Walkabouts

Turkey...
The Next Three Days...
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...

Tuesday:
Isaac and I took a serious walkabout around Izmir. Aunt Sandy had suggested multiple sites around the city for us to hit up, so we took the whole day out to do just that. We walked almost literally all over Izmir (though we did cheat and take the bus some, and we also...but I'm getting ahead of myself). We started by mozying (in every sense of the word) through Goztepe park (a nice area not far from our house) towards the harbor, via the Awesome Elevator. This AE happened to be a random elevator that transports people up and down the cliff side of Izmir. It wasn't necessarily a spectacular elevator (though it did have a good view of the bay), it was just quaintly interesting to have such a thing stuck to the side of a hill. But we moved on from there without spending too much time dawdling, so I should do the same here. We hit up the bay (though not literally, as the water seems to have a reputation for being incredibly disgusting...), got some pictures of a cool clock tower, and moved on to one of the better known shopping districts in Izmir (which I have forgotten the name of). Despite some tempting finds, I decided to side (for once) with my better judgment and made very few purchases there (read zero)... at least this time. And then the fun really started. We stopped to eat lunch at this cool little restaurant that had all the employees dressed up in traditional (old fashioned) Turkish garbs and had really good food. Isaac asked for the "receipt" instead of the "bill" (in Turkish of course) and was kicking himself the rest of the day for it (I just kept laughing). And we walked. We walked and walked. And walked some more. We ended up walking the entire distance to the ferry (which are always fun; the sea spray and wind in your hair and all that) which we took across the bay, then walked (and bussed a little, sorry to admit; though it was only because we started walking the wrong direction...) to the next ferry and took it back across. Such fun! (I really do get a kick out of water travel.) From there we wandered by means of our feet and buses (still) in a very roundabout way to finally arrive back home after a full day.
(p.s. I had major stomach cramps the entire time, which most definitely alleviated the fun, but could not destroy it, hahaha!)

Wednesday:
The whole family took a short trip driving around Izmir, seeing the sites. We saw a pretty cool ruined castle of Roman make which was named "velvet" (no clue why), and wandered around in that for a bit. Then we drove on to a different little area that was being excavated. From ground level, it really didn't look like much, but then you go underneath the row of arches sticking up and there was a whole expanse of rooms that were simply beautiful. And then it was home and chilling for the rest of the day. Good stuff.
(p.s. I definitely have a good collection of poop stories. Probably not a good thing, but, you know. I can't exactly help it... But anyway, I discovered on Wed. what was troubling my stomach so much while walking around the day prior, and quite by accident. My tum had never really stopped hurting, and I had been passing a lot of gas, kind of as a side effect. And as I was doing thus, standing on top of the castle with a wondrous view of the city and bay...a little more than air came out. I beat a hasty retreat to the nearest restroom and did not come out for a while. (My underwear did not exit with me.) I hit up the toilets three or four other times that day. But you probably don't need to hear anymore. So we move on.)

Thursday:
Thursday was a very relaxing day. It was possibly the first day of the trip (or at least in a goodly while) that we didn't have sightseeing plans. (It was also my first day without stomach issues in multiple days, which was wondrous indeed.) And so Isaac and myself met up with one of our friends and tore up the bowling alley (in my case almost literally; I chipped the ball twice...). We then proceeded to the mall next to the alley for a completely pointless, but still fun time doing nothing there. Then we capped it off by all heading back to our house and watching Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events (Jim Carrey cracks me up so much in that movie). Good times.

And so I must leave you until my next post (which will be started in just a couple of minutes, actually).
-Nic


p.s. That post was written over a five day period... Yikes!