Back into Motion

And we are back, but first an update of retreat.

Retreat in Maine was a great end to the summer. One of the members of Mixed Company, my a capella group, has a few small guest houses on a lake and we spent the last few days of summer lounging about, singing, and catching one another up on all our summer adventures.  

ATVing it through the forests of Maine.

Lake swimming, paddle boating, sailing, and a variety of water sports.

Frogging! A few of the Gump went and caught frogs and we raced them.

Canadian Bowling,  Candlepins and smaller balls.  So much harder.

Maine pictures here.

After a long and well paced drive from Maine to Connecticut yesterday, I walked down York St. in New Haven with my backpack strapped on and luggage in tow. The homeless lady who always sells flowers on the corner by the Au Bon Pan smiled and welcomed me back. I passed the local coffee shop and recognized a few friendly faces in the window and ran in, luggage and all, to say hello. Last night was spent unpacking [aka throwing all my clothes on the floor], catching up with friends, and resettling myself. This school year is sure to be a crazy one. After an exciting summer, it is wonderful to be in a place where I won't be living out of my small carryon bag or carrying around a tourist map. I'm quickly slipping back into the pacing of Yale, scheduling meetings and meals left and right and running from place to place.

School and classes are starting up fairly soon and I'll be knee deep in work again. Perhaps I'll take the time to journal, but for the most part this blog has served its purpose. Thanks for those who've been following me with my adventures. I have plenty more stories that will have to be saved for when we meet up in person. Next year's goal for travel is Southeast Asia or a Spanish speaking country. Ideally an internship at an international company where I can work on my language skills as well. Perhaps a revisit to Vietnam? After all this was in part a revisit to Spain. 

Before I get ahead of myself with planning next summer, I have the whole year ahead of me. For now, I'm getting back into the swing of things: looking up classes, meeting up with friends, and buying school supplies. But before that I think I will work on the mountain of unpacking that needs to be done. 

My adventures continue, just not as international as before. Adios amigos.

WYD: Crammed subways, Riots

Just to give you a quick run down of what World Youth Days entailed, there were 2 million spirited Catholic youth from all over the world joined together in the city of Madrid. Normally when you think of a good, devout Catholic kid you think of children in private schools with pleated skirts and boys with khakis. That image was quickly banished when I walked onto a subway packed with screaming Portuguese boys all chanting. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of groups of students walking around in pleated skirts and full on private school attire. Some wore scarves and hats reminiscent of my outfit from Thieu Nhi Thanh Te [Vietnamese Catholic Youth Group similar to Boy Scouts but on Catholic steriods] back in middle school and elementary school. Herds of nuns wandered the streets in habits, and priests led big groups of youngsters from event to event. But upon closer inspection I noticed everyone had that sense of new age spunk.

Vietnamese Catechesis. Vietnamese youth from Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and a ton of other places came. (This picture was taken when it was half full). It was crazy to be around so many different people, yet be united by a Vietnamese language and culture.

Lisa and I went to a talk given by Christopher West on marriage. It was interesting. I think I enjoyed the sand artist more than the actual talk.

Crowded Subways and crazy kids with flags. We had to wait for 3 trains to pass one time because all the cars were filled to capacity.

Waiting to see the Pope arrive. Crowded streets, heat, and humidity made for some irritable Catholics.

Not everyone was pleased with the WYD. Riots broke out in Puerta del Sol and protestors were everywhere.  I can't say I didn't expect it. A man tried to argue with me on the subway after I took this picture, but unfortunately my Spanish wasn't good enough. I would've liked to talk to him about a few things.

French worship concert. Can't say I knew what they were saying, but their sign of the cross dance moves made it clear that they weren't dancing to French Ke$ha. 

Overall the experience was a fun one. The event wasn't as well organized as I would've hoped. We didn't get our packets with all of the information until a day into the conference, and apparently some groups had to wait 2-3 days for theirs. When we got a guide they only had them in Spanish. Thankfully we got by and were able to visit a few events. I'm really glad that Lisa and I got a few days in Madrid to ourselves because with WYD going on we didn't get much time to ourselves to go around and see Madrid as a city. 

My final night in Europe was spent sitting on the tiled floor outside of the sports center that we were staying at. I sat in a circle with two girls from Holland and a few of the kids from my Viet group and we talked and sang songs while I tried to teach one of the girls chords on the ukulele. You never know where life'll lead you.

Smokey bars and Early Morning Tram Cars

Written 8/16

 83 km/h Ext. Temp 28 C

           -reads the scrolling marquee on this train

We are on a train in our second leg of our journey out of Portugal and back into Madrid. 

Portugal started off rather poorly.  We groggily got off the train after an fitful night of rest and went to buy a ticket back to Madrid for the next day. We were supposed to meet Chi Linh Uyen and all the WYD crew in Madrid around 1pm. and were hoping for a time around then, but turns out Lisbon only has one  train to Madrid, the sleeper car. It was full for that night. However, I insisted that we needed to be back in Madrid and asked for alternate routes. The ticket person reluctantly did some searching and found that there was a way. 4 stations. 6:45am leave time and 10:00 arrival into Madrid. Great. Also this was after waiting an hour in line where a tiny old woman kept trying to cut and people kept yelling at her. He told us that we didn’t need reservations and mumbled something about it being free with our Eurail passes. No reservations? I don’t know about that… I asked him if we could just buy tickets anyway since I wanted to be sure that we didn’t get into trouble, especially if we needed to be there at 6:45, but he kept saying that we could do it in the morning. So we ended up buying ticket at the self service ticket machine.

Overnight trains for the win

After that headache we jumped on the metro, following Google Map’s instructions, in the direction of Francisco’s home. [Francisco is a friend of a friend and graciously opened up his home to us for the night that we were in Lisbon.] The directions were clear enough. Blue line, switch to the Yellow, ride that to Rato station and then walk down Rua de Lapa. We got to Rato fine, jumped off, but Rua de Lapa was nowhere to be found. We also weren’t equipped with a map since the tourism office wasn’t open yet. What ended up happening was another session of wandering, this time the streets of residential Lisbon, for around two and a half hours. We asked multiple people including policemen and security guards for directions but their attempts were either confusing or they didn’t know of the street. We did stop for food for a bit and talked to a really nice girl behind the counter with solid English skills. At one point we finally stopped and I just pulled out my laptop. Apparently Lisbon is doing a huge WiFi network thing and had a free 10 minute trial. I got walking directions, but it was all up hill, the humungous hill we just went down, so we found an alternate route using a public bus. We went to the stop and waited for 45 minutes. Lucky for us, a) Lisbon transportation is known to be horribly slow b) it was a national holiday so it was even slower. That also explains why it took us 2 hours to find a place to eat since all the stores were closed. We ended up abandoning that and walking up the hill. Still, Google map was difficult since Lisbon is full of small alleyways that are unlabeled or labeled poorly.

One of the parks we stopped at to rest our feet while lost.

Eventually we found the apartment and were greeted with pecks on the cheek by Theresa, Francisco’s mom. Apparently Francisco was out getting food. Theresa went into mom/tour guide-mode and sat us down with a map. She was shocked that we only had less than 24 hours to visit her city and insisted we go fast to see everything. She mapped it out for us, expanding history and little architectural facts about column work and tidbits of cool things. She had so much Portugal pride and everything seemed to link to Portugal’s travels. From their spices to their tiling, every aspect of Portugal was based off of their amazing travel experiences. Francisco came back and immediately we realized he was not his mother’s copy. His favorite music was rock. He dropped out of college and his job in another city to come home. No friends and socially awkward, but his mother made him do couch surfing in order to be less shy. She thought it would help. Throughout the day it was funny/awkward to see the angsty son/fussy mother relationship. We were able to shower and Theresa insisted that Francisco take us to our first area, Betlem. After much fussing he agreed. Fist we needed to get a new subway/train card for Lisa because she already lost it. Or it might’ve been me, so oh well. 

We went to the store to try and buy a new card/charge Francisco’s but all the stores were closed on account of the holiday. We went to the tram station instead but it was again close/super slow. We were able to meet three Australian kids who were on their way to Betlem as well and then flying out for World Youth Days. They seemed like a lot of fun and assured us that World Youth Days were a fun time. We abandoned the train and went to the train. Ran into more trouble while buying train tickets with the machine and so it ended up just having Lisa jump on the train ticketless. We luckily weren’t checked for tickets because the fine is a hefty 50 Euros.

Famous Pastries.

 Betlem was fun, we had their world-famous pastries, saw the monuments, went to the fine art museum and monastery and church of Jeronimo. Afterwards Lisa and I went to the main plaza in town—Francisco left us after the monument and before the museum—and walked around. Theresa had suggested that we go to the castle of Sao Jorge, but it seemed far and considering how poor our luck with public trans[stands]portation was, we opted not to try and figure it out instead we wandered from the main area into Chiada and to Barrio Alto, finally walking back to the house with the aid of Theresa’s map. 

Art Museum in Betlem

When we got back to the house we met the couch surfers who were staying with Francisco and Theresa. Theresa frequently hosts couch surfers, travelers who use couchsurfing.org in order to set up hosts with spare room in their homes. She has hosted over 300 surfers in the past year. Her visitors for that night were three French boys, Pierre, Raphael, and Sylvain, and a 23 year old boy from Columbia. I don't remember his name but he was nice and it was fun practicing my Spanish with someone. The French boys had been hitchhiking the past three weeks and this was their first couch surf.

 We helped Theresa prepare a delicious dinner, by cutting up vegetables and setting up the table. The meal she prepared came complete with a traditional Portuguese drink included red wine, prunes, sugar and cinnamon. She also made pasta with a mix spread of things and fruit salad. It was amazing and so great to have a sit down meal family style. French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese conversations were going on all around the table. Afterwards we helped with dishes and all walked to Barrio Alto for a Fado show. Fado is traditional Portuguese music and was heavily rejected in the 60s and 70s during the revolution by the hippy movement. They said that the Three Fs (Football, Fado and Fatima[the holy site is located an hour out of Lisbon]) were used by the government to placate the people. We went to an old tavern one where old men and women sang to us about forsaken love and heart break. The last singer was a woman who’s singing made me want to cry. The smoky bar was great, the singing was moving and it was another one of those moments when I just felt so incredibly lucky. 

Lisbon at night. 

This morning Theresa got up with us at 5:30 and took us to the train and watched us get in. She did not have to do any of that. Again lucky for us, because we probably wouldn’t have made it to the station alone. She left us the same way she greeted us, with a kiss on either cheek. So strange to think that such a small gesture carries so much kindness, at least in my mind. Theresa is a college professor teaching how to teach. Their house is outfitted for couch surfers complete with cute labels everywhere and a whole separate room with bathroom/supplies/laptops/music player. Perhaps one day I can do the same with my house. I only hope. Last leg of the trip now. Obviously writing on a train is not very easy re: handwriting, but alas the life of a traveler. We never told Chi Linh Uyen we were going to be late, I hope she doesn't flip. Oh well, we are safe, happy, healthy, so there is no need to worry.

Lisbon Album here

Madrid World Youth Days Album here

Madrid Round 1: Photos

Madrid Adventures

El Palacio Real

Picnicking in Plaza Mayor 

An Alexander Calder mobile, one of the few pieces I recognized in the Reina Sophia.

El Rastro. Flea market in La Latina. Genie pants galore.

Caixa Forum in Madrid. Home to an inspiring and touching exhibit on Haiti post-earthquake.

Rest of the Album here.

A bump in the road

Churros y Chocolate at San Gines, apparently the best in Madrid. Delicious

Written 8/14/11

Wow it has been a crazy ride. I’m currently in a sleeper car en route to Lisboa, Portugal. After running frantically to the train, we jumped aboard a mere two minutes before we were scheduled to leave. Thankfully it didn’t close the doors to some of the compartments even though they said all doors would be closed five minutes before leaving. We jumped into the first open car and walked to our seats horribly sweaty and on the receiving end of many raised eyebrows. So lucky.

We went to the Reina Sophia and I was thrilled to stumble upon some Dali.

For the most part, we’ve been incredibly lucky in all our travels, but yesterday we had a bit of a struggle when Lisa got her DSLR snatched. We were eating in 100 montaditos when it happened. There was a man sitting alone at the table behind Lisa. It was crowded so everything was all bunched up and his seat was by ours. We saw the water ask him if he wanted something a few times but he said no. We even scooted our table over a little bit to give him room. We saw him get up and leave and we were like aw he got stood up. About two minutes later, Lisa looked over and saw her camera was gone and ust said Oh my god he took my camera. She ran out of the restaurant fuming. Two girls nearby saw him pick it up but didn’t realize that it wasn’t his. They remembered what he looked like and I asked them details. I ran out to find Lisa and she was furiously running up and down the street saying she was going to punch someone in the face. She hadn’t backed up her pictures so all we had were the few she picked up from Paris and my camera. I don’t take nearly as many pictures as her though so that’s too bad. We found the police and I worked with Lisa to tell them what happened. The two girls also helped. Luckily they saw and spoke Spanish. Between the cops’ little English, my broken Spanish and the girls it was passable. We went to the police station and filed a report.

While we were there we managed to let off some steam. We had to wait a while in the police station for our turn we managed to step back and at least realize that no one got hurt and that we were still safe and shouldn't let it ruin our trip. We also met some cool guys from S. Korea, S. Africa, and Spain. They were traveling around Spain. The S. Korean guy got his wallet and iPhone 4 snatched out of his fanny pack while they were on the subway a week earlier but since they were traveling so much they didn’t have time to report it until then. They were really nice. The funny thing is that were in the La Latina district today for the Sunday flea market (which is absolutely huge and wonderful), when the S. African just walked up to us while we were sitting on a stoop eating sandwiches and said hi. It’s amazing the people that you can meet and run into even in a big city.

We also ran into our friend Mona Lisa at the flea market. We missed her in Paris, so I just had to get a picture.

Another person we’ve run into multiple times is Gael, a flyer-hander-outer for a club called Independence by Alonso Martinez Metro Stop. We've run into him two nights in a row. The first night it was raining and we ended up sitting on the street corner of Madrid hiding under some canopy eating oreos. Gael was handing out flyers and I invited him to sit and eat cookies with us and chat but he refused saying his boss would be very upset. I told him that a) it was raining and he was without a coat or a jacket b) his boss wasn’t there c) no one wanted to go clubbing/stay out they just all were looking for taxis. Hi didn’t listen but he at least took a few cookies and hwe had a semblance of a conversation with him by yelling across the streets. We had a better view around the corners than he did and would give him warnings when people were coming. At one point a woman and her two friends walked by. They each had an umbrella and when they saw how soaked he was they insisted that he take one of the umbrellas. People are so amazing.

The next night we ended up on his corner again without planning on it. He was super nice and remembered us. I kept telling him it was fate and that we were destined to be friends now. In reality, his corner was on the street our hostel was on so it wasn’t that big of a coincidence. He still had to work and hand out flyers but we talked more. He works three jobs and doesn’t have time for school. He was great. Got his facebook and tried to add him later hopefully he accepts. We ended up going to his club. It was fun, but not my type of music. Rock, classic rock. Not totally danceable but we definitely gave it a good shot. People inside were fun but definitely not as crazy as Lisa and me.

Had a quick run through El Prado to see Goya's Dark Paintings. It was too crowded/tiring to spend the entire afternoon at.

            Life is good. Crazy, but good. Tomorrow will be fun. Today was fun. Bummed about the camera still but oh well. Life goes on. “Money is not important.” Direct quote from my Turkish leather friend. Lisbon will be a new adventure and our final days before joining the World Youth Day troupe. From what I've heard, Lisbon is even better than Madrid. We shall see.

Stateside!

I definitely fell out of step with my one post every three days rule. This was mostly due to lack of time/internet connection, but I also have a lot to process. I'm now back in the good ol' US of A and waiting in the Boston airport for my friend who is arriving in an hour from Greece. I'll spend the next two nights at his house before heading up to Maine for Mixed Company's Rush Retreat. In those two days I have a lot to catch up on so watch out for massive amounts of blog entries. Luckily I was able to keep track of things in my leather journal. 20 pages of writing need to be transferred into electronic form and supplemented with pictures. I've been recording this trip on a variety of different mediums. This blog for one, but also a physical journal with written thoughts on life, notes about museums, notes about tourist/local attractions to visit, and also taped receipts/ticket stubs/hostel cards. On top of those two I also have two running word documents full of random thoughts and the Facebook Albums. POSTERITY. This has been a trip of several lifetimes, in the words of a friend and fellow student from Turkey, and I need to remember all of it. Apologies in advanced for the upcoming long posts, but sharing is caring so they say.

A few pictures from Barcelona that I forgot to upload before.

Oh nightlife. 

Picasso Museum.

Beach Trip to Sitges! 

Clothing optional beaches are always interesting.

Soy feliz

Our last night in Barcelona, Lisa and I ended up wandering through Barcelona streets near the water. At one point we passed a man who was singing a song that I can only assume is called Soy Feliz because it was the repeated line throughout. Armed with his guitar and a microphone, the street singer seemed to capture my life in a single phrase. Soy feliz, not estoy, the temporary and fleeting happiness that comes from mere moments, but ser. Life is happy if you let it be.

Barcelona provided a whole set of adventures. Our first few hours were spent wandering La Rambla, the big main touristy street of Barcelona, with our suitcases in tow going from hostel to hostel asking if people had double rooms open for the night. After visiting 6+ hostels and stealing internet in a McDonalds by picking up a random receipt off of a table, we finally gave in to our weary legs and settled for proximity over higher rates. We did a quick run around of La Sagrada and Park Guell, meeting up with a girl from Brazil at Park Guell who was wandering around alone and decided to take on to us.

Our second day in Barcelona we hit up the Picasso Museum and then zipped [by which I mean grudgingly got redirected multiple times] to Sitges, the nearby beach town for the day. It was great to get out on the sand and relax in the beautiful ocean for the day. Sitges is an adorable area full of fun cute shops and interesting beaches. Hopefully I'll come back again some day. I never thought I'd be visiting La Sagrada again so soon after the P2P trip in high school, but it was great to reminisce and come full circle in Park Guell and think about how far I've come since that summer before high school. I've definitely changed and grown a lot as a person, but I still have a long way to go. In the meantime, life is good and soy feliz.


Photos:

Paris

Lyon

Barcelona

French Babies

Lyon was incredible. Lisa and I were able to meet up with locals both nights and hear some crazy stories. Never did I imagine that I'd be on a boat drinking cidre and talking about how diverse America is with people from Syria, Hungary, Afghanistan, Ukraine, England, Uruguay, Bolivia and of course France. Lyon was definitely incredible, both for the experiences we had and for its history. We were able to travel into the old part of town and explore through winding streets and small corridors. In the afternoon spent an hour or so in the Lumiere Brothers' home, now turned into a museum to celebrate the birth of cinema, and visited the HUGE Parc de la Tete d'Or, which houses a zoo with reindeer and giraffes even.

We are now in Barcelona. I managed to finish my final paper on the train rides over (Yes that one that was due last Saturday...I got permission to turn it in late no worries) and we found a hostel right off the side of La Rambla, Barcelona's big street. Yesterday we did Park Guell and Sagrada Familia and experienced a bit of night life. Today the schedule is more exploring and BEACH!

Let’s get together and feel alright.

Our last day in Istanbul was spend leisurely writing our papers in the carpet shop 

To be honest, my first impressions of Paris were not the best. After arriving into Paris, my sister and I lugged luggage onto the train and headed on the hour-long journey aboard trains and multiple metro lines to our hotel. Our hotel may have just been located in a shady part of town, but we were surprised to find Paris so dirty. Trash was strewn all over and it seemed like more people spoke English in Istanbul than Paris. Luckily the next two days worked to change my mind. Though we are running on a tight budget, we’ve been able to get a great sampling of French food. We’ve been eating éclairs, crepes, fo goie, baguettes, delicious cheeses and of course we’ve had a taste of French wine. Granted our meals haven’t been totally well balanced—éclairs for brunch and crepes for dinner—but we are definitely enjoying our time here. Paris is lovely and full of places to wander. Yesterday we stumbled on this installation of beach type areas along the Sienne, Groups of people were playing bocce ball on sanded courts that were set up along the river. We watched for a little before the rain chased us away.  We also had the good luck of being in Paris on the first Sunday of the month, during which a good number of museums are free. Unfortunately the line for the Lourve scared us away, and so we went to d'Orsay Museum instead, which was much less of a wait. 

The Lourve!

A market that Lisa and I stumbled upon near Bastille.

How are the French not morbidly obese?

Pilgrims going to Mecca, by Leon Belly. One of my favorite paints we saw in d'Orsay.

 Now we are headed to Lyon, a city in central France. Apparently it's the birthplace of cinema. There is a huge festival of lights in December that it is known for and one of my good friends from the Turkey trip studied there for a year. Luckily we figured out the rail system and everything without too many troubles. Late planning makes for late fees, which make for quickly diminished budgets. More éclairs for breakfast! The new schedule is Lyon, then Barcelona, then Madrid, and Lisbon. It’s going to be a lot of travelling in little time, but we’re busy researching places to go and things to eat so all should be good.  

Miles to go.

My time in Turkey is finally coming to a close, and parting is so bittersweet. I've had an incredible time in Turkey. From the village to the ruins to the excavation itself, I've had the chance to experience so much here. The culture and the people are incredible and I'm always finding more adventures around the corner. I'm definitely coming back to Turkey at some point in the future. Perhaps our temple will be restored by the time I make it back. This has been the longest time that I've spent in a country outside of the US without my family. It's been wonderful just having the freedom to wander and do as I please. Tomorrow I'm taking a 5:30am shuttle to the airport. I'll be stopping in London and then meeting my sister for our plane to Paris. From there we go where the wind takes us, or where our wallets allow us rather. In the meantime, I'm back on the terrace with my beyaz sez şerap. Cheers to the sultan. It's been wonderful.

Full Circle

We've arrived back in Istanbul for our final days of the program. I'm back in the same hotel in the same room with the same sense of wonder and amazement.

 After going to Side(see-day) and Antalya for a small trip last weekend, we came back to Gazipaşa for a final day of digging.

Side and Antalya were both amazing places to visit. Side blends in the surrounding ruins directly into the tourist life. When we arrived on Friday night, we drove down column lined streets and under ancient archways. That night we walked down to the beach for a dip in the Mediterranean and then later got a taste of Side night life. We meandered through the temples of Apollo and Athena on the way to a night club. I can only imagine what ancient Romans would think if they knew that a karaoke bar now exists amid their grand columns. Perge and Aspendos ( which I mistakenly heard as asparagus) were both fantastic. In Aspendos, we were able to sing on the stage of the gorgeous stone theatre that is still being used for various performances throughout the year. The acoustics were incredible, and it's amazing to think that mankind was capable of such an engineering feat.

Helen sings an aria for us. Words don't matter.

Side and Antalya pictures here and Gazipaşa pictures here. 

The dig portion of the trip is now over. Over the past two weeks I've learned a lot about archaeology. I got to try my hand at surveying, pottery drawing, and a myriad of other tasks associated with the field. Above all these, of course, was the actual digging. The experience was definitely exhausting, but heartily fulfilling. After an entire day of dirt moving, there is no better feeling than standing in the shower and watching as a pool of mud forms around your feet. Archaeology really makes you appreciate the small things: dumping a wheelbarrow full of freshly dug dirt, straight profiles with evidence of stratification, soap. I can't say that I can see myself switching my major any time soon, (though some of us have been converted) but I'm so glad to have had the experience.

My final days in Istanbul will be spent hitting last minute tourist sites, buying souvenir gifts, doing catchup work for Mixed Company in preparation for the upcoming fall, and of course writing my final paper for the class. I've decided to write about tourism and its impact on the physical and social landscape of different areas of Turkey. From the miles of beach clubs in Alanya to the cave hotels of Cappadocia, tourism's touch on the landscape is ubiquitous. Some places have done a better job than others at integrating the modern and ancient world. The social aspects of tourism are not as easy to spot, but still definitely exist, as evidenced by shrinking villages and growing rates of literacy and multilingualism. I'm excited to research more, but the more time I spend inside the less time I have to do my final rounds of the city.

Lisa and I are also busy deciding on our travels for after Friday. We have a hostel booked in Paris for 3 nights, but other than that we are free until the 15th. Any suggestions for places to visit? We are bouncing around Brussels, Amsterdam, Portugal, Luxembourg and Spain, but as of now we are essentially wandering Europe with suitcases in tow. It's bound to be an adventure.

Şerap, Shut up, Şerap: Photos from the Weekend.

Title explanation: One day while at the excavation, Erkan, on of the Turkish students, well telling some of us the types of alcohol that he liked [We have deep conversations in our trenches]. At one point he told us shut up, to which my snarky Nebraskan friend Alex replied no YOU SHUT UP. The exchange turned into a Turkish "Who's on first?" before we realized that şerap, pronounced sha-rap, is the word for wine.

 Brilliant.

The city of Side, where the ancient and modern worlds collide.

Helen pretends to be a statue.

Oh look a theater. We took turns singing solos in the middle of the stage. Absolutely fantastic.

Antalya Museum. One of my favorite museums I've been to here.

Hermes

Karain Cave, a Paleolithic archaeological site.

Archaeology students at the cave site doing water-sieving.