I know, it was just as much of a surprise to us as it probably is to you! And it seems to have some rival origin legends, but Baba Noel (St. Nicholas) apparently was a bishop on the sunny south coast of Turkey who dropped dowry money down poor young girl's chimneys. We didn't expect to see much of anything Christmasy in Turkey, and apart from that info board of Santa in a bathing suit, we haven't really. But that one was a shocker. We are glad that we postponed our arrival in Turkey to miss Ramadan, because although as foreigners we would have been permitted to eat during daylight hours, it probably wouldn't have made us any friends. And it has been really interesting to notice how many women wear headscarves in different towns, a very visual reflection of how conservative or secular a community is. Although each day we have seen a few women in head to toe coverings, it is pretty rare, at least in the west where we have travelled.
We have now come full circle back to Istanbul, the gateway to the Orient. From here it is just a a few hops between our favourite cities in Europe to visit friends, and then we will come screeching back into the Alberta snow, culture-shocked and jet-lagged. It will be great.
After climbing Mount Olimpos on the south coast, we skipped around the coast a bit with some Australians to Kas, then back to Antalaya where the hospitality club did not disappoint us. We stayed with Ugur and his family in their gorgeous flat, saw his photos of his mates moose hunting up in Alaska where he had worked for the summer, went out to experience traditional Turkish folk music in the ancient harbour setting still reminiscent of Roman times, and breakfast included a back massage from his father. This is living. And don't fear, the weather did improve for us and we were basking in 26 degrees Celcius again, probably for the last time in a long while. From there it was a long hitch up from the Mediterranean coast to the Aegean coast and Izmir, with a Bulgarian truck driver who spent the six hours complaining about Turkish drivers cutting his bulky semi off like cats whisking between his legs, and the lack of controls in the Turkish restaurant industry. I won't mention what else he associated with cats. Or at least that is what we thought he was communicating to us; it was all in Turkish and we only had Berna's little dictionary to flip through incessantly and tediously. But he was so proud of us everytime we found the meaning of the word he had repeated ten times. Wish we had retained a few more of them for future conversations.
In Izmir (hometown of Homer – of the Odyssey, not Simpsons), Berna and her kind mother were waiting for us, and we arrived just in time for Tonguc's experimental electronica gig. Izmir was a really cool town establshed by Alexander the Great, and it was awesome exploring it by taking the ferry across the bay, relaxing in the afternoon with tiny cups of Turkish tea, a nargile, and a backgammon board, poking around in the bazaars where the hollering salesmen flaunt their wares on their person: modelled bathrobes or socks hanging off their ears (the tag line also rhymed in Turkish:"Come and get it, it's synthetic!"). And we saw the bicycle couriers chasing each other briefly with a knife because someone jumped the queue. Another cool HC host, Belve, took us on a great tour of Izmir’s university student life, and we met up with a bunch of his friends at an old bar for a night of travel story swapping. We do alot of that lately. Berna took us out to the ancient city of Ephesus, the best preserved classical city on the Mediterranean, and the home of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the temple of Artemis. I hope that it doesn’t actually exist anymore and it is not just that we walked past it without noticing it. Then we wound our way up the mountain to find the legendary home of the Virgin Mary. It was interesting to see that both Christians and Muslims consider it to be a holy place.
Bergama was our next stop, the ancient city of Pergamum. It is now a small farming town, and the winding cobblestone roads that we hiked up to reach the Hellenistic era Acropolis Atlar to Zeus were crammed with mini-buses squeezing past horse and donkey drawn carriages. Another night in Canakkale near Gallipoli, and that brought us to İstanbul, where we attended our first hospitality club meeting. As you can imagine, it was just an excuse for thirty some people from different countries who were all in İstanbul at that moment to get together at a bar. Along with the Turkish were a Mexican, Lithuanian, Iranian, Spanish, and probably a few others that we didn’t have time to meet. We weren’t sure where to stay in İstanbul, but after the meeting we had our choice of places, and are now crashed at Tulay’s, who has given us her whole gorgeous flat for the week for just the two of us! And we haven’t had a moment of boredom since. Between all of us visitors and the HC guides, we have been whipped around the opulent palace and harem of the sultans: Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar (which has changed alot since my mom was here in the 1970’s, I think, it now looks alot more like West Edmonton Mall than any sort of dodgy market), floated up the Bosphorus on a ferry, hopped between Asia and Europe, visited the Blue Mosque, and tomorrow we’ll see the Aya Sophia and try out a hamam: Turkish bath. Or at least Carli-Ann will.
So now as these last four months of travelling are coming to completion soon, we have reached two conclusions:
1) The world is mostly made up of good people.
2) North America greatly underutilizes pumpkins.
And our only real complaint is the air pollution which leaves our snotty tissues black. Not bad, really, for all that we have seen and learned. But we are looking forward to some fresh Rocky Mountain air!
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