Olimpos - Gün 2

This day was much bluer. The rest of the group decided to go exploring, and we ended up taking the path above to the mountain I had climbed the day before- but from a different direction.



The pebbly beach where we spent our day


A tomb resting on the side of a mountain


The ATM at Olimpos was a bus with satellites hooked up to it


We'd play chess and tavla as an evening activity, after enjoying the beach

This night we decided to go and see the Chimerea. There is a mountain somewhat close to Olimpos that leaks a gas that combusts upon contact with the air. It produces a really neat sight. You don't normally see just a piece of rock on fire without anything else to kindle it.

Olimpos - Gün 1

Shammara and I took an overnight bus to Antalya yesterday evening. We arrived at Antalya Otogar after 8 hours on the bus, and found...ugly, rainy weather. We were dead tired and still had 2 more hours to go. So, we hopped in the front seat of a dolmus:


As we wound along the coast, we saw a car accident, the Mediterranean Sea, palm trees, and some of the most amazing mountains with clouds swirled about their tips. The dolmus dropped us off at a roadside restaurant, where after 10 minutes some more exchange students met up with us.



The restaurant had some wonderful views, and there were grapes, gourds, and flowers growing everywhere.




So, we took another dolmus down the mountain, and were dropped off at Saban Pansion.

In the above photo, you can see our "tree houses" to the right in the back. They were set against a small orange garden and it was very nice.

The inside of the cabins were very small and basic, but there was electricity and everything was pretty cheap. 15 YTL per night, Turkish breakfast and dinner included.


A 3 minute walk from Saban Pansion brought us to the ruins at Olimpos (above), which were hidden back in much greenery (below).


At the end of the path through the ruins is a beautiful beach, lined with mountains.

This mini-mountain was actually climbable, and Torben, Edin and I did so.

The view from the top was really nice.


After the beach, we decided to go eat some tost (like grilled cheese sandwiches, but you can get sausage in it too), and we ended up walking a bit further for ice cream...and then eventually to where there was nowhere else to walk. The sky was getting progressively grayer, so we decided to head back just in time for it to start raining.

I never would have pictured myself "cafe-hopping" from place to place, having a cay at each little cafe along this small piece of the Mediterranean Sea, but it was really nice. We eventually ran out of cafes, and the three of us ended up hiding in the crevices of the mountain. And this was our view (kind of grim except for the one maniac who wouldn't leave the Sea, despite thunder and lightning):


The rain stopped, and we had to walk through the now flooded ruins, back to our tree houses.


Today was Torben's birthday, so they bought him a cake and one large candle. The others were exhausted from the overnight travel that morning, so they went to bed afterwards, leaving just Torben, Lisa, and myself. A man from South Africa convinced us to go to the "Orange Dance Bar." It was basically a dance floor, bar, DJ, neon lights, and a campfire all under an open ceiling. So, when you looked up from the dance floor you saw the mountains and the moon.

Sınıf

Today was the first day of classes. I'm moving my schedule around so I have less classes on Monday (so when I skip Monday, then it's not such a big deal).

My sociology professor dislikes engineers and dislikes speaking English (i.e. we don't get along). I'm dropping his course, which is a shame because Sociology of the [Turkish] Family and [Turkish] Women could have been a very interesting course.

I am, however, keeping Natural Language Processing. It's interesting to learn how computers can handle not just English, but Turkish as well. So, it's NLP plus two philosophy courses.

Ulus

Today, Shammara (my roommate) and I walked around the old center of Ankara, Ulus. We've basically found Ankara to be completely devoid of foreigners/tourists, except today we saw our first Japanese tourists. So, that means we normally wander around, being stared at by all the locals. There was an open air bazar-like thing with lots of shops and we bought some metal spoons and forks...and were still stared at.

Kisilay feels much like a Western European city, but Ulus is distinctly Turkish. There's a larger percentage of women wearing headscarves, you don't see couples holding hands...the feeling there is much different.

Tarkan

Tarkan (a very popular Turkish pop singer) is coming to METU to perform this Friday. They set the stage up on one end of Devrim Stadium, and there's a bunch of Tarkan buses across the path. His music sounds like a 90s pop singer...but in Turkish.

Zoo

The Ankara Zoo is filled with some of the saddest sights I've ever seen. I feel guilty for spending that 3 YTL.



All the animals were in small, unnatural cages such as the elephant who is separated from viewers by a 3 foot fence, a shallow moat, and 3 feet of spikes. And then the cage for the vultures on the bottom is hardly big enough for the birds to do more than hop (no flying).



Unlike in the States, visitors are allowed to feed the animals, like on the top (above). This makes all the animals do tricks and beg for treats, such as the sad chimpanzee on the right which catches food you throw to him.



The Ataturk Zoo apparently keeps some domesticated breeds of dogs and cats on display. We saw German Shepards (on the left), Spaniels, a Dalmation, as well as Ankara and Van cats. Once again, the cages were small and fairly uncomfortable; none of the animals really looked happy.

I'm not really sure how these people can go to the zoo and not feel bad.