Well, I have been thoroughly surprised by the Dubai Airport. Apparently, everything is open all the time. As the women at the duty free store told me, “We never close.” Crazy!

Arriving at the Dubai airport is the equivalent of flying into a high end shopping mall. There are Clinique counters, Armani and Hermes boutiques, and cigar shops.

I contemplated going through customs just to say that I made it out of the airport in the UAE, but that seemed to hard. So here I am. Hanging out at Starbucks waiting for my flight.

After this I fly to Kuala Lampur where I have an hour layover and then on to Denpasar, the capital of Bali. My flight left Istanbul at 19:25 on Saturday and I arrive at 18:30 in Indonesia on Sunday. Wow, a whole day lost flying! I think it will be worth it though.

Well, I have been thoroughly surprised by the Dubai Airport. Apparently, everything is open all the time. As the women at the duty free store told me, “We never close.” Crazy!

Arriving at the Dubai airport is the equivalent of flying into a high end shopping mall. There are Clinique counters, Armani and Hermes boutiques, and cigar shops.

I contemplated going through customs just to say that I made it out of the airport in the UAE, but that seemed to hard. So here I am. Hanging out at Starbucks waiting for my flight.

After this I fly to Kuala Lampur where I have an hour layover and then on to Denpasar, the capital of Bali. My flight left Istanbul at 19:25 on Saturday and I arrive at 18:30 in Indonesia on Sunday. Wow, a whole day lost flying! I think it will be worth it though.

I didn’t realize how much I had bonded with our little neighborhood here in Cianghir until I was walking around running errands yesterday and it hit me that it was the last time that I would be doing so. All of a sudden the shops looked cuter, the colors seemed brighter and the permanent pedestrian traffic jam on Istiklal even seemed quaint.

I walked into the local corner store last night and a man who works there actually greeted me with handshake. We have seen each other almost every single day for the last month either when I come into the store or when I am just walking by on my way home. I have no idea what his name is and neither of us speak the other’s language. But he is always friendly and tries to be helpful when I am looking for things.

This was the first time that he has shaken my hand, which is a customary form of courtesy here in Turkey. I have finally broken through a cultural barrier, a tiny step toward cultural acceptance and understanding. I was excited for a second and then really sad when I realized that I am leaving today and will never see this man again. I have these visions of the seasons changing and him looking out the window hopefully, waiting for me to return and ask where the eggs are, but I never do.

I am glad that I am leaving Istanbul on a high note. The weather is beautiful, the outdoor cafes are packed and the tourists are flooding in. There are a few things that I wasn’t able to see while I was here like the Topkapi Palace and Chora Church. But it’s also nice to have a reason to come back. Istanbul is definitely a city that I want to come back to.

According to Eslam, when Egyptians travel abroad they seek out opportunities to take photos of themselves in squares with lots of pigeons. This is impossible to do in Egypt because the birds are just plain scared.

She tried to mitigate the pain of being ripped from the womb with gift bags. So sweet!

It was an intense game that included gathering clues from different areas and also different people who we had to find. We broke up into three teams and ran around the city doing silly things like trying on Turkcell hats and Fenerbache clothing.

While putting this video together I had a lot of technical difficulties (iMovie hates me). I am looking forward to making more little videos and hopefully they will turn out a little better.

Food Exploration in Istanbul

Walking in Cappadocia (Photo courtesy of Ben Hanna)

Well, despite my mother’s worst fears, I made it to Istanbul alive and well. My friend Susy picked me up at the airport after 24 hours of traveling and said, “take a shower, eat dinner and get packed because we are leaving at 4AM to fly to Cappadocia.”

When I arrived at our apartment I did just that and grabbed five hours of sleep before heading out on the next adventure.

We flew into Kayseri on Friday morning and had a minibus waiting for us to take us to Goreme where we had reservations at a hostel that was carved into a cave. Most of us were exhausted and lay down to nap for a couple hours until lunchtime. After lunch we walked to the open-air museum where we toured different ancient cathedrals cut into the rock. It’s pretty amazing to think that these caves were intricately decorated with carvings and frescos at one point.

Trail in Swords Valley

After an hour at the open-air museum we decided to hike through the open valleys of Goreme. It was quite an adventure to hike along trails and find small openings that led into cavernous rooms or tunnels that popped out on the other side of mountains.

I did a pretty good job of resisting jet lag, but by 9PM I was exhausted and passed out in bed only to wake up the next morning at 4AM. It was still dark out and nobody else was awake so I lay there until it began to get light outside and the call to prayer resonated from the mosque. I spent a couple hours on Saturday morning walking around and watched the sun rise over the hills of Goreme. It was great to have time along with my thoughts and take in the breathtaking scenery.

On Saturday a group of us rented scooters and toured the countryside of Cappadocia. We must have looked ridiculous to people who saw us coming down the road: five scooters and a dirt bike full of tourists dressed in random pieces of warm clothing. We traveled to various areas of fairy chimneys and climbed up on a rock that looked like a camel. We hiked through Rose Valley where there are a lot of ancient churches carved into the rock. At one point we hiked to the top of a plateau where there was a beautiful apricot tree blooming in the middle of the harsh terrain. We spent an hour just climbing the tree and basking in it beautiful blossoms.

Ben, Casey and Lucas at the Camel Rock

We ended the day by parking our bikes on a cliff and climbing up to sit on rocks that hanged over a 100 ft drop to watch the sunset.

For dinner that night we went to a restaurant recommended by a local CouchSurfer called Goreme Restaurant. It was a wonderful place. When you walk in you have to take off your shoes and step up to the sitting area, which is a pile of pillows on the floor. The food was good and the spiced wine was delicious! After a long day of riding around and hiking in the mountains laying down on comfortable pillows was the perfect end!

Sunday was just as adventurous as the previous days.

My friend, Meredith, and I woke up at sunrise and walked about a kilometer to where the hot air balloons were taking off. Cappadocia is famous for its morning hot air balloon rides. We were surprised to find dozens of balloons being filled with hot air and packed with about 20 tourists in the baskets. It was really fun to watch them hovering across the horizon.

Filling the hot air balloons at sunrise

For the rest of the day we rented a van to drive us around to al l the sites that were further away from Goreme. We explored the underground city, Derinkuyu, which is where the local people would go and hide while armies marched through the region in the 12th century. The underground city is over 100 ft down into the ground and has several airshafts that go as deep as the river that runs below it. It is a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms and it was fun to get lost down there. Although, the people back then were a lot shorter than we are today and it got annoying having to stoop the entire time we were in the city.

Jumping in Cappadocia

We had lunch outside of the valley of Ihlara and hiked through the park for a couple hours afterwards. It was really nice to get to spend time next to a river and enjoy the sunshine.

Mandy at Ihlara Valley river

We ended Sunday by going to a huge monastery carved into the side of a mountain called Selime Monastery. The price of admission is included in the ticket to Ihlara Valley. At one point a small group of us decided to climb all the way to the top of narrow steep stairs that were carved into tunnels. Parts of the tunnel have eroded and as we were climbing up we would pop out into an area that had no wall or handrail and was a couple hundred-foot drop onto rocks below. My fear of heights definitely kicked in and it was hard to get to the top. The terror was totally worth it though, because once we got to the top, the view was spectacular and the adrenaline rush only made it better.

We had a little drama getting back to Istanbul on Monday. We were supposed to fly from Kayseri to Istanbul in the morning, but it began raining and the airport doesn’t have IFR so they couldn’t land any planes and all the flights were cancelled. None of us speak Turkish very well, so it was quite the adventure figuring out how to get 10 people back to Istanbul. 15 hours and 4 bus rides later, we made it home without too much incident.

Meredith under the magic tree in Rose Valley