Ruins for everyone!

While Ephesus (which will get its own detailed post sometime soon), Pergamum and a few others are the best preserved and get all the press, it seems like you could toss a stick randomly along the central Mediterranean coast and hit a Greek or/(and) Roman ruin.

A sampling of our finds:

Atlantis-like feel at the watery ruins of Miletus

The 15,000 seat Great Theater at Miletus

Remains of the Temple of Athena, Priene (beneath Mt. Mykale)

Column graveyard, Priene

Remains of Greek Theater, Priene

Enjoying the power seat, Priene

Imposing steps into the city, Labranda

2,000+ year old wine casks, Labranda


becca

Assorted Turkish Wildflowers

A little color for your Thursday morning...

After the rains in the ruins of Labranda

The ancient town of Priene scattered amongst the poppies

Scary-ass flower in Herakeleia/Kapikiri. Don’t know what it is but it sure has a “don’t mess with me” vibe to it

The Zen of Turkish Breakfasts

On the patio of Kilise Alti, Sirince

One of the many cool things about traveling in Turkey is that breakfast is included in almost all but the cheapest and (strangely) most expensive of lodging. And breakfast in Turkey is a cultural experience all of its own.

The food at breakfast, not surprisingly, has a very Mediterranean influence and we found fairly consistent offerings at all the different places we stayed. There was usually some combination of green and black olives, olive oil, fruit jams and compotes, a variety of cheeses, tomatoes, cucumbers, nuts, dried fruits, and an egg of some sort (hard/soft boiled, fried, etc.). These were served with bread, not the pita or flatbread that we had been expecting to find. There was also the ubiquitous tea, cay (pronouced 'chai'), in the distinctive tulip-shaped glasses that we grew to really love.

While some hotels and pensions just had buffets where you could go up and help yourself (and we noticed that those tended to have a few more ‘familiar’ or ‘western’ options) more than half of the places we stayed provided individual ‘spreads’ in lovely dishes.

Breakfast at the Agora Pension, Herakleia/Kapikiri

In the two smallest villages we stayed in the food was all totally fresh and most of it came from in town. It was beyond delicious.

Fresh, homemade breakfast at Kilise Alti, Sirince

Even when the food was much more processed and packaged (such as what we found when we were the first guests of the season at our hotel in a small Mediterranean town), it still was beautifully presented and satisfying to eat.

Breakfast at Beyaz Guvercin, Selimiye

It was a wonderful way to start the day and really got you into the mood of a place in touch with its land and enjoying its bounty. I'm looking forward to making more meals like this for our own breakfasts or brunches.

Becca

Inquiring minds want to know...

Ephesus Museum, Selcuk

Why is it taking so long to load the Turkey entries? Hmmmmm?

Actual entries on their way soon, we promise

Tesekkür ederim, Turkey!

Home again and trying to remember what work and real life is like. Though it took 4-5 days into the trip to do so, we were able to shed the stress of work and everyday life and get our minds right back in the traveling mode. It was a great chance to hit the "reset" button and remind ourselves about what we're all about. Now we'll see how well we keep that in mind as we dive back into work, school, and other life.

We have all kinds of stories and pictures to share so expect to see a whole rash of new entries over the next few days/weeks. The high level summary though is that Turkey was a great country to visit. The people were overwhelmingly friendly and kind, the culture was interesting, the food was tasty, and there was tons of history to explore and experience. We especially enjoyed the mix of east and west and had fun hopping back and forth between Asia and Europe. And while we were glad to come home and not be on a year-long jaunt again, we also realized that traveling and exploring new places will always be a part of our lives.

B&B

On the Road Again!!

Finals are done, work projects are on hold, and we're off!

We'll be in Turkey through May 3rd, checking out a country that we were disappointed to miss on our RTW trip and also trying to rest and rejuvenate after a pretty intense last three months. Our hope is to have a chance to reintroduce ourselves to each other, reach out and experience a new place a little, remember the things we had liked about living that 15 months outside of the traditional work life and rededicate ourselves to finding ways to keep that balance and happiness now that we're back plugged into the day-to-day economy. (Easier said than done when you're balancing full time work with graduate studies....)

Wish us luck!!

B&B

We'll be posting stories and pictures about the trip, though most likely we'll wait until we get home instead of using up vacation time in the internet cafes...

Learning to give myself a break....

...Or: 12 days is different than 12 months

So our passports have been burning a hole in our pocket pretty much since 6 months after our return from our RTW trip. But we've had a lot of things to take care of first:
- Selling a house in Minnesota
- Moving cross-country
- Finding a place to live in Portland
- Finding jobs in Portland
- Getting half-way through an MBA program
- Etc.

But once we had gotten somewhat settled we realized that we really, really needed another taste of travel before that might involve carting along a diaper bag.

Turkey was one of the countries on our original RTW trip list that got squeezed out when we decided to slow down and spend more time in fewer places and it remained near the top of our want-to-see list. Plus it seems like everyone we spoke with either had just returned from there or knew someone that had and couldn't say enough good things. So the decisions was made in December: come Brian's next semester break we'd be cashing in the last of our NW frequent flier miles (before they mysteriously 'disappear' in the Delta merger) and be Istanbul-bound.

One of the hardest things to get used to though has been the difference in planning this trip versus dealing with seeing new countries on the RTW trip. The very first thing that slapped us in the face was the reality of having to fit a visit into a two-week vacation instead of being able to take as many weeks as we thought we needed to see what we wanted to see. (And we were only able to do 2 weeks because Brian negotiated that as part of accepting his new job in February..otherwise we wouldn't be able to be away nearly that long).

So I was reading guide books and making lists of places to see and kept crying out "what do you MEAN we can't just take a month plus to explore???? How can ANYBODY be expected to go to a new place for only 12 days??? It's almost not even worth going!" Yes, I do realize how ridiculous that sounds; it has helped reinforce how unique an experience we had before and how fortunate we were to have done it. Eventually I narrowed down our destinations to 4 cities/villages in relative close geographic proximity that would allow us both to explore/experience a little bit of Turkey but also have a chance for some sorely needed rest and recovery in between grad school semesters.

Figuring out logistics was the next hurdle. Again, on the RTW trip we would have taken mostly local buses or trains and would have viewed circuitous routes, uncertain timetables or long stop-overs as part of the charm. But with only 12 days (there it is again) it didn't make sense to spend an entire one of them trying to travel 35 miles via tortuous connections. Thus all of sudden we found ourselves planning on an internal flight to get from Istanbul to the west coast and back and renting a car to navigate between west coast cities.

The same sort of rethinking happened with hotels. During the trip we found the best policy (outside of high season in europe/chinese new year in Siem Reap, etc.) was to wait until we arrived in city to choose a place to stay. That usually led to cheaper lodgings and also meant we wouldn't have pre-paid for a place that didn't live up to its advertising. In this case, we are traveling during shoulder season or at the very very beginning of high season. Normally that would be even more reason to use our old strategy. But in some of the small villages we're going to it was unclear how many places would be open yet, and we discovered that our return to Istanbul coincided with a Formula 1 race. And we didn't feel like spending a chunk of our sightseeing/exploring time doing the hostel/hotel shuffle. However when we looked into reserving ahead of time we found that most of the hotels wanted us to transfer money to a bank account to reserve a room (vs just being able to give them a cc number).

Before I knew it, I found myself contacting an Istanbul-based travel agency that had come very highly recommended by a good friend (and by Rick Steves). I presented them with the itinerary I had come up with, asked them to suggest changes if the logistics wouldn't work, and had them make the flight and rental car and hotel (not hostel) reservations and arrange all the payments.

Doing that made me feel guilty and wimpy; basically it felt like a total cop-out. It was like our experience on the RTW trip had brainwashed us into thinking that the only valid method of traveling was on a shoe-string budget with logistics that you manage entirely on your own and with the flexibility to not have set plans. And that certainly is a great way to travel and one that I hope we get to do again in the future. But what gets lost in the haze of nostalgia is how much energy it takes to travel that way, and how tiring it can be to always be planning, and paying attention, and figuring things out and dealing with uncertainty.

After a couple of weeks of flogging myself, I think I've finally convinced myself that it's just as valid to go on a trip where things are planned ahead of time (and yes, even where someone else has done a lot of that work planning for you - travel agents need to earn a living too), so that you can be relaxed and just enjoy and be able to focus all your attention on what you are seeing and experiencing around you instead of having half a brain working on where you'll sleep that night.

So repeat after me: 12 days is different than 12 months. Both are good.

Becca

(and yes, I am fully aware of the irony of my formerly psycho type A+ personality self actually struggling with planning more instead of planning less. Who says traveling around the world for a year doesn't change you? )