4th of July! Where are all the BBQs?

Trip Start Jun 13, 2008

Trip End Aug 20, 2008

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Flag of Turkey Istanbul, Turkey
Friday, July 4, 2008

Yeah - Fourth of July! We can finally sport our red, white and blue we'd been saving up for the occasion. We have the morning in Istanbul before we need to head to the airport for Capadoccia (middle of Turkey). We decided to brave the famous Market in Istanbul called the "Grand Bazaar". We had heard a lot about and knew we wanted to it hit up to redeem ourselves from getting robbed in Marrakech. For this bazaar, we'd be ready and waiting for any poor soul trying to pull a fast one on us. Thinking back, maybe the red, white and blue might've alerted people that we were US tourists. Anyway, we stopped for a quick doner kebab lunch, where we were politely told that Americans eat a lot, and then headed into the market fully ready for whatever was to come. Andy had our day bag zipped up and essentially tied to his arm; literally, anyone who wanted to get in it would've had to take his arm with them or cut out the bottom of the bag. So, it's about 1:30 now and we're thinking this will be prime hassling time just like in Marrakech - wrong

4th of July Watermelon

. As we enter the bazaar area, we see glass storefronts, cash registers, nice lighting, plenty of room to walk around and friendly people... worlds away from our previous experience at a bazaar. Many of the stores are actually unattended... huh? We are truly shocked at the differences, until we hear the calls to prayer and realize every single Muslim storeowner (no less than 99%) is praying. Even after the prayer time ended, we still felt as though we were a bit over-prepared, but better safe than sorry.

After the market, we are on the hunt for watermelon, because what is 4th of July without it? Success. Pretty much anything can be found and bought on the streets. Back at the hotel, we finalized logistics for the next few days in the lobby area before leaving for the airport. In less than 5 minutes, Andy breaks the lobby table and sits on my already broken sunglasses. Ooops. He was very busy drastically changing our schedule for the week and canceling our previous plans. We did this based negative feedback and also so our schedule would fit better with Charlie and Christie, who were meeting up with us in a week.

We had an easy flight to the Capadoccia region, which is in the middle of Turkey and get transferred to our hotel in the small town of Goreme. This area is famous for their cave dwellings (people were living in them as recently as 60 years ago) so we figured we had to get a hotel room in a cave. It was a pretty cool experience and a very good thing neither of us is claustrophobic (caves don't have windows and have very low ceilings... i.e. you have to either kneel down or bend over to shower). The town of Goreme is a total backpacker's paradise and really caters to the international travelers. We found a great restaurant with backgammon tables (yes!) and cool-looking pottery things where they cook meat. Obviously, we have to order one so Andy can take a stab at the traditional way of breaking it open to find the delicious beef stew like meal inside. Very tasty!