Results tagged “Sleep” from Turkey 2014

Day 13-14, Wednesday-Thursday 21-22 May

Another fairly early morning for our last day. Had breakfast then out the door at 7am.

I got a window seat for our flight back to Istanbul. Our group took up the whole last three rows of the plane.

At Istanbul we had a little time to wait before we could check into our next flight. After checking in I spent the last of our Lira on some snacks to keep us going until our next meal on the plane.

I watched The Lego Movie on the plane, because Everything Is Awesome!

There was a yukky long line to get through security between flights in Abu Dhabi, so we ended up with not to long to wait for the last flight.

On the plane we were seated next to an Irish guy who was living in Sydney, and he was playing 4096 (5x5!!) on his iPad. But the plane was only half full, so everyone rearranged themselves to make use of the available space. So mum and I got the three seats to ourselves which was nice.

I watched About Time at the beginning of the flight over dinner. Quite a sweet movie, I enjoyed it. Then dozed for quite a while. Later on I watched Rio which was a bit silly but not too bad.  I liked the detail they put into the parrot movement - it looked very realistic in places.  And then I watched Shakespeare in Love but missed the very end because we were landing.

The e-passport machine didn't work for some reason, so had a short wait to get through passport control. But a girl from customs came through while we were in line, so getting through customs was a breeze after we got our bags.

Took the train back to mum's. I was actually feeling ok (it was about 1pm Turkey time) so I decided to drive home that night so I could see my sweetie. I was pretty tired around Lake George but made it home safely just before midnight (35 hours after leaving the hotel in Turkey).

So all in all a great trip. Saw lots of cool stuff and took 7756 photos! (mum took 1388).

Day 12, Tuesday 20 May

3:56am. Wake up call.

But totally totally worth it!! We went on a hot air balloon over Cappodocia!!

We got picked up at 4:30am and taken for a breakfast that was pretty *meh* - the hot food was barely luke warm. Then they drove us out to the launch site past *lots* of other balloons that were already being inflated or taking off. We got to ours as it was nearly inflated so only had a minute or two to wait before hopping on. I learnt my lesson from my ride in Canberra, and knew which side of the balloon to be on. And it was *epic awesome* !! Absolutely fabulous. A much better experience than my Canberra ride. I might have accidentally taken over three hundred photos. Twice our pilot dropped right into canyons to get right up close to the trees and rocks. It was soooo cool! Loved it loved it loved it.

When we came in to land, our pilot and the support car maneuvered themselves so that we dropped the basket right onto the trailer! We thought that was totally amazing.

After we got off we had some champagne and were given medals to commemorate the occasion. Everyone was raving about how wonderful it was. Certainly a highlight of the trip.

Then we headed back to the hotel for a bit more breakfast.

Headed out again, this time to the Underground City. This was another amazing place. A complete maze of rooms and tunnels that people used to live in.

But I was getting super super frustrated with my camera.  Since near the beginning of the trip it's been having problems focussing, mostly when at full wide angle.  I don't know if it's the lens or the camera, but it was very upsetting.  In the dark in the Underground City it was especially bad, having trouble focussing at all :(

From there we did a tour of a number of photogenic locations to look at the various rocks and rock houses.

We had lunch at a restaurant near the river. The soup was a bit bland but the salad was really nice and the rest of the food pretty good too.

After lunch we went to a ceramic museum and gallery and a few of us bought some very pretty things.

Then a few more photo stops before returning to the hotel.

After downloading the majority of the day's photos, we went and had a drink with some others before dinner.

Then it was time to finish organising our luggage repacking before bed.

Day 11, Monday 19 May

Had another decent night's sleep.

Breakfast was ok but nothing special.

Our first mission of the day was the Grand Bazaar. Oohhh boy! I was expecting a Japanese-style line of shops with maybe a side street or two. But no, this was a *maze*!! We tried to keep our bearings and mostly did, and only got slightly lost once, but I'd taken a screen shot of our gps location on the phone before we started so was easy enough to find our way back to that. Fun times.

Then we headed out to the airport in almost an exact rerun of a week ago. Except this time we flew to Cappodocia. Robert very nicely swapped seats with me so I could have a window seat :):):) Quite a short flight really.

Got picked up in a new midi-bus and driven to Goreme through some very pretty countryside.

In Goreme we went to the Goreme Open Air Museum, which was part Bryce Canyon, part The Pinnacles, part Petra. An amazing place. Wandered through all the holes that we could.

Then a stop to look back down on the valley before heading for the hotel.

The hotel is pretty nice, and the spread of food is one of the best we've had this trip.

Day 10, Sunday 18 May

Last night I dragged mum outside before bed to show her the big dipper and north star, which she'd never seen before. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I went to check on it, and sure enough, things were where I thought they'd be :)

Slept pretty well again. I've generally been sleeping very well this trip which is great. Hand still keeps going to sleep even after barely any computer/mouse usage for a week.

Got scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning which was a nice change.

Headed off quite early and caught a ferry across from Canakkale to Eceabat and then continued across the Gallipoli peninsula. We made quite a few stops around the place, including Brighton Beach, Anzac Cove, the Sphynx, the cemetery at Shrapnel Valley, walked up to Plugge's Plateau, Lone Pine, some of the Australian trenches, Johnston's Jolly, the top of the Sphynx, Walker's Ridge, The Nek, and Chunuk Bair. It was a great experience to see where everything happened, and it seems madness to have chosen that spot for an invasion.

From there we headed back to Eceabat for lunch.

Then it was a long afternoon of driving back to Istanbul.

Dinner at the hotel wasn't too bad, then back to do photos and recharge devices.

Day 8, Friday 16 May

So we got to sleep in today! Til 6am!

Usual meh breakfast, then out the door at 8am.

Drove into the countryside for several hours.

The first stop was Akhisar (Thyateria), one of the seven churches in Revelation. It's in the middle of a city block and there's not much to see there.

Then more driving. We were stopped in the town of Soma because they were worried about protestors coming into the city. They let us pass because we were tourists, but we had to go around the outskirts of town. Every road in was blocked by police. We also killed a swallow that flew in front of the coach, that was pretty sad :(

Had a pretty decent lunch in Bergama.

Then took a cable car to the top of the hill to see the fortress and remains of Pergamon. Another cool ancient city that we didn't have nearly enough time to fully explore.

Then down to the bottom of the mountain to see Asklepion.

And finally some more driving to our hotel in Assos. Yet another hotel that doesn't provide tissues. Bah. The view is lovely, but the safe is locked shut (same problem as last hotel), and wifi requires a password in the rooms which I couldn't be stuffed trying to find out. It doesn't seem to need it in the lobby, however it doesn't really work there. Yay. The pools are also empty at the moment, don't know what's up with that. There's an indoor pool, but it closes at 5pm. There's also dozens of school kids here on some sort of school or youth tour. So they are pretty noisy and made dinner .. challenging ..

I finished my book I brought today which is a bit of a disaster.

At least my cold is more betterer. Just a bit of a sniffle and a cough, but not as much runny nose as yesterday.

Yet another late dinner. Yet another late finishing night :(

Day 7 - Patmos

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Day 7, Thursday 15 May

So another stoopid o'clock wake up this morning. 4:20 this time to be on the bus by 5:45.

The hotel did nicely put on breakfast for us, but it was pretty average.

Only a short trip on the bus - to the wharf to take a boat to Patmos! We were told the trip would take three hours.

It took five.

Yah.

It was quite blustery on the top deck so only stayed up long enough to get some departing photos of Kusadasi. Then spent the rest of the trip either taking photos, talking to people or playing on my phone.

We got to Patmos island a bit after 11am, whereupon it was decided that we *needed* a tea break. And it was true, we did, but it did take nearly an hour out of our very very short time on the island. The cafe was in a lovely setting overlooking Patmos, but they were a bit unorganised and forgot to bring out mum's and my food. Until everyone else was finished. So that was all a bit stressful (and expensive - $28 USD for two orange juices and two cakes).

So it's now after 12pm.

We raced up to the Monastery of St John, arriving about 12:25pm. Then we stood outside while our guide talked us through some things, then had a brief look inside the church (no photos allowed), and super fast walk through the museum, and very quick look at the terraces area and then it was time to go.

Headed down the hill again to the Cave of the Apocalypse, which tradition has it is where John used to pray and where he dictated the book of Revelation. So we all hiked down the stairs to that (which had a church built on top of it, of course), had ten minutes or so of the guide talking, then back out again.

Lunch was a bit before 2pm (see why we needed that pitstop earlier?). There was some salad and a moussaka which was quite nice.

Then 2:45pm and we were back on the boat again.

For a four and a half hour trip back to Kusadasi. This time I mostly played on my phone and read my book.

Mum and I walked up the hill from the dock, as we'd been sitting around all day and felt like we *needed* some exercise.

Went straight to dinner, a very uninspiring affair. Apart from the lamb kebab meat two nights ago, the food here has been generally uninspiring.

Now doing photo and blogging type stuff.

Day 5, Tuesday 13 May

Last night I was a complete zombie after having been up since 3:15am. I really wasn't functioning properly at all, so only typed up a blog entry and recharged a few things, didn't download any photos, so had to do that this morning. Didn't have time to finish copying everything to usb sticks though. I think I slept reasonably well though, and didn't get woken up by the 4:45am call to prayer.

Didn't eat too much breakfast (there was a *huge* spread of food again, but strangely not all that much really appealed).

Our first stop of the day was Laodicea, an ancient town that has only been excavated in the past ten years. We strolled down collonaded streets, visited the temple, was impressed with theatres that have basically been untouched since they were uncovered and peeked in at the church and mosaics etc that they've been gradually unearthing. Very cool place.

Then we headed off on a longish drive through some very pretty countryside, and kept passing/being passed by a friendly truckie who waved and smiled back when I had waved earlier, which was pretty fun.

We had lunch in another restaurant much like the one yesterday and in fact had the same choice of four dishes for lunch. So I had the mushrooms this time. There was this old guy there playing some sort of lute/guitar thing, and he had a rainbow lorikeet that would sing and dance to the music he was playing. He put it on the back of a chair, so I picked it up.. super cool! :)

Then we went to Aphrodisias, another recently excavated ancient city. This one was a bit more up and down which afforded some great views of the place. I really liked the stadium, which aside from having been dug down, is intact from its original condition, they haven't done any restoration work with it at all. Totally amazing.

Then another long drive (three hours all up). Had a pitstop in the middle at a servo/bazaar which had chickies and a public pool out the back. Random. The bus also got a wash.

Our hotel is on the Aegean Sea and has a wonderful outlook over the sea. I was soooo happy to finally get a room with a view :):):) Couldn't work the safe though and had to get the staff to reset it (pretty much everything else had the same problem too). There was no friendly hotel guide either, so didn't even know the number for reception, but wasn't too hard to figure out. Couldn't get the wifi to work before dinner either, but it was working afterwards.

Had some super tasty lamb kebab meat with dinner then came up to download photos and blog. Feel all hot and stinky, might have a shower before bed.

Other notes from today ..

My pedometer is basically dead. It recorded a bit over two thousand steps today but I did much more. I did some tests with it and it's definitely not recording properly. I think I might have killed it getting off the plane in Istanbul when it got knocked off and dropped onto the tarmac. It seemingly records on one plane but not another, so maybe I damaged its innards.

I also think I'm getting the bug that has been going around the group for two weeks. Poop.

Day 4, Monday 12 May

Yeah so our day started at 3:15am.

:(

We had to be up at stoopid o'clock to get to the airport for a 5:50am flight. So we got up and ready and headed downstairs. The hotel had provided some bread rolls and bits for breakfast, so that was nice.

Got to the airport and went through the first round of security no problems. Dropped off luggage and got boarding passes ok too. Then proceeded through second security, but they were being pretty inconsistent about liquids. They let me through with my water bottles, but stopped other people for theirs. Whatevs, I needed that water later, so keeping it was good.

Our flight was south to Denizli. I'd gotten seat 20D on a 737, so I was pretty disappointed. But when Heather came to our row (Jim and I were already seated), she just said shove up one, so I asked if I could please please please have the window seat - and I got it yayyyy!! :):):):) Heather ended up getting a window seat as well due to the plane not being full, and Jim also took and empty row. As it turned out, the seat was awesome. We took off to the north and then did a big loop around to the east then south, so we had a totally awesome view of Istanbul! Very happy making :)

After arrival in Denizli, we piled into a new coach and headed to Colossae. There isn't much to see there now, as the city was levelled by an earthquake and never rebuilt. And it hasn't been excavated either, so it's just a big mound now. But it's still all intact underneath the rubble, which turns out to be full of archaelogical treasures. Ok piles of broken pottery everywhere, but how cool is that to just wander around and be able to pick up bits of two thousand year old pottery! I was surprised the bits hadn't been fossicked away by people over the years.

Our next stop was the bottom of the springs at Pamukkale. The white cliffs there are stunning! Really pretty. Just had a short stop there to get some photos.

Then we headed up the top to the Necropolis and Hierapolis. The former being the cemetery for the latter. Both were very cool. At the end of the walk through the old city, you end up at the springs with the pool and the terraces at the top of the white cliffs. Soooo many people. And the most bare flesh I've *ever* seen in a muslim country.

For lunch we drove all the way into Denizli and out the other side again to a big restaurant where we had the choice of chicken skewers, whole trout, mushrooms with cheese on top (baked), or something else I can't actually remember right now. I had the chicken (meat on a stick!!) but ended up finishing someone else's mushrooms and cheese. Yumm.

Then we came allll the way back to the springs where the hotel was. The hotel is quite nice and has a nice pool and a thermal pool. I was all set to go for a swim until I realised I'd forgotten my cossies :(:( Fail! So tried to organise the first two days of photos of this trip, where they were all in different time zones and overlapping.

Went had a couple of beers with some people by the pool before dinner, and headed up at 7pm. It was a bit chaotic again - a huge group of Japanese tourists went up at the same time. The dessert spread was pretty amazing.

After dinner a bunch of us went for a walk into the village down the road to have a look at the shops. But now that I've been up for eighteen hours I just want to go to bed... haven't even downloaded photos yet :(

Day 3, Sunday 11 May

So this is apparently quite a new hotel. For a new hotel it has *crap* noise insulation. We can hear the people next door very clearly. Disappointing. Also, the call to prayer at 4:45am is not blocked out at all. So we woke up then. I think I got back to sleep for a little while but we eventually got up a bit before 6am.

I also had thermo-regulation issues with the European-style doona, which is all or nothing affair (no sheet).

But otherwise slept reasonably well.

Breakfast was pretty good, and we headed out at about 8:30am.

Our first activity was a boat cruise along the Bosphorus. It was very cloudy so it wasn't the best for photos but at least it wasn't raining (much). Had some nice lemon tea on the way back.

Second stop was the Blue Mosque. It certainly is very pretty inside.

Then we had some lunch, some "Ottoman cuisine". There was a very tasty lentil soup, a beef hotpot on a bed of potatoes with yoghurt, and baklava. All delicious.

After lunch we went to the Basilica Cistern. This place was amazing. I'd loved to have lingered here longer to absorb it, but I was having enough trouble keeping up with the group as it was.

Then we went to Hagia Sophia which was pretty cool. Our guide called it the greatest church ever built (others are bigger/taller etc, but they were built at least a millennium after this one. I liked the mosaics and the fifteen *hundred* year old steps. There was a heap of scaffolding blocking half the place which was a bit annoying.

Finally we headed up to Topkapi Palace. We were going to get an hour and a half here to wander, but Bruce cut it down to an hour, which was a little disappointing as we didn't really get to explore the place. We had a look at the treasury rooms which contained some pretty spectacular stuff (sadly couldn't take photos), the terraces overlooking the Bosphorus, some of the pavilions with their beautiful tile work, the costume room, the Imperial Council Hall and the clocks.

Then we bussed it back to the hotels.

For the touring today we were given receivers and ear pieces so we could all hear the guide without having to gather closely around him. This was completely *brilliant*, as it meant I could wander around nearby to take photos, but also listen in on the commentary. Much less stressful/frustrating than our tours two years ago. But the walking pace was very slow for the most part. So slow in fact that my pedometer barely registered steps all day :( So although it only says 3252 today, I'm sure I did quite a lot more. Also, did a lot of standing around, so feet hurt quite a lot by the end of the day.

Had dinner at the hotel, then back to organise photos and write up blog entries.