Off to Turkei!!!-Woche 9

We flew into Turkey late in the evening.  The moon was high in the sky.  The planes all fly past Antalya, out over the Mediterranean, turn around, and fly back to land coming from the south.  We couldn’t see much of the lay of the land because it was dark, but the moon reflecting on the water was beautiful!  We landed safely and then headed to customs.  We needed to buy visitor’s visas in customs.  It was interesting because Dan had to pay 45€ to get his (coming on a Canadian passport) and the rest of us only had to pay 15€ (on the American passport)—something to consider when planning your trips abroad.  We arrived at the Barut Lara Resort at about 9:30pm.  We headed to our room.  We had a nice 2 bedroom flat, with a terrace out to the pool.  Dan headed to the restaurant to see if he could muster up some grub for us.  They did give us a sandwich and water on the plane, but we still felt like eating something.  We called it a night and decided to explore in the morning.  All inclusives are wonderful things!  I love how you can eat all day long, as much as you want, and never have to cook a meal or clean a dish!

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Saturday was a beautiful day.  We played at the ocean (although the water was freezing and there was a cool breeze).  We played in the pool (which was colder than the ocean).  We enjoyed our “Miss Lara” drinks by the pool.  The drinks were kid friendly, but the stirrers were not necessarily.  They had several inflatable bounce houses set up for the kids.  There was a rock climbing tower, two obstacle courses, and a mechanical bull.  The kids had a great time.  

 Of course, we ate, and we ate, and we ate!!  They have really good caramel and pistachio ice cream, available after breakfast.  The olives were good.  The salad bar had lots of fresh herbs on it.  Huge sprigs of dill, basil, and mint leaves.  They eat a lot of cucumber and tomato and red onion mixed with fresh herbs and balsamic vinegar.  There are several green houses in the area that all grow tomatoes and strawberries were in season in the area as well.  At every meal they had 10-12 different kinds of rolls and breads, a huge assortment of cheeses (the goat cheeses here are very strong), appetizer salads, fresh squeezed orange, apple, and cherry juices.  Occasionally, they had fresh peach juice.  For dessert, they specialized in Baklava with pistachios or walnuts.  Our favorite was with Nutella.  They also had puddings, mousses, tortes, and custards.  We tried a lot of foods that we haven’t had before.  We had grape molasses, honey comb, rose jam, quince jam and squash dessert.  The kids all tried a traditional Turkish dish made of raw ground beef mixed with spices, eaten with lettuce leaves.  (No one got sick).  They have a yogurt drink (Ayran) that is sour—kind of like buttermilk.  We ate Kevar (sliced beef that was cooked on a vertical rotisserie with a tomato based sauce poured over thick English muffin type bread that they called pita).  The kids loved the meatballs which were really more like 2” beef patties.  Deagan enjoyed the raw salmon sushi they had on Asian night—although he didn’t know he was eating raw fish, or even fish at all.  The fresh pears and strawberries were wonderful!  I was surprised though, that we only found humus one night.  There were no falafels and you could only find pita bread at the specialty Turkish restaurant.   

That night, we bought a used movie from the resort store because we weren’t sure that the nightly show would be kid friendly.   We enjoyed relaxing and exploring the resort.  They have a cat house, which acts as a shelter for wild cats.  You can go in and pet the cats they are nursing back to health.  They have several cats running around the resort.  We figure they keep the mice down.  There was plenty to do at the resort with tennis, squash courts, billiards, ping pong, swimming at any of the several pools, but mostly we spent time at the beach.  Danyon learned to nap in his carrier by the pool, or by the beach, or just about anywhere.  We tried putting him in the ocean, thinking he would like it, but he hated it and cried the whole time.

Sunday morning, we woke up to an Easter bunny surprise.  The Easter bunny left bags of chocolate for each of the kids.  Dan and I got some chocolate too, just not as much as the kids.  Since there is not a church anywhere to be found (except a mosque), we stayed at the resort, for a low-key day.  The resort had a kids program going on all day that had fun Easter activities for the kids.  They got to make bunny ears, have an egg hunt, do an egg piñata and several balloon and egg games.  Each of the kids club workers were fluent in 4 languages:  Turkish, German, English, and Russian.  They gave all the directions in each language and could switch languages mid sentence.   That was pretty impressive.

 Every night they had a mini-disco, where the kids could dance to action songs like the hokey pokey.  However, they were all in different languages.  Mostly they were German, with a couple Spanish and French.  The younger kids loved it (Dane was feeling like he was too old for something like that.)  The evening show was a parrot show.  These parrots could do things like play basketball and do math.  They could even do flips into lounge chairs to show us how we should be relaxing at the pool.  I didn’t ever see anyone do a flip into their lounge chair, though, the kids wanted me to try.

Monday was another beautiful day, but a little on the cool side.  We went to the beach.  After lunch, we went to the indoor pool to warm up.  The entertainment that night after the mini disco was a magician.  He was better than I was expecting.  The kids thought he was really cool.  He did some pretty big tricks for such a small stage.  He was very entertaining.

  





Kids trying to be the model for the carving



Tuesday we decided to venture off the resort so that we could see Turkey—or at least a little of it.  It was cheaper for us to hire a tour guide and van privately than to pay for each of us individually for a big group tour.  So, off we went with

Aykut.  We went to some old ruins (about 2000 years old.)  We got to race in an arena.  There were still stands and some of the structure left.  A lot of it has been destroyed due to time and earthquakes.  In the arena, there would have been chariot races, animal fights (animal vs. animal and animal vs. people), and gladiator fights.  It is pretty cool to see so much of it still intact, even though it has been so many years.  Our tour guide was wonderful.  In Turkey all tour guides must be certified with the state, so before he took his certification tests he had received a degree in Archeology and had participated in several excavations of ancient sites in Turkey. He knew all about the sites and the events that took place there right down to the specific years in many cases.  He gave us some insight into how the people would have lived at the time.  They would have had snack shops and general shops all around the arena (in every third arch).

The Roman Baths.  Everything you see here would have been covered with marble.



Main street

Artemis engraved on the column

This is the school.  Pieces of marble are still left on some of the walls.

Mosaic floor

Two different colors of marble.

We then went to the ruins of Perge.  It was a whole town.  They have uncovered the ruins of the city market, the city walls, the Roman baths, the school, and the main street.  You could see all the plumbing that they used (clay pipes) to warm the three different temperature pools.  There would have been columns and fountains, steam rooms—all covered completely in marble.  It would have been absolutely beautiful.  Even all the arenas were covered in marble.  The guide was knowledgeable in the Christian history as well as the Muslim history of the people.  He said that the apostle Paul would have most likely come and preached in this town and would have warned them against their Pagan Gods, as this city was build for Artemis.  You can still see some ruts in the road from the wear and tear of the chariots.  They have discovered a mosaic floor that goes through the entire city.  However, to protect the floor, they have brought in sand and dirt to cover the floor.  The kids dug down and found the floor.  They were able to see the mosaic tiles.  The guide had us cover it back up when we left.  We were able to climb around and on all the structures.  They don’t have any rules against it.  What a great place for the kids to experience ancient Roman history, being able to literally gets their hands and knees dirty.  They would not have been this lucky almost anywhere else in the world.

Next we went to Aspendos.  It is the best preserved Roman Theater in the world.  They still host shows in the summer where they use the original seats for the audience.  It was cool to go sit on the marble seats and pretend to watch a show.  We got to go on the stage and pretend that we were the actors (although all the actors would have been male.)  It’s pretty incredible.  After that, we went on a camel ride.  With camels, it is the getting up and down that is rough.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to travel all across the desert on one though.  It would be a pretty rough ride, but better than walking.  The guide took us to a village where we ate at a local’s house.  They made really thin pancake type things stuffed with spinach, cheese, or meat.  We had fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and a salad made with tomatoes, cucumber, and olives that the family cured themselves.

The guide took us to a National Park.  There were a couple of beautiful waterfalls.  We got to feed the ducks and fish.  We saw turtles and a crab, too.  The area was very green and beautiful.  We got to walk on some of the trails.  It was a great day!  When I picture Turkey, I didn’t picture beautiful waterfalls and lush greenery in pine trees.

 

The next day, we continued with our guide.  He took us to another waterfall.  It is on the edge of the city.  The water comes from the Taurus Mountains and runs all the way to the cliffs of Antalya and falls to the sea.  Antalya is the only city in the Turkish Riviera that was built on cliffs.  Next, we went to a Turkish Bazaar (pronounced as Pazaar).  We got to shop with the locals.  We were some of the only non-locals there.  We got some great deals on some clothes for the kids.  We also bought some local dry figs, apricots, and walnuts.  We also tried something that was green and fuzzy.  It is in the apricot family.  It was more bitter than an apricot and they eat it with salt.  I highly recommend eating the dried figs, torn in half, with a walnut piece put inside.  It is so good!  We were also able to buy a Turkish rolling pin to make the thin stuffed pancakes.  I just don’t have the wood fire and pan to cook them!

We continued on to the old city Kaleiçi.  It has old city wall ruins and Hadrian’s Gate right in the middle of town.   We saw the old harbor that has boats, all hand-made out of wood.  There are no fiberglass boats in the harbor.  In the summer, you can take a boat cruise to the waterfall at the cliff.  We ate lunch at a local restaurant and tried the local cuisine of Donar (beef cooked over a wood fire, spiced and served with pita, yogurt, and salad).

We met up with our driver again, and we went to a second National park with more waterfalls.  They were cool.  There were caves behind them that you could go into a see the falls from behind.  It was a beautiful walk.  We enjoyed the time there.  It rained that day and was quite a bit cooler, so after returning home, we just went to the indoor pool.  We had reservations that evening for the Turkish Restaurant.  We got all dressed up and we headed to the restaurant for dinner.  It was a five course meal, that was very good.  The kids tried all the appetizers, cold and warm.  They are known for their buttered lentil soup.  I got some and we all tried it.  Dane and l liked it the best.  The others didn’t really care for it.  Dane and I had chicken skewers over pita.  Dan had the lamb cooked in a clay pot.  Deagan had the meatballs in casserole and Dyllan had steak.  It was an enjoyable evening.  We all loved each other’s company and the kids were quite patient during the two hour dinner.  Upon leaving, we were offered a piece of Turkish Delight.  They had Turkish Delight one night at the buffet and you can buy boxes of it everywhere, but it was not served very often.  Turkish people are big tea drinkers.  They often have a cup in hand all the time.  They drink chai tea.  They also have several fruit teas, and apple was the kids’ favorite.  They drink it quite strong, and it is the same as drinking a cup of hot cider.  You could buy the powder to make the fruit teas in any of the spice markets, but we never had time to stop at the one that was labeled in English.  We didn’t want to buy the wrong thing.  Now that we know that you can buy it, we may be able to find it at the Brunnenmarkt.

Thursday was our last full day.  We tried to squeeze every possible moment out of it.  We spent the morning at the beach.  It was sunny, but again, the breeze was quite cool.  The waves were also very big and it was hard to keep Deagan on his feet.  After lunch, we swam at the indoor pool again, to warm up.  That afternoon, Dan and I had a special treat.  We signed up for the Turkish bath.  We left the kids in the room with a movie to watch while Danyon slept. 

 Dan and I started our treatment with the Thalasso pool, which is a warm pool of sea water (good for health) and jets to relax your muscles.  After soaking in that for 15 minutes, we went to the sauna.  The sauna was made entirely of marble (just like the old Roman Baths) and floor, walls, seats, etc. were all heated.  We sat in there for about 10 minutes.  They had sinks with metal basins that you could pour water over you in the sauna.  After that, Dan and I were taken to another marble room with a wide marble bench.  Again, the whole room was heated through the marble.  We laid down on the marble bench and two guys poured warm water all over us.  Then they put exfoiliating mits on their hands and scrubbed our entire bodies (this is called peeling).  Our entire bodies were tingling afterwards.  Then we got rinsed again.  Next then had cotton flour-sack type tubes that they dipped in soapy water.  They filled the tubes with air and made tons of bubbles.  They put bubbles all over us.  We were engulfed in probably 10-12 inches of bubbles everywhere.  Then they took soft cotton mits and rubbed all the soap everywhere (this is called foaming).  They finished with washing your hair and the best head massage I’ve ever had.  Then they rinsed us off with warm water.  Dan and I sat and relaxed and dried off, then we went to get a full body oil massage.  It was so relaxing.  Dan is hooked on it.  He can’t wait to get back to Istanbul and go to another Turkish Bath.  I also highly recommend it, if you ever get the chance.  I think the Romans were on to something there.  Reluctantly, we left the tranquility and went back to the room to meet up with the kids.  Dyllan and Deagan enjoyed their last night of disco and afterwards, we watched a Cuban-Circ show.  However, it didn’t seem very Cuban at all.  They had dancing ladies mixed with acrobatics.  The dancing ladies were VERY scantily clad and were doing more of a Samba dance.  It seemed very Brazilian to us.

Friday morning, we had just enough time to pack our bags and head to one last breakfast.  The day was a beautiful sunny day and was the clearest yet.  We were sad to be leaving.  We were definitely not ready to go back to reality.  Dyllan and I took one more stroll on the beach and then we were off to the airport.  We had a safe flight back home.  We stopped at the grocery store before getting home, as we had no groceries, and Dan needed to leave on another flight to Poland for work that evening.  He is struggling to stay awake at his meetings, and would rather be back in Turkey, but is doing okay.  As for us, we are spending a relaxing weekend playing games.  We will watch General Conference this weekend, but the Saturday morning session doesn’t start until 6:00pm for us.  Then Saturday afternoon starts at 10:00pm.  It is the same for Sunday.  I don’t know how many sessions we’ll be able to stay awake for, so we may have to catch them later.  Dan will miss most of them as well.  They broadcast some of the sessions at the church, but only a couple.  Since we don’t have a car, we’re going to try to get them from the internet.  In the meantime, I’ll be planning our next vacation!