See Ya Turkey

In case you're wondering, This is what we look like in Turkey.

Okay so Turkey came full circle and after Pammukale we left ourselves a few more days to wrap up istanbul before heading to Israel!  There is so much more I would've loved to do in Istanbul and that includes eating at Burger King just one last time!! Haha just kidding, I was excited to get off our American food kick.  It was Robby's sickness perhaps coupled with our bodies having so much foreign food -albeit amazing- but just needing the good ole American stuff. I never eat at Burger King at home, but I had it thrice in istanbul. Now I'm ashamed. But we did still have some awesome meals while in Turkey - even if Robby did have to suffer for it since he was still dealing with the after math of a Turkish meal gone wrong :(

One thing I realized about istanbul was the more we saw the more we learned we still needed to see and needed more time! I almost felt like I needed to close my eyes on our last day so I wouldn't step into yet another amazing part of the city that would kill me to leave so soon.

The last full day we had we did a boat ride all around the river. This allowed us to see everything from a distance and see both the Europe and Asia sides and how they connected.  We had an awesome group with us and had some major dance parties on the boat and got to go under some cool looking bridges.

Our old ship!

Sailing the angry seas

That is a bridge, they have neon lights and restaurants all along the bottom of it!

I love views of the houses like this in cities

Golden gate?? Where's Danny tanner!?

The bridge connecting two continents!

The mosques light up at night and look incredible!

I just really like this picture ;)

Taksm Square was also amazing and we only saw that our last day there too! It was unbelievable how many people were on the streets there shopping and eating and hanging out.  no protests this time, although it is where young protesters usually go to cause a scene.  This place had American brand stores that were even bigger than any of the stores I have seen in america.  There was a cute trolley that rode through the Main Street too and it was awesome to see how the people had to quickly part like the Red Sea for this thing to pass. I was obsessed with the trolley, it was so cute!!

Look at the crowds! The street goes on forever with floods of people 

Me and the beloved trolley - although my face seems to tell a different story 

The open square empty of protesters

Oh and we couldn't leave without doing a legit Turkish bath! Which pretty much equals sweating to death in a hot room on a hot slab of hard marble until a burley Turkish woman comes and takes you to another room where you get a full, rough scrub down.  Picture yourself three years old again and your mothers giving you a bath type of thoroughness. Except your mother is a stranger the size of a line backer with a piece of sand paper that has probably been used on many other strangers.  Enjoyable? Let's just say it's an experience, but I'm definitely glad we did it, you have to if you are in turkey!

The after math - atleast we were clean! Except somehow we both felt the need to shower again immediately once we got back to our hotel haha

One of the main things I will remember about turkey - aside from it being soo unique and just COOL - is the nice, outgoing, and charming people.  Even though it's a city with almost 15 million people in it - you almost feel that neighborly small town feel. Vendors we had run into days before would recognize us and say hello or make a funny comment to make us laugh when we passed by again. 

We also met a couple Syrian refugees there. One was working at our hostel and we had a long conversation about the chaos there.  Him and his dad came to turkey only a few weeks before to get jobs and prepare the way for his sisters and mom to come out there.  He openly talked to me about what was happening and how scary it was.  We also talked about their general viewpoint of America which was actually much better than I thought.  It was really interesting to talk to him about his situation and he asked me a lot of questions about my country as well.  one of my favorite things about traveling is hearing stories from other people...everyone has an interesting story.  My heart went out to this kid though - he was probably barely 18 years old and had Been through so much. Very humbling and enlightening. 

We had such great experiences in Turkey and both Robby and I still feel that the people we met in turkey have been some of the nicest and most charming we have met. I like those Turk people! Now time to meet the people of Israel!

See ya, Turkey!

It's been fun. 

Walking in a Pamukkale Wonderland

What is a Pamukkale? Where does it come from? Why is it something to look at? I'm sure these are all questions that come to mind when you hear of Pamukkale, and quite honestly, I don't blame you.  Please allow me to expound on an experience with the delightfully picturesque Pamukkale.

Welcome to Pamukkale!

To the casual viewer today, Pamukkale is a vast assortment of smooth, white rock that stretches up a mountain hill with crystal clear water forming pools and running down the face of the rock.  But to the Romans, this place was a spa resort town known for its beautiful healing pools and hot spring water. Who's more correct in their assessment? Well, we'll leave that one to the experts. But for now, here are some pictures that tell the story of our adventure in Pamukkale.

An amazing clear teal duck pond.  Some spoiled ducks!

It felt like moon rock walking around.  Looks rad but not comfy on the feet! And they make you take off your flip flops or you're kicked out!

The water was soooo amazing!

Looks like it would be freezing right?? Dont be fooled..It was super hot and the waters warm!!

Welcome to the pools

Sunset here was incredible!

Radioactive?? My favorite shot!

At the top of all of these awesome pools and rock are all of these cool Roman ruins. The theatre was the coolest one up there, so intact and awesome looking! The best part though - See how the stage in the center is sunken in a little bit? Apparently at one point they decided to dig the stage deeper so that they could fill it with some of the natural spring water and actually perform in the water! Probably could've given Cirque De Soliel "Oh" in Vegas a run for it's money! Haha id pay so much money to go back and see what kind of shows they did with that!

The park doesn't close ever and they have lights that light up the walkway so we stayed forever until we were the only people left at the park.  This picture took us awhile to get right with our makeshift tripod (a 'wet floor' sign) but we thought it looked pretty cool

We spent Halloween out here and of course we had to dress up. We planned accordingly and bought costumes in Istanbul, "costumes" that were conveniently sold in pretty much every bazaar in Istanbul. Here was the result. Aladdin and the unibrowed gypsy.  Sometimes relationships don't work out - jasmine dumped Aladdin and this is all he could get now that everyone knows he's not really a prince. 

99 red hot air balloons - Cappadocia

If you take a nine hour night bus from istanbul, you might end up in Cappodocia.  Cappadocia has to be one of the most amazing places this world has to offer.  Seriously unique and once again seems like something out of this world. Dr. Suess must have been born here because all the rock formations looked like something from out of his books. This place is so good apparently the bible even gives it a shout out according to a tour guide we were eavesdropping in on. 

The land of Cappadocia- known for its fairy chimney-like rock formations and Dr Seuss' hometown (according to us)

When staying in cave land you must stay in a cave hotel.  Which is exactly what it sounds like - a cave they turned into a hotel.  Despite what the name may suggest - the hotel was super accommodating and luxurious! One of the most comfy rooms we've had and most hospitable hotel host ever!! As soon as we checked in they had a homemade breakfast waiting for us - homemade jams, delicious warm bread, all sorts of home made cheeses and beef from their cattle (they were very natural here), eggs (probably straight from chickens and the rooster we heard crowing that morning) and tons of fruits (unfortunately this breakfast would be the downfall of Robby the next day). 

Our cave hotel!

The rooms were for small hobbits. We had to pretty much crawl In!

There was so much to see in this place! We hiked for hours that day. The chimney rocks go on forever and you can see caves that were carved into these rocks that people lived in back in the first century!  People still live in caves in Cappodocia and our hotel owner told us he was born and raised in a cave - not like the ones they turn into luxurious stays for tourists- but legit caves!! These people are cavemen in the finest form!!  

The city has crazy rocks all over the place and legitimate cave houses everywhere

This is someone's house!

Name this animal!

Chimney rocks and caves - doesn't the cave on the left look like a dr Suess house or something??

Sunset - we were actually stranded on our hike after dark - about five miles from town.  Finally someone came by and let us catch a ride back!

So pretty!

Old caves from around the 3rd century - still writings and drawings on the walls

Hiking was awesome and all...but in order to see all of the crazy formations there are in Cappodocia...one must float hundreds of meters into the air in a balloon!! Cappodocia is known as a hot spot for this - they have literally about 100 hot air balloons that take off in this valley every morning before dawn.  We knew we had to do it despite how expensive it was.  And the fact that three tourists died here in a hot air balloon crash just in May.  This freaked me out a little, but not enough to not experience it! We shopped around and bargained all we could and got a decent price to do it!! We had to meet an hour before dawn the next morning to get ready to go and be up in the air for sunrise. Unfortunately for us, the time had literally just been changed for daylight savings so dawn was an hour earlier the next day, haha great timing! But well worth the lack of sleep.  4am was a great time to be alive and awake that day. This is why:

Sun creepin up

Before take off! Yep, Robby color coordinated his beanie with our balloon 

Up in the air!

Soo amaZing to look out and see that many balloons around us!

Our pilot took us through the valleys and we were almost able to touch the rocks! (just like this balloon but our balloon had way cooler colors!)

We got a pic of this hot air balloon landing in this tiny cart attached to a truck...and then our hot air balloon did the same thing!! Our pilot landed us directly in the cart and we drove like that for a bit haha!

Our trusty pilot...wearing a wig

Hurray! This was seriously one of the coolest things we've ever done!

After coming down from the amazing high (both literally and figuratively) we went back to the cave for breakfast. All this adventure and it was barely 8:30am!  Well unlike the previous morning, breakfast that morning was a terrible choice.  It was all the same stuff that tasted delicious, but apparently Robby ate something...infected? Sounds nasty but he totally got e-coli from either the meat or a cheese we think! A few hours after breakfast he started feeling really weird, stomach cramping, nausea, fever, all that good stuff.  poor guy could hardly move!  All he was capable of for the next few days was sleeping and walking very very slow.  We literally slept away almost 2 days in the cave which luckily was dark and cool for him to sleep off his fever.  But we still had to make it to the next city, Pamukkale, which was an 8 hour night bus away! After some tlc and good rest we were able to make the trip. Robby was still sick for almost 10 days after this but each day slowly regained strength and we would still go out but just slower paced. Good thing we did the best stuff before hand and didn't miss too much in Cappodocia!!  He is completely back to 100% and alive and well as I write this.  He has all limbs in tact too, no amputations needed so worries!