EuroLIfe: Day 217

We are back! Turkey was absolutely amazing. I kept thinking about how much everyone would love this place--our parents, siblings, friends--and then remembering just how long the flight would be from the U.S. It really is too bad, because this region of Turkey (Fethiye/Olu Deniz) is absolutely astonishing. The landscape is unlike any place I've ever been, though I haven't been to all that many places, and Michael tells me it's a bit like Greece :)

I'm super tired today, and there are enough photos and stories for a week's worth of posts, so I'll just share a bit for now. First, this was the view from our breakfast table on the first day! The mountains were incredible, and the dining area felt like a rather posh restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. We ate outside nearly every day.

The nearby beach was one of the prettiest I've ever seen. The resort is up in the mountains, but there is a free shuttle that leaves at 10:30 and comes back for you at 4:30, and the drive only takes about 10 minutes. We went a few times, including the first full day that we were there.

The beach is called the Blue Lagoon, and it really is just nestled among the mountains--and it is extremely blue. The water is totally clear, but a very rich, purplish blue color; just beautiful. It was also extremely cold--as in, your chest seizes up upon entry cold. Still, we went swimming the first day, and even swam out to a little island across the way. Michael went once on his own, and then we went together. It was only a few days later, while snorkeling, that we saw the many hidden sea urchins that could have assaulted our poor bare feet. Fortunately, we managed to avoid them anyway! If you look closely in the third photo (or click on it to make it larger) you can see Michael climbing onto the little island.

There was a snack bar on the beach which sold all sorts of lunch food, beverages, and the like. Our first day there, we bought cheeseburgers and split and order or fries. When one of the men working there saw our order, he called me down the counter to where he was standing and gave me a big forkfull of spicy meat used for Doener Kebaps (a delicious Turkish sandwich.) He smiled and said "for the baby!" I assumed that he was disappointed that we were ordering hamburgers instead of trying to local food. The truth is, though, we eat Doeners in Jena all the time--they are a favorite of ours. Hamburgers, on the other hand, are very hard to come by! Still, I couldn't exactly explain this to him so I ate the meat and told him, truthfully, that it was delicious.

A few days later, we were there for lunch again. This time we did order Doeners. (The hamburgers had been very good, but tasted nothing like hamburgers.) I went back to get some ketchup and saw that same man, who again called me over. He asked how I was, I said very well, and he said "Please, one minute!" He disappeared, (well, not literally) and came back with a paper bowl which he filled with pickles and onions. I mean it, he filled this bowl with pickles and onions, stuck a fork in it and handed it to me with the kindest smile! I thanked him, and took it over to our table where I did manage to eat most of it with my sandwich.

So, I suppose he just really likes to feed pregnant women. Michael thinks his wife, mother, or somebody must have really craved pickles & onions while pregnant, and he thought "Ooh, she's pregnant--she must really need some pickles and onions!" In any case, it made my day. It's hard to explain why, but he was just very sweet. Not pushy, just generous!

I have included one more photo, which is sort of a preview for a later post. The Blue Lagoon is also the landing site for many, many paragliders. You will learn more about paragliding--and wives who let their husbands jump off of the sides of mountains--in a subsequent post. For now, suffice it to say that it's very cool to sit on the beach and watch a sky full of people drifting along the mountains and down onto the sand. At one point, I counted as many as 30 up there!