Oh, to be a fairy in Capadoccia =)

One of the first things I noticed about turkey was how colorful it was =). Turks also have a thing about the moon... so maybe there is some connection between a person and where they were born =P.

One of my favorite places in Turkey is Capadoccia ... basically it is an amazing amount of land covered in a soft rock that people have carved in to and constructed whole villages. There is even an underground city made of it called Derinkuyu!
When first arriving in Capadoccia everyone in my group felt like we had left the planet and had entered another universe all together! Another great aspect of capadoccia were the fairy houses =). They are smaller formations of the soft rock with a bigger and darker glob of rock on top making it look like a house with a roof. They were called fairy houses because that is exactly what they look like! It was a very exciting place for me. =P One of the girls in our group pretended to be a fairy with me, it was a lot of fun!

It was nice getting to see Ankara, I definitely felt very grounded while there. I mean it is where my life began! It had one of the coolest museums about the start of life all together. I was kind of sad due to the fact we had no real time to explore the streets of Ankara, but I guess it just adds to the many reasons of why I have to go back again some day.

On our way to Ucagiz our group stopped and took a little hike up to Chimaera where we saw the eternal flames. These were flames are o-natural and continue to burn even in the worst weather. It was quite amazing. Plus it is where the first olympic flame was lit and where the whole idea of the flame comes from!

In Ucagiz we boarded a boat and had a wonderful meal before setting our beds up under the stars :). The weather was absolutely perfect that night! The next day we sailed around Kekova Island getting to see glimpses of a sunken city. At one point we stopped at a little cove and while some of our group ate lunch on the boat I went for a hike and explored some ruins. The boulders at the place we stopped were absolutely amazing. You could almost bound from one to the next, the rocks had so much grip!

We were so lucky we had stayed on the boat the night before because as soon as we boarded the bus to Kas it started to rain and while in Kas there was one of the most amazing lightning storms I have ever seen!

Next we went to Pamukkale, a place very well known in the tourist industry. It was a cool place to visit, but because of the amount of people coming to see it a lot of it is closed down. After staying in a hotel with other guests (lol Yael and I thought it was weird to be in a hotel with other people staying in it since we had basically had the other hotels to ourselves) we continued on to Selcuk where we were able to explore one of the most preserved ancient cities of the present, called Ephesus! It had one of the largest ancient theatres... it could seat 15 to 20 thousand people!

Everyone kept on saying Troy would be a disapointment, including the guide books. However, except for the wind and the cold, it was exciting. I mean how many places in the world have nine cities stacked one on top of the other? The only thing sort of dissapointing was the horse they have at the entrance, but the fact you could climb into it partly made up for how fake it looked.
What totally made up for it was the horse in Canakkale. It was the actual horse from the movie Troy, very exciting!

Before heading back to Istanbul we had a few stops to explore Galliploli. One of my favorite parts about all the different sights to see there was the letter Ataturk had written to all the countries who had fought there.
"There is no difference between the Jonnies and the Memets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours."
All in all it was a very stupid fight which should not have happened in the first place... go figure. =P

I absolutely love the spice market and really enjoyed Istanbul altogether!

Oh, and I think there main course every meal is bread... seriously I have never had so much white bread in my entire life!

=P

Turkey was absolutely amazing and is definitely one of my favorite places in the world!!! I would recomend travelling there to anyone and everyone! Do it when you have the time to explore a majority of the country though! At most Istanbul and Capadoccia!!!

I hope I kept this blog interesting and not to blabby because I know how long it is! Congradulations to whoever got through it =P

Go out and enjoy the day today!!

Much love!

Zoom voom boom!