Tired

Its beautiful outside. I should be going downtown, but I'm exhausted. The consistent 15hr days and revolving sleep cycle are beginning to take their toll. Its been 4 months of flying. I want to go out and see the sights, but my body is wearing thin. Turkey has been beautiful, but my mind is already back home. I'm excited to see family and friends, to sleep on my own schedule, and to cook my own food. I have just under two weeks left. A few more flights, and we are done. Its so close, but I'm now separated by the furious tediousness that accompanies packing to move. There are still a few gifts to be purchased and boxes to be packed for the mail, but then, i'll be coming home. for now... perhaps a nap is in order.

Postcard life

So I finally made it to the Med, and yes, its as beautiful as the movies portray it. A few of us had a day off recently so we decided it was time to take advantage. After organizing a bootleg trip with some local taxi drivers, we were set to jet. We just told them we wanted to see some cool stuff, and they said, 'Ok, we take you dair', in turkenglish. We started our day at 0900, well more like 0930, as a few of us had been out late the night before. We jumped in the cabs and put our our day completely in the drivers' hands.

After a 45min cab ride reminiscent of a James Bond car chase, (with no seat belts I might add), we arrived in Tarsus. We saw this really beautiful glacier fed waterfall right in downtown. Apparently it was were the river had been diverted and flowed over an old roman burial ground. It was interesting to be at a Turkish tourist spot-we were the only americans, but there were a bunch of turks filing off of tour buses. It was neat to see an attraction the locals came to as well. Then, after paying for one of the most disgusting bathrooms i've ever seen, we were off to find some more sights.

we stopped at St. Paul's well after asking 10 people for directions, one of which, a 5 yr old kid, asked for money and then pointed in the completely wrong direction. After finding it, we took some pictures and decided to head for the coast as we were running out of day. While walking to the cab, I spotted a cart selling this mysterious red liquid from hand-corked bottles and thought, what the heck. Three of us bought a glass, and tried the mystery drink (which came with a dark red root looking thing sticking out of it), only to find that it tasted like sour, salty armpit. We tried to drink it all, but couldn't without gagging, so we told the seller we had to run off to catch a cab. Apparently its a local favorite, but you couldn't convince my tastebuds if you tried.

We finally made it to the med and stopped at this big hole in the ground that you could hike into. It was like 300ft or more down and there was an old chapel at the mouth of a cave. It was quite breathtaking. Not however, as much as the med.

We ate lunch on the water overlooking a baby blue water inlet and surrounded by hills covered in flowering bushes. The fish had been caught that day and the appetizers were mouth watering and plentiful. After this wonderful lunch, we went to the beach and rented a paddle boat. There was a castle out in the ocean that we paddled out to and explored. The view of the shoreline from the top of a parapet was amazing. we paddled back and finished the night with a turkish coffee and home-made strawberry cake at a small cafe. All in all, it was quite a wonderful trip. My post doesn't do it credit, the pictures are better, hopefully you can all see them someday.