The Party's Over

Ruthi and Hannah have been here for 12 days, and they just left this morning. It rained the first day they were here, and it's raining right now, the last day they were here. My roommate's dad was amazingly generous by giving us a ride to the airport at 2am this morning.

It is so good for me to have friends and family from home visiting, as it kind of melds my very separate worlds together. Being back in Kansas might be easier since not everyone will be thinking that I live in a terrorist-filled Muslim Middle-East country. Paul and Bethany will remember how much Turks love babies. The Khols will remember the amount of history packed into this area. Ruthi and Hannah will remember "yes please."

My favorite part of their visit was when, at the end in Ankara, we got to slow down, drink coffee, and enjoy each other's company. Their stories and people are my stories and people, and they go beyond one year ago.

We didn't do any early-morning pictures, but this was last night's dinner: crepes with peaches and blackberries!

Day 11: Ankara - Church, Food, Pack

Today we went to church, lunch, and the pazar. It was a very typical Sunday for Dale. 

Now it's time to pack, play a little more onz, and get to bed before waking at 2am.

Another teacher volunteered to take us to the airport at 3 in the morning. Wow!

Day 10: Ankara- Ulus, Hamam

Today we went to Ankara's old district, Ulus.

We overlooked the city on the old kale.

It was a bit windy.

We went to the hamam. It was quite the experience. Ruth felt at home with the nakedness.

Day 9: Ankara - Rest, Big Lunch

This morning we finished our last bus ride, getting home around 3am.

I showed the girls the school, met the new teachers, ran to the mall for coffee, and got back just in time for Gulay's HUGE bayram lunch. 

Gulay, wanting me to impress my guests, had me play hostess. She kept insisting that I wasn't serving them enough food.

Trying their first Turkish coffee

Right now we're housebound waiting for a maintenance man to come, so we're doing laundry and playing Onz.

Day 8: Cappadocia's Balloons, Green Tour

 This morning we got up at 5:15 to watch the hot air balloons launch. It was a beautiful day for it.

We took a tour through parts of Cappadocia. Here we are overlooking a valley.

This is a 7-story structure we got to explore.

We ate at this over-the-river restaurant.

We learned about St. George's Church.

We visited Cappadocia's largest underground city, Derinkuyu.

Outside the entrance to the underground city was a 150-year-old orthodox church.

In a couple hours we are heading home to Ankara. See you tomorrow!

Day 7: Cappadocia's Rose Valley

This afternoon we woke late and walked to town for breakfast/lunch/supper around 2pm. We're not really sure what meal it was.

We hiked through Rose Valley.

Shimmied through tunnels.

There were plenty of fresh apples and grapes along the trail.

Ruthi learned to swivel her head.

Both Ruthi and Dale nearly died in efforts to use the camera's timer setting for this picture.

Taking this picture gave us a camp game idea.

Our local grocery store has Ruthi-sized carts. 

We finished our day at 7pm with drinks in the jacuzi, which was really an over-sized bathtub in our posh hotel.

Day 6: Pamukkale

This morning I dolmused back to the bus station in search for tickets out of the Denizli/Pamukkale area. Since it is a holiday here, none of the bus companies had any tickets left. Finally, a bus station employee phoned a friend, who said he could take the three of us to Cappadocia in a minibus. To make a long story short, they sold us a tour deal for Pamukkale, an 8-hour minibus ride across Anatolia, and a tour in Cappadocia. We were relieved not to be stuck!

We walked through ruins of the ancient city Hierapolis,

...climbed down Pamukkale ("Cotton Castle")...

...and swam in pools where it wasn't too hot.

We just arrived at the hotel for the night (4:30am). Since this is a ballooning hotel, breakfast starts in 30  minutes, but we might be asleep by then anyway.

Day 5: Samos, Greece

We went to Greece on a boat.

Like Paul, we "touched at Samos." (Acts 20:15)

Ruthi's favorite part of the day was collecting sparkly rocks.

Missie missed her new friend.

The highlight of Dale's day was the pork gyros and amazing European coffee. It really felt like she was outside of Turkey.

Hannah's liked that Turkish street vendors were absent from yelling "Yes please!" at her. She finds it difficult to ignore them unlike Dale, and she hasn't yet developed a death stare like Ruthi.

We got stamps in our passports!

...and maybe we got coffee again once we got back to Turkey.

Day 4: Izmir and Ephesus

What a long day! After a hotel breakfast (every hotel/hostel I’ve ever stayed at in Turkey has free breakfast), we meandered along the Aegean coast, bought 50-cent fresh-squeezed orange juice, and looked at ruins of Smyrna.

We grabbed our stuff at the hotel and rushed to the train station. Minutes later, we were off. Of course we had to play Ticket to Ride during the ride.

Ephesus was HOT, over 100 degrees. Because of the heat and time of day (5pm), it was emptier than I’ve ever seen it. We found some over-turned pillars overlooking the coliseum, where we ate our snack.

Ruth: Dale! Did you bring your monkey?

Dale: Yes. Why?

Ruth: They have one, too!

Sure enough, there was an Australian couple taking pictures of a monkey with the coliseum! I grabbed Missy Franklin and ran over to them. The guy taking the picture told me that “Bongo” had been all over the world in the past 16 years. We were all amused that there are two traveling monkeys who got a chance to meet.

Other than monkey pictures, we did get some band pictures of Ruth, unbeknownst to her backups. 

Because of some scheduling things, we have an extra day to kill tomorrow. We decided to take a day-trip to the nearby Greek island, Samos. We are staying in Kuşadası so that we’ll make it to our boat early tomorrow.

P.S. I added the promised pictures to yesterday's blog post.