Armada

After a failed shopping trip in Kısılay, where all I bought was a sweater and miniature Turkish-English dictionary, Shammara and I headed to Armada, a large mall that looks like an airport. All the stores inside were very expensive (United Colors of Benetton, Marks and Spencer, etc.) But, the food court was decent. We've noticed a complete lack of variety in foods, so we were suprised to actually see a Chinese place there, although it was empty.

We saw Wedding Crashers in the movie theatre on the top floor; it was in English with Turkish subtitles. Afterwards, we wandered around Armada in a complete daze. Watching an American movie put us mentally back in the United States.


Above, you see the animatronic cow head we found in the grocery store in the basement. It mooed.

First International Watermelon Rugby Match

"International watermelon rugby is exactly the same as touch rugby (ie no tackles) and is a very simple sport that everyone can play. I don't actually know the rules so i will make most of them up on the day, and mostly to the advantage of whichever team i am on."

So I spent the last two hours lounging on Devrim field, munching on vodka-infused watermelon, watching the exchange students toss watermelons at each other while wrestling opponents to the ground. Needless to say, watermelon pulp was strewn all over the field, and much messy fun was had by all. I think the entire student population of METU stared at us on their way to class.

Bilgisayar

A Turkish keyboard. Exciting, yes, I know.

The Turkish addition to the typical Latin alphabet is unusual. There's the typical accented letters ç, ğ, ö, ş, ü, and then there's İ,i and I,ı. The location of the two i-styles makes using a Turkish keyboard terribly challenging. That, and it makes my name appear to be spelled differently ('Iris' and 'iris' are prounced differently).

Kapadokya - Gün 2

Today we started with Göreme Open Air Museum (above and below), which is basically a whole bunch of Byzantine Churches all located in one area. Below you can see what some of the churches/houses looked like from far away.



Some churches were decorated when religious icons were not allowed, such as the one above. These were basically decorated in folk art and Greek Orthodox crosses. Notice how the column and arch are carved out of the stone, not put in separately like in most non-cave churches. Other churches (as below) were decorated after that period, and lots of colors and images were used.


Later on, we moved to Avanos, famous for its pottery. The town was sprinkled with trees decorated with pottery. There we stopped at a pottery workshop before moving onto Uçisar, where we stopped at an Onyx workshop. From a bridge, we could see the large unnatural mound of a Hittite King's grave far off in the distance. There were also two ostriches being fed by tourists.


"Evil Eye" charms hanging from a tree in Uçisar.


Uçisar Castle from outside the Onyx Workshop

We hopped back on the bus, and headed for Uçisar Castle. The bus dropped us off near the tip (below) so the climbing was only somewhat challenging. Uçisar Castle is not actually a castle, the rock formation just looks like one. On top there were graves of Byzantine Kings.



A view from the top of Uçisar Castle

Just my luck, it began raining when we reached the top- just as it was raining last weekend when we were walking around Olimpos. Only this time, we were on top of a mountain and there were no caves to hide in. That, and we saw a rainbow this time:


Leaving Uçisar, we headed for Paşabağ and ?Guvercinlik Valley? which is full of Fairy Chimneys (Peribacalar).


You can see the difference in color-levels on the hills, each caused by different volcanic eruptions


A Fairy Chimney amongst grape vines

The fairy chimneys located here weren't just churches. Some of them (such as the one below) were houses, complete with kitchens and living rooms. Even today, some people live in Fairy Chimneys, but many of them have been turned into hotels.