Last night in Antalya

My adventure here in Turkey has come to an end. Since I have been working every day since getting here, I haven't really had time to tour the city, and neither had the franchise group managers. Being that it is our last night, we realized it was now or never so agreed to be ready to go at 7:30pm and we were going to head to "Kaleci"- or "Inside the Castle". Come to find out the Emperor Hadrian built a castle on the cliffs of the sea here in 130AD. This part of the city has crazy tiny streets that our cab barely fit down, and very steep. We walked around the old town for a while, and finally got to the seaside just before sunset which is where we got some great photos. Dinner was at a restaurant called Amara which was right on the cliffs of the Mediteranean. The other picture is of the hotel Lobby. It is painted all white and then they use red light covers and the entire place looks red and the gigantic disco balls make the whole place shimmer. Pretty cool.

Hotel, Hillside Su

Well I am here in Antalya, Turkey after having spent my week in Istanbul. We are finally branching out to the smaller cities in Turkey, and our first store is in Antalya. Again, I came in with my ideas of what the city was going to look like, and of course, I was totally wrong :-) The city is huge, and very densely populated. Most of the buildings are 5-8 stories high, there are lots of malls, and tons of hotels. This city is a hot spot for Russians, and Northern Europeans who want to get some sun. The business partner here told me I had booked the wrong hotel, and that I needed to stay at the Hillside Su because they were all supposedly staying there. My last night in Istanbul we all went out for dinner and a few drinks in they tell me they are not staying there, but they didn't want me to see where they were staying because it was horrible, so they told me the best hotel, and right down from the mall. They are so nice, but then I felt like a heal. The entire hotel is white. White white white white white. And- it's a couples resort! ;-0 LOL I quickly realized this by the couples everywhere, like a Club Med, the mirrors all over the bedroom, the kingsize bed on the balcony, and the fact that there are 5 bars here, and two pools, and nightclubs with themed evening events on site! It was funny when I ordered room service the first day in- the guy came in, looked around my room, looked at my one suitcase, looked at me, and set the tray down and walked out! LOL I mean, (laughing) he was so confused like "why the heck is there a single dude here?" On the plus side, my room is pretty sweet, and there is an amazing Sushi bar downstairs which I had the most life changing Vegi and Maki rolls tonight. Pictures attached are of my room, and the view from the balcony.

Istanbul in Summer 3

So these were my partners in crime- Selin, Marc, and me- thank goodness for that traffic jam, or we wouldn't have had this fabulous afternoon!

Istanbul in Summer 2

Istanbul in Summer

As I am continuing my month long blitz around my market, I am finally to Istanbul. My first moments here I was thrilled- finally cooler, wonderful hotel, a great business group to deal with, and an historic old City. But then funny thing- it's in the 90's here and humid- yuck. And then I started to notice all the people at the intersections trying to sell kleenex's packs, and flowers, and even pens. So this means: I'm not a tourist anymore. :-( I have been here so much that I have lost my "everything in this city is wonderful" perspective, and now, it is another city I do business in. Awe. It made me sad when I realized this, and then it got worse because I started to notice all the children trying to sell me Kleenex packages, and following me begging me to help them. It was heartbreaking until I realized that they have been taught their whole life how to solicit and heckle the tourists. We were driving down the highway today to cross over to the Asia side of Istanbul, when we started seeing all these cars backing up the hill we were going down, and we were so shocked- like "what are these crazy people backing up the..." (as our driver throw's it in reverse and we start backing up the hill as well!!!!!) We looked ahead and saw a sea of stopped cars. There had been an accident on the bridge so traffic was gridlocked. We literally had to back up for over 2 miles in reverse! Which our driver did like it was nothing, so this must happen all the time here. Then the director from the franchise group was like "we'll just take a water taxi over", so we drove down to the Bosphorous strait and no luck- all the taxi's were booked for hours. So what could we do??? Well how bout we just ditch work and take a cruise around the Bosphorous (the Turkish Business Partner suggested it), so that is what we did. AND BOY- It sure beats working! :-) Attached are pictures of our trip around the strait- 1 hr, cool breeze, amazing views- and the best part; I got back my love for the city!

Dead Sea

To end my long day of all the sight seeing I ended the day at the Dead Sea. If anyone ever does this, after walking back from the River Jordan to the car, you will want to be hosed down cause it is HOT in Jordan in the summer! I could not wait to get into the water. There are good hotels on the coast that you can pay a day fee and use their pool and beach (just like in Dubai) or you can go to the public beach. This has two really nice resort-esq pools, changing rooms, showers, and a bar for soda and water. BTW I dont think I've mentioned this yet, but you have to pay for everything at these sites- pay to enter the church, pay to enter the site, pay to get into the group to get through the Security zone, and so on. After all that you hear about the dead sea, and the special mud, I assumed the sea was going to be a swampy muddy gross experience, but happily it was not. After recapping all these experiences, I have a very overactive imagination- which does not ever turn out to be the way it really is :-) The Dead Sea is just like a normal lake, clean water, golden sandy bottom, with some salt beds on the shore. The water salinity is really cool though, I went to lay on my back and the moment I leaned back, my legs popped right up! You really do only float about 2" deep into the water! But otherwise, it is like swimming in a normal lake. They have buckets of mud sitting on the shores and people were lathering up with them, but I decided to buy the dead sea products and try it home.

So that was my day! SO MUCH sightseeing, but it was just what I've wanted to see since I moved over here!

Baptism Site

When I heard that I could go the actual baptism site of Jesus, I immediately thought of the movie the ten commandments and the river, and the whole scene. It was an incredible image- in my head. LOL Unfortunately, the River Jordan has dropped in water level significantly since there was a dam built on the outflow of the Sea of Galilee, so the river doesn't even make it to the site outside of the winter rainy months. So what I saw looked very sad- it is the picture of the large puddle of water with the stone foundation thing next to it. Yep. So that was dissapointing. The site is not actually a "drive up" site. You park about 1/2 mile away, and walk in groups into "the military zone". That's right, military zone. With real armed security personnel. This area is very hot- not only in temperature, but also politically. This is the zone where both Isreal and Palestine claim to own the land, and really it's on Jordan's land, so there is army guys everywhere. Seeing the River Jordan was cool though. To think this is the real river that flows from the Sea of Galilee through Israel since the time of Jesus was amazing. Once I got to the river, which again, is another walk beyond the baptism site, you see these willow awnings, kindof shanty looking buildings, then you look across the river and there is a MASSIVE stone complex with the banks of the river all terraced and landscaped. That complex is built on Palestine side. This was another moment where I realized that I am on the Islamic side of the river- shanty's made of willow branches. I was literally across the small river from Palestine. If you look at the picture of the women in the water, they were a religous group and they were getting baptized. The River Jordan, seeing the people getting baptized, and realizing where I was became a moment for me, then the women started seeing- really beautiful singing, and I had a moment. It was wonderful.

Mt Nebo and area

Mt.Nebo, Jordan

Last week I finally got back to Jordan and it was finally not raining or snowing, so I was able to spend a day sight seeing. I got the same driver as before and we talked through the agenda and there is SO much to see just on the outskirts of Amman! I wanted to see the Dead Sea for sure, then there was the town of Madaba where all the churches have intricate mosaics made from stones. And my driver was like "oh do you want to go see where Jesus was baptized?" ???@!!!! Really- did I want to see it? Was he serious? Of course I did. So we ended up on the road for over 6hrs but it was so worth it. Madaba was our first stop. It is a local town, with no buildings over 2 stories. The churches were nice, but after seeing the Hagia Sophia and the White and Blue Mosques, they seemed very small and not as impressive to me. So I had to change my mindset- these were churches built in the first centuries, and these mosaics survived over a thousand years, and these were small towns, etc, etc, I tried to wrap my head around all the history of it, and it worked- kindof. Next we drove up and up and up into the mountains to see Mt.Nebo. The site is very famous, mentioned in both the Bible and the Torah, and lots of connections to Moses. There was a monastery and basilica built on the site in the 4th century, so more mosaics, and the monastery was a very large complex which is mentioned in many illuminated manuscripts. The odd thing when I was there, the mosaics from the floor of the basilica had been razed and put outside under a tent. The site of the basilica not had what looked like a modern day pole barn construction on it, and the church was no where to be found. My driver told me "Oh yeah, they tore down the old one and they're building a new church there. !!! What? I can not believe they just tore down the 4th century church because they want a better one with a tourist center! NOW; Not to get political or religious- but this was kind of a re-occuring theme throughout my day. All these Christian sites are not in modern day Jordan, which is a Islamic country, and as I was touring these sites I got the feeling that they really don't care so much about these places as it is not their "holiest of holy" sites like if it was Mecca. The BEST part of my trip to Mt.Nebo was the views. O.M.Goodness, the views. From Mt.Nebo, Moses showed his people the promise land, and you can see for miles. The heights, and depths, and mountains... my pictures can not even begin to show you. It felt like I was dreaming because it was just barren and so massive for as long and far as I could see. Completely breathtaking. A great memory.

More Palm Springs Pics

Here are a few more pictures from Palm Springs. It was so great! Really a place that I would go back too. It only has 2 main street's, both 1-ways going in each direction that almost all the cool places are on. The one thing we didnt' get to do was gamble, which my Grandma had told me it was good there. Oh well, something do the next time :-)

Finally back to 'normal'

Well this feels weird to be blogging again after almost two months! I went back to the US the end of May for a week of meetings, had 4 days with my family, and then a week in Palm Springs with Daniel and his friends. All in all it was 18 days in the US. I came back to Dubai refreshed and feeling great, albeit homesick when I got off the plane. Being out of my market for 18 days, put me behind about 30 days, not that my business was bad, but there is just so much to do over here that if I'm gone for even a week, it becomes frantic when I come back. But I am happy to say all is back to normal now. Before I start back up blogging I have to say I had a great time in the US. Having a week in Columbus was refreshing, and my time with the family was as always great. My big news was the vacation time I got in Palm Springs, CA. I wouldn't have ever thought it would be a place I would go, and neither did any one else that I went with- so it was perfect. A new experience for everyone. The house Daniel rented was amazing. Contemporary, gorgeous, with a pool, and quiet/ but close to downtown. The city was fun, lots of bars, boutiques, and great restaurants. Also, when we were there it was "restaurant week" so every place had a special 3-course meal for $24 or $30 so I ended up having filet mignon every night for 4 nights, and it was heaven! I also didn't know that it was desert and mountains in the same city. So one day we took the tram up to the top of the mountains and it was unbelievable! The tram ride was a bit "ehhh". It is very steep and very fast, takes 10 minutes to go up, and it's just, 60 people, a cable, in a box going up 6,000 feet. But the views at the top were unreal. It was also 30 degrees cooler on the mountaintop, and the vegetation and trees- it was like we were in Canada! The other part of the time in the US was the flights. Over 18 days I was on 11 different fights: Dubai-washington dc. DC to columbus columbus to cleveland cleveland to grand rapids grand rapids to chicago chicago to denver denver to palm springs palm springs to denver denver to columbus columbus to washington dc washington dc to dubai. Best part of all that travel was that I flew United the whole time so my points exploded! And I got my upcoming flight to Amsterdam for free! Love United. Attached are pictures from the house, and the mountains in Palm Springs. Such a good time- friends, shopping, time with Daniel, and I got a tan. :-)