Museum Hotel Uchisar

Eric and I flew to Cappadocia from Istanbul. It's a region in South Central Turkey where a rock called tufa is very prevalent. Tufa is a very soft rock, that is easily eroded relative to most of the surrounding rocks. Over the millenia, differential erosion has caused the landscape to become an Alice through the Looking Glass moonscape. The softness of tufa also allowed the Hittite empire to carve underground cities that were easily defendable during times of war. Long after the Hittites, the...

Yesterday, after school with mom, we went to see the Rumeli castle, which we saw from the boat on Sunday. It was built by Mehmet and his soldiers in only four months to conquer Constantinople. It is a huge fort, with walls all around, an amphitheatre inside, and even a mosque. We tried to walk to the highest tower, but the guard said it was closed inside. He told us we could walk on the outside walls to the top. I was a little freaked out because there were tons of small stairs, but with no r...

I was the first one to wake up this morning, and the first thing I saw out our window was tons of hot air balloons flying everywhere! I woke everyone up to see it - it was amazing! This morning after school, Dad and I got Turkish haircuts. The barber was wearing a red hat with a tassel on it. He was very nice and I got to sit in a barber chair right on the terrace looking at the view and the cave houses and fairy towers of Cappadochia. It was the best haircut I ever had! Then Levent took us t...

This morning was incredible! We woke up early and went for my first-ever hot air balloon ride! It was also the first-ever ride for my dad, mom, and my sister (of course!). We left the hotel at sunrise and drove down to a huge field, which was actually on top of the ridge right above the valley where we hiked yesterday. There were lots of other balloons in the air and landing and about to take off. I had butterflies and was a little nervous. Tallulah said, "Lots of people in North Vaza have bu...

This morning after the balloon ride, Levent took us to another town to see a huge underground city. It was built by the Hittites in the 4th century and had 8 floors below the ground. They used it to hide from the Arabs from Saudi Arabia because they were farmers and not fighters and did not want to get killed. But even in the underground cities, some people died from disease because they did not have a place for their toilets and dead bodies and things. We went down to the 4th floor - that wa...