Erin, İngilizce ve Türkçe farklı! (“Erin, English and Turkish are different!”)

The title is apparently something that gets said a lot in the class below mine. We joked about it.
 This post is about Kapadokya. Here's the short version:

Friday

• Got on the bus at Aşti
• Wrong Perron on the board.
• Finger Time
• Steve had a broken screen
• Water, Tea, Water.
• Stop at Tuz Gölü
• Eventual arrival in Ürgüp
• Amazing food.
• Lounge chilling.
• Sleep. In Fake cave.

Saturday

• Tour 9 AM.
• Make that 9:30
• Breakfast was good.
• Lots of nice places.
• Tour guide slightly annoying.
• Pottery failure.
• Göreme open air museum. (25 minutes)
• Random tourist traps.
• Steve takes off because he can. (Hey big waters were like 2L.)
• Back at hotel.
• Walk into town.
• Küçük arabayı çok seviyorum
• Dinner
• Cats
• Picture Telephone
• ZZZZ.

Sunday

• Hiking vs Underground City.
• Rock climbing (biraz)
• Gift shops....
• Apple tea & Japanese tourists
• Town
• Relaxing
• Missing the Servis because it was not announced and then having random dude give us a ride.
• Bus w/ Ice Cream and Cartoons
• Arrival in Ankara. Super easy for me to get home.

More after the jump (including a lot of pictures.)

This weekend some friends and I went to Cappadocia, a region of Turkey with some pretty neat geology and history. Naturally, it is a huge attraction for tourists.

Cappadocia is filled with fairy chimneys, geological formations that look like this:

These formed because denser, sturdier rock was formed atop rock that had formed from malleable volcanic ash. As the ash eroded, the tops remained. Because it's easy to carve stuff out of this rock, people have lived in manmade caves in the region for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Hittites carved some of them long long ago. The rest, of course, were carved out by hotels looking to attract maximum amounts of tourists.

My journey to Cappadocia would not have been complete without the excellent company of the friends who came along with me. There were six of us total (Allison, Abigail, Xhessica, Erin, and Jack, and I in no order), and I really enjoyed spending time exploring with my CLS classmates.

The trip itself began on Friday. We got to the bus station, and were successfully confused by the board which posts which busses are in which lanes, because it was wrong. The correct lane was, however, printed on our tickets, and we got on the bus to Cappadocia, this time with the Metro bus company.

On the bus with Jack and Xhessica,
Photo courtesy of Abigail.

Turkish bus transportation is lightyears ahead of that in the United States. There were TV screens in seatbacks similar to those encountered in international flights. These provided a choice of TV programs on my bus back to Ankara with Nevşehir, but mine wasn't working on the Metro bus so I can't really say what was on it. But, the bus was comfy. I mean it was a coach bus with nice seats. The Nevşehir bus was even better, because the person in front of me went into recline mode, and I somehoe still had leg room. Also they serve everyone bottled water, coffee/tea/soda, more water, and a snack. Metro served us “Finger Time,” which was a pre-packaged cake that was pretty dry and awful. The packaging promised a chocolate icing center, but there was barely any actual chocolate in the middle. Jack and Erin gave me their Finger Time, and I was happy to get three times the typical amount of awful cake. The Nevşehir co. gave out ice cream, and also hand sanitizer which smelled really nice. The busses also each stopped at a rest area where things were reasonably priced! American bus companies and rest stops, take note!

The first rest stop on the first bus ride was at Tuz Gölü, the salt lake

Volcano seen from bus.

After a lengthy ride, we got off at the bus's very last stop, and hiked uphill to our hotel, where fake cave rooms and a buffet of amazing food were waiting for us. The food was ridiculously good. The lounge was nice too, and we spent a little while laying around before going to bed.

Erin and Jack approve!
(Photo courtesy of Abigail.) 

Güzel yemekler!
(Photo courtesy of Xhessica)

Of course I could play that musical instrument intended soley for decoration
(Photo courtesy of Xhessica)

The next day we had a tour, which wasn't that great, but had some cool stops and things. I really enjoyed running around in the natural scenery. The tour guide's spiels were mostly mercifully brief, but I could have done without them. The worst part of the tour was the amount of pointless overlook with twenty giftshops we went to compared to the sad small amount of time we were allowed to spend at the Göreme Open Air Museum.

Pretty sure I did not want a group photo at this exact moment.
(Courtesy: Abigail.)

Chilling in front of the Cappadokz
(Courtesy: Abigail.)

Curious pose for a group photo
(Courtesy: Xhessica)

These are supposed to resemble the camel in our imagination according to  our  tour guide
(Courtesy: Xhessica)

Erin stands on the other side of a street.

Lots of wind erosion.

Rock climbing!

One of the less interesting stops on the tour was one of the many pottery stores in town. However, since there was a brief show where a man made a vase, things got more entertaining. They asked for a volunteer, primarily to show (I think) that making pottery is really hard.

Kolay mı?
(Courtesy: Abigail)

So, I volunteered. Look at these skills!

This got a lot worse two seconds later
(Courtesy: Xhessica)

A sample of the giftshop's wares
(Courtesy: Xhessica)

The restaurant we ate at pretty obviously catered to tourists, but it was at least sorta pretty in a tourist restaurant sort of way.

The Göreme Open Air Museum was my favorite part of the trip. It is the site of churches, built in caves by Christian monks from the 10^th - 12^th centuries. The cave paintings that remained from all that time ago were fantastic! Photography was not allowed, so I do not have any pictures. But, it was fascinating to see how these monks lived a millennium ago. The artwork was also interesting, because in many ways it was different from what a church today would have on display. It would be interesting to better understand what they believed, since Christianity has been transformed by time, and by its adaptation to different cultures, rendering some of the beliefs common today alien to those of the monks from years ago. I also got to see some of their skeletons.

Do not ask me how this and the following two photographs were taken.
(Stolen from Xhessica's facebook.)

(Stolen from Xhessica's facebook.)

(Stolen from Xhessica's facebook.)

If you ask Erin, she'll explain that the monks wanted to live here because it was cool!
(Or, actually that she misheard the tour guide.)

Another overlook.

Coming soon. ANTH 1737: Cross-cultural photobombing.
(Photo courtesy: Abigail.)

Then there was another place where we could take pictures of an overlook. Jack asked if it was possible to go inside the caves a long ways away, and with five minutes alotted for this stop, I decided to find out!

This is not me running. (Photo courtesy: Xhessica)

For all the trouble I only took these three photos.

Well I made it.

Answer: yes.

I then proceeded to finish my large bottle of water. It was hot. Jack donated some more water to the cause.

After the tour, Jack, Erin, Allison, and I walked into the town of Ürgüp, primarily to check out balloon rides and motorcycle rentals, and stuff I wouldn't be doing. The tourism office that the guide book called really really helpful was closed. But, some random guy who smoked cigarettes in his office in front of a no smoking sign was able to hook Allison up with a hot air balloon ride that was cheaper than the people who assumed we wanted to burn up a lot of Euros that we didn't have in the first place. He had a nice collection of small cars in his room.

My new favorite trashcan.

Statue of a saz player in town square.

"Çok güzel küçük arabanız var!"

After dinner, we played two rounds of pictionary telephone, which was quite hilarious, and then it was sleep time.

Lounging about.
(Photo courtesy: Xhessica)

Pictionary telephone. Drawing by Abigail. Note the care taken to ensure that everyone's hair was drawn right.
(Photo from Xhessica.)

Kediler chillin' at the hotel.
(Photo: Abigail.) 

Turtles too.
(Photo: Abigail.)

Sunday was time to leave Ürgüp. Jack and I wanted to go on a lengthy hike. All the best hikes were at Göreme, so we got off the dolmuş “1 km away,” which turned out to be quite farther than that. Suffice to say, we got our hike in.

Where the dolmuş dropped us.
Courtesy: Abigail. 

Myself on a rock.
Courtesy: Abigail.

Still walking...

Jack, Abigail, and Erin pose for me.

While still walking with Erin and Abigail, we encountered some shop owners who asked us if we wanted to sit down and drink some apple tea with them. Conversation was nice, and completely normal, and the tea was great, until two female Japanese tourists walked by, and accepted the offer of tea. The owner of a rug shop immediately went into mega-flirt mode. It was ridiculous.

He wanted this taken.
Photo: Abigail.

“How old are you? 18? 19? Don't tell me you're older than that. 30!? Really?!”

“I will love you not with my brain, not with my heart, but with my soul.”

“We offer free massages here.”

But, the French lady was cool, and her jewelry shop was nice. Erin bought some earrings that resemble hot air balloons.

By the time we actually arrived in town center proper, we were pretty hungry, and split some pizza and salad at some not-that-great restaurant. Jack, who had been motorcycling, ate the region's specialty, a particular kebab cooked in pottery at another restaurant. We then sat at yet another restaurant with live bağlama and drums, and waited until it was time to head to the bus station.

There were aliens for some reason.

Jack cracks open a testi kebap at a restaurant called "My Place."
This is a regional specialty consisting of meat and vegetables that are cooked in a pottery dish that needs to be destroyed in order to be opened.

We also invented a çay game while at a tea place. Abigail's photos and eloquent descriptions are reproduced wholesale below:

The Çay Game Phase 1: Get the paper ball into the dish

The Çay Game Phase 2: Get the wrapper into the glass is 3 points but into any of the three dishes means elimination! oooo!!

The Çay Game Phase 3: The top dish is 5 points, the side glasses are 1 but the side dishes are elimination...

At the bus station, we successfully missed the servis that took passangers from Göreme to Nevşehir, even though we were there when it arrived, primarily because it wasn't announced in any way. A guy who worked there gave us a ride to a parking lot where we met the servis part of the way there. Thanks, bus company.

On the bus, I ate some ice cream and watched cartoon network dubbed in Turkish and fell asleep. Arrival in Ankara was simple, because I just needed to walk across the station to the metro, take it a few stops, walk a few blocks, and I was home.