If you're wondering, "Tea-sugar-and-denim" is how tourism people tell lingustically-challenged English-speakers to say for "thank-you" in Turkish. It sounds close enough. You'd think we'd manage to learn at least one word properly in each country, but Turkish is a challenge.
If any of you is in the least bit envious of my adventures in Europe, please consider the following. In the past two weeks I have:
-taken five overnight buses;
-slept in a bed infested with bed bugs;
-slept alternately upright and on the floor of the Athens airport;
-had 1 hot shower. You can't get bloody hot water in Turkey. Even in Pamukkale, the place that is positively bubbling over with hot mineral water, you can't get a hot shower. Ironic.
I am dirty. I am exhausted. I probably smell, but am so used to it that I don't even know it. (Just kidding, I smell like daisies).
But I love this place...especially Turkey. I am back on EU soil now, having reluctantly left Turkey three days ago. I shed a tear as I sailed away.
Olympos was terrific but starting to slow down. The first night there, I hung out with two Argentinian girls living in London and a Spanish dude from Barcelona. I was happy to just listen to them speak Spanish most of the time but they all spoke fantastic English as well. I really have to get my French skills polished up again. I feel shamed by my monolingualism when everyone in Europe needs fingers--sometimes on both hands--to count all the languages they speak. Shame. We all went up to the Chimaera, these mythological fires up this mountain. They're campfire-sized fires that perpetually burn and scientists don't know why. It smells like there is some sort of gas involved but it is supposed to have something to do with an ancient god being imprisoned by the mountain...or something. Educational, hey? Whatever, it was cool. Olympos is supposed to be pretty crazy but there wasn't that much going on when I was there, especially the second night. I was quite ill anyway that night...So Olympos wasn't quite what I expected but it was relaxing and mellow and now I can say that I have stayed in a bona fide treehouse. Check that off the life's to-do list...
Speaking of which, a couple days later I checked a big one of the life's to-do. I went paragliding in Oludeniz, this amazing beach near Fethiye. It's said to be the best place to do it in the world and I believe it. It was spectacular. Right before I was meant to go, I thought about my dad going parasailing in Mexico and looking down and seeing a big knot tying two pieces of rope together...I wondered if Turkey was more or less safety-conscious than Mexico, but didn't have time to really think that one through because I was ordered to run down this mountain slope...I was freaked as I started running but then I figured that I was strapped to a presumably-not-suicidal guy, so he probably checked and double-checked all equipment with due dilligence. It was a pretty cool feeling, running, running, running ("Keep running!" Mel, my "pilot" kept saying) and then you're running but your feet aren't touching the ground anymore and you lift off. Very cool. Mel got a little ballsy towards the end and started doing acrobatics and it made me feel really ill so we had to land...but it was amazing. It is like floating. Coolest way to end my time in Turkey...That, and a late late LATE night out with a massive group of Canadian girls from my hostel, led by the hostel's Turkish staff. Trouble, those Turkish boys. Nothing but trouble. I finally got to smoke the Turkish water pipe but I didn't really like it much. Every time I smoked it (because it is so easy to smoke) it gave me a major headrush and made me dizzy. Orhan, the hostel guy, told me that he had had the waiter put hash in the pipe, and everyone was laughing at me (they were all older than me and were laughing at me like I was this foolish young girl) becaues they thought that I thought I was high. All I felt was a headrush from all the tobacco, being the one person in Europe who doesn't smoke. Everyone kept telling me how "cute" I was. Not cool. But a good night all the same, and no help to my sleep deprivation.
I am in Thessaloniki now, waiting for Kaje to arrive by train this afternoon. It is three weeks to the day since we split up and I am stoked to be a duo again. I love how many cool people I have met in the last two weeks, but it gets sad saying good-bye to people every day or two. Tomorrow morning we leave on a 20-hour train ride to Croatia...I am going to try to sleep the entire way.
Love,
chelsea
I'm working on the pics but the last three internet cafes I have used don't have USB ports. You don't believe me anymore, do you? You think I'm making all these people and places up...
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