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.