (new) passport, which is only good for four years rather than ten years and, no, I don't how the church manages that. Into that 2nd (new) passport, our new Kaz religious visa is glued. So, we have two passports.....we left Kaz to go to Turkey using the first (old) passport which had our current visa and police registration form, and entered Turkey using our 2nd (new) passport. Then we had to send via DHL our old passports to Helsinki to get the new religious visas (we already had a Russian three year tourist visa, but you can't have both types of visas at the same time). Then we'll return to Kaz using our new passport and when we go to Russia we'll use our old passport. There!!! I think we have it figured out. We even did a little role play in our living room in Astana and pretended we were going through immigration control, to make sure we have things right. If not, we're in for a big and unhappy surprise when we return to Kazakhstan.
So, Sunday, after asking the hotel guy to 'pin' the location of the DHL place on Dad's phone, we set off on our cross town adventure which turned out to be a distance of four miles (thanks to the Map My Walk app). Since it was Sunday, we knew it'd be closed, but we didn't want any surprises on Monday morning. .........leaving the hotel.
Cool, "below the sidewalk" garbage bins. And Dad is demonstrating how to open the lid of one.
Since then, we've learned that there are individual recycling entrepreneurs that have big, really big, carts with fabric bins, who go around to all of these garbage bins and go through the debris and pick our the recyclables and then......I guess, go somewhere to redeem them. At least trash gets recycled, and some men have employment because of it. I've wanted to get a picture of one of the guys, but it is kinda awkward to run out into the street and take their picture...........
Here is a typical street scene on the way to DHL
Palm trees, cactus, poinsettia bushes....so many plants that I can't put them here or you wouldn't read on.
And, there in the distance, the distinctive yellow and red DHL building.
We were ready for Monday morning, when we'd leave to get there at the stroke of 10:00....which we did but the doors were locked. Hmmmmmmmmmm.......Dad called the DHL Service Center (luckily we had a Turkish sim card in his phone) only to find out that Monday was a national holiday.....it was Children's Day.....as if every day isn't a children's day....good grief. But, it was a great 4 mile power walk! This is my sad face......still holding the passports.
The next day (Tuesday) we headed back to DHL to try again, and we were successful - old passports on their way to Helsinki.
Sunday night we had a great dinner at a place we found along the way to DHL. We were looking at the menu posted at the entry to the sidewalk eating area, and decided, "Yes!" We ordered two of the things on the right and two drinks.....the Ayran.
And we got this delicious salad......which we hadn't ordered, but I think it came with the entree.
And the two things turned out to be pizza like and cut into slices and tastefully served on a plate.
And the drinks were gag-awful yogurt/buttermilk drinks that Dad consumed, but I ordered a water.
Monday night we took our Kazakh friends (the Taylors) and our Kyrgyzs friends (the Ables) to the same restaurant...because it'd been so tasty. And to a gelateria for dessert.
Tuesday - our colleagues from Turkey and Bulgaria had not yet arrived, so the six of us decided to take a boat ride. At the harbor we noticed this elevator doubling as a sidewalk - and we thought that Oregon City is unique because a similar elevator connects the 'bluff' and the river.
From our hotel window we'd seen many of these 'pirate' style boats going up and down the coast - so we were anticipating a boat kinda like this one (which, here, is leaving the harbor).
We arranged for a boat, and this is what we got,........which was a visual disappointment, but once aboard, it sailed as well as the other flashy boats.
The boat ride went south for an hour to a big waterfall and then returned to the port.
An old fort-- or something.
There were many of these swimming decks at the base of the cliff, each one affiliated with a hotel up on the top.
our hotel
The 'destination' waterfalls.
And Dad
In the afternoon we went to Termesses which is about 24 km northwest of Antalya. It's in a national park and built on a mountain platform. It was never conquered by Alex the Great. We had to hike to the site and passed many...many...many ruins along the way.
The 'prize' at the end of the trail was the Theater which, in its 'ruined' condition was magnificent.
It was a great day exploring. And we ended it by having an awful dinner at a restaurant where they only had one item on the menu. What were we thinking when the waiter said, "we have no food but can make you a Turkish food."
Wednesday we went to the historical site Perge which is noted in the Book of Acts. This archaeological site holds the vast remains of what was once the most prosperous city of the ancient world. You want ancient ruins....this is the place. So many ruins. I'm only going to post a few of the pictures so that no one will be tempted to exit the blog. It was hot.....
Here is the stadium - I paced it - it is 150 feet wide and quite long.
Arches along the outer walls.
I didn't feel as though there could be chariot races
Nice columns. It was still hot.
The Roman baths were great. Our guide said they are the best preserved baths anywhere. There were three different areas - frigid, tepid, and hot.
This is frigid
Tepid
And two pictures of the hot baths. I really liked these photos because you can see that the wooden floor had rotted away exposing the area underneath where fires were built to heat up the water.
An example of the tile floors which have been displayed at this particular place.
Then we went to the Theatre of Aspendos which is the most well preserved Roman theater outside of Italy.....maybe even the best preserved antique theater in the world.
It was truly fabulous, but I think I like the one at Termessos better....because it isn't preserved, but is 'naturally' ruined. It was so big I couldn't get it all in the picture and it was too hot to climb up the steps to the top.
the obligatory photo with the two of us.
Alongside the River Manavgat we ate lunch at this restaurant. Turkey seems to be have a lot of this style of restaurant - open air - running water - tables over water.
A really beautiful aqueduct with some vendors selling their crafts
And then we went to Side which is, yet another site of ancient ruins, with....another incredible Theater.
Thursday was our day to explore the city of Antalya. Of course, we'd already discovered the part of the city where the DHL Service Center is located, but today we went to the Old Town. To start with we drove to the top side part of the waterfall that we'd seen from the boat.
The river and then the falls.
Hadrian's Gate built in antiquity to commemorate the visit of this Roman Emperor to the city. Underneath are all of the Senior Missionaries in the Bulgaria/Central Eurasian Mission.
The harbor from the top of the elevator - as shown in a previous photo
The Antalya Museum where all (most of) the statures from Perge are displayed.
I thought I would remember the names of these guys, but I don't---Hadrian, Apollo Mercury, whatever....reminds me of Florence and Rome.
We ate lunch at a street side restaurant and had doners which were really good - much better than Kazakh doners. Afterward went shopping in the old town. Kinda fun old windy streets, eager vendors, interesting stuff.
Thursday evening we all gathered and shared ideas on missionary work - specifically on how to teach and use family Home Evening. This is a really bad picture - we really were having an interesting discussion but, it looks like we were all nodding off to sleep.
Friday - our last day. Our Turkish friends were on their way back to their own cities (I'll tell you about this in a future post), leaving twelve of us Bulgarian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz missionaries to finish exploring the region of Anatolia.
First we went to Mr. Olympos which is one of the highest mountains in the Toros mountain range which covers a large part of southern Turkey....and took the cable car to the top.
We're waiting to board a gondola.
Inside the cabin, we realized that we were completely encircled by a group of Turkish women who were together on a tour. Suddenly the 'elevator' music came on, and it seemed to be loud and raucous. I said to Dad, "who wants to listen to this as we are ascending up to the mountain tops?" Well, apparently all the women did; they started singing along, clapping their hands, waving their arms over their heads, and two women pulled out a blue and a pink scarf and started flipping it back and forth. If we hadn't been packed as tightly as passengers on a city bus in Beijing, I'm sure they would have been dancing.
It was a long steep ride---I couldn't see much as I never made it window side. Here you can see the parallel cables stretched downward into the valley.
On the tippy top there was a restaurant (naturally) and outside a big observation area.
mountains in the distance
Mediterranean Sea in the distance
Goofballs in close proximity
For lunch we went to another riverside restaurant.
This one was actually really interesting. There is a rushing small river which has been artificially channeled to form many tributaries and waterfalls over which and amongst are situated many dining tables.
And this woman had a hookah thingy - we don't usually see this in the restaurants in Oregon City.
The place is also a fish farm which we could see behind the restaurant - bizillions of trout swimming around looking for a way out. We ordered fish and were assured they were recently caught..."right here in this river".
The Hansens, Humanitarian Volunteers serving in Bulgaria were our table partners.
Then we went to visit some more ruins --- collective sigh! These were the Olympos ruins located right on a shallow bay of the Mediterranean Sea. Ruins in Turkey are like moose in Alaska or Douglas Fir trees in the Cascade Mountains - they are everywhere.
I think the ruins are next to the bay in this photo.
Across a gravely beach (which was almost as hard to walk on as icy streets in Astana...not really). Turn right after the rock face.
walk up the river a ways
on this path and over the bridge
and more ruins - like these sarcophagi.
Our last activity was a short bus ride to a lovely bay with a sandy beach!! One of us had brought a swim suit, some of the men had cargo shorts. Some swam and some waded in the water. It was delightful. I fulfilled one of my Bucket List items by walking into the Mediterranean Sea
The Taylors
Elder Ables
and us
Our last activity of the week was on Saturday morning. We went on a walk...specifically looking for a grocery store where I could buy a stash Turkish candy bars to bring back to Astana. We found a Carrafour store which is a French chain (I think).
We stopped at this little park to enjoy our the last few moments together.
practicing our technology skills
And... here we are, the last Mormon missionaries in Turkey. What a kick we are!
