Trip to Kapadokya

Hi Everyone,

Hope all is well in the States. I've been following the weather in CT, MA, and the like and it appears that spring is in the air. The weather here has been awful. Its rained everyday and pretty much all day since last Wednesday or Thursday. The worst part is that according to my Turkish classmates and the weather channel the rain is not going away soon. Everyone keeps telling me that Spring here is absolutely beautiful, but its still about 3 weeks away.

Also wanted to say that I've been having a lot of fun reading the comments. Even if I don't have a chance to respond I always love getting little snippets of news from home. So please keep commenting and I'll try to respond!

Over the weekend (Late thursday night till Late Sunday night) I was in Kapadokya or Cappadokia, Turkey (I'm not sure which is the "right" way to write it, but I've seen it both ways). The trip was planned by a couple graduates of the University and there lack of event planning was evident. From the start, the trip lacked order and structure. Not once, did the leaders introduce themselves or really give us a gameplan for what we were doing. The trip was made up of about 60 exchange students. It was awesome to meet and hang out with kids that I had yet to meet, and others that I had seen in classes, but hadn't had a chance to socialize with. We left from the dorm around 11pm on Thursday for the start of a 12 hour bus ride. I think the bus ride can be summarized quite simply as: brutal. After what seemed like an eternity we finally arrived at our hotel around 10am Friday. After dropping our stuff off we got back on the buses (Theme of the weekend = bus rides) to begin a day of sight seeing. Unfortunately, the weather was lousy; it was cold, rainy, and dreary. However, the region is still absolutely beautiful. I have new pictures up on shutterfly so check them out and you'll be able to get a glimpse of how pretty the region is. Friday morning we visited several historical sites of the region and had a lunch at a restaurant that catered to large tour groups. It was buffet style and had some really good Turkish food and desserts. After lunch we visited a pottery factory where we watched as one of the workers showed us how they create the pottery pieces that you can see in the pictures. Next, we went and hiked/walked around the fairy chimneys (large rock-like formations, similar to something seen in Arizona... check them out on wikipedia to get a better idea of what they are). Unfortunately, we were supposed to go and watch the sunset, but the weather was not cooperative and instead we went to a wine tasting. The wine-tasting was interesting as we only had the opportunity to taste two wines and then they tried to persuade us to purchase from their winery. It was interesting, but I'm still not entirely sure what the point was. I'm going to have to do some research to see if the region is known for their wine. After a buffet dinner at the hotel, we went to yet another tour bus haven for turkish cultural night. Basically a night of drinking, dancing, and belly dancing. It was fun, and cool to get a glimpse at the culture of Turkey. We finally made it to sleep at about 1 in the morning. I was beat, as I got very little sleep on the bus (lack of sleep also became a theme of the weekend).

On Saturday, we finally had a tour guide who accompanied us during the day and was able to tell us about the history of the sights we were visiting. Unfortunately, with a group as large as ours it was difficult to inform us of everything. It would have been nice to have learned more about the history of the region. Saturday was a little bit of better weather as it did not rain and the sun peeked through at times. In the morning, we visited the underground cities in the region. If I remember correctly, its believed that there are 36 cities below ground that are more than likely all connected together. Under normal circumstances, the people in this region would live in cave-like dwellings in the rocks, but when under attack they would live in cities deep underground for up to 6 months. Everything they needed would be underground and they would have no need to emerge until the invaders had been defeated or vacated the area. In the afternoon, we went to the Zelve Open Air Museum where we were able to go inside the cave dwellings where people once lived. After a buffet dinner at the hotel, we had a free night in the city center. The majority of us went to a large restaurant/bar where we were able to hang out, talk, and play backgammon (I'm not very good yet, but backgammon is very popular in Turkey).

We left the region Sunday afternoon and arrived back in Istanbul around 11:45pm. It was a long long trip, but overall it was a lot of fun. I'm going to start adding comments to some of the photos so you'll know what you're are looking at, but it might take a few days before its done.

Hope everyone is well... talk to you soon.

Love,

Brett