Antalya, You Saved My Life!

I had the most amazing time in Antalya two weekends ago. It was a holiday in Turkey, their republic day ~ equivalent to the US-4th of July. We had Friday off (even though I worked my schedule to always have Friday off *wink wink*) so most of us Fulbrighters traveled!

I decided the best place for me would be the riviera, somewhere far away from the cold desert mountains of Yozgat! So, I bought a bus ticket :) Well, actually I bought two bus tickets. One from Yozgat to Ankara and then from Ankara to Antalya. I actually made my trip a little longer by not going directly from Yozgat, but the bus company I wanted was in Ankara! Three hours from Yozgat to Ankara and then the midnight bus to Antalya (8 hours).

Turns out, as comfy as the buses try to make it for you, including tv’s in the backs of all the seats and internet connection, they are still just as uncomfy when it comes to trying to sleep. I did my best, but I couldn’t even take my shoes off because this is some sort of mortal sin to older Turkish men. Arggg my feet hurt soo bad!

I got to Antalya to experience the fruits of a national holiday... a disrupted tram service. That made my wait from the bus terminal to the city about 45 minutes- at 8am with very little, if any, sleep.

When I got off of the tram, I was in the middle of the touristy area and had no idea where to go so I just followed the tourists until I arrived at a little cafe. I spent way too much for a huge cup of coffee and internet password, but luckily my friends were online when I logged on—luckily because Turkcell cut my phone service off as I have been using my American iPhone that is allowed on the network for only 30 days. I had to go register it and get a new SIM card the day before I left for Antalya! Donnie = mad @ Turkcell!

I got to meet up with my friends, three of the Fulbrighter girls. I had not spent extensive amounts of time with any Fulbrighters since Ankara as I am completely alone (pity me) in Yozgat. These three girls were pretty awesome, though. They had been in Antalya for about half a day before me, so they kinda knew where they were and what they were doing. At any rate, they had a suggestion from their hostel staff about where to have a great dinner.

We went to a rather expensive looking (and turns out expensive costing) restaurant. It was magnificent, like a dream. A white-tablecloth fish restaurant on the coast. We were treated with four-star service that I have rarely experienced, even in the nice restaurants I am known to frequent in the States! The food was amazing, the stories we shared with each other were hilarious, the wine was refreshing and then Whitney Houston came on over the speakers to sing “I Will Always Love You (Antalya)” which became our theme song!

Later that night, while walking along the beautiful shoreline (which was about 100 feet up from the water) a fireworks show that could rival the best 4th of July fireworks began in the harbor. We were in the most perfect, most beautiful position to see them! Magic. That’s when we started our list of “thank you’s” to a certain Turk! Some of them went like this “Thank you for establishing the Republic,” “Thank you for an alphabet that we can read,” etc...

We met up with our friend, Ed, after the fireworks were over. We had a rather mild evening because we had plans for a picnic the next day, and picnic we did! We got up rather lazily and went on our journey. We stopped at a grocery store to get some picnic supplies like crackers, cheese, turkey, chocolate, you know, picnic stuff. Then we hopped on tram to head over towards the beaches. We arrived at the end of the line with another magnificent view of the harbor. I can’t describe it, so I will put in some pictures or at least suggest you check out my facebook album conveniently entitled “Antalya, you saved my life.”

We lounged on the beach all day, swam in the Mediterranean when we got the nerves to get really cold, ate picnic stuff, talked about Fulbrighter life in Turkey and played with lots of rocks. We saw what we can only call “Turkish Swimsuit” which was some dude in his not-so-tighty whities. I guess his stripping down to his skimpy knickers was kinda like me giving my wife-beater to one of the girls who didn’t have a swimsuit. Nobody cared, some people looked BUT anywhere in this part of the world in such a situation one is always likely to be outdone by some bathing Europeans, usually Swedish and this day was no exception. So, thankfully, the attention was directed towards the leathery light-haired vacationers and away from us :)

The rest of the weekend included adventures with our adopted pup, Lucinda Jane, a street dog who was as faithful as a Ford. She followed us ALL over Antalya! We even ran into her the next night out when she was on a date with another street dog. She quickly abandoned her would-be lover to join us in a hunt for nice club to dance in. We never found the club, but we did have a great time with Lucy!

Sunday was an interesting day. I went with one of the Fulbrighter girls to a Christian church service. I really wanted to see what that would look like even though I am not Christian and have not been for a long time. I called it a “morbid curiosity” and am still not sure whether that was offensive. Regardless, the service was rather boring, but something VERY interesting did happen in the middle of the service, the Call to Pray sounded just outside the meeting place.

There I was, in a Muslim country-but a very touristy, European-like area in a CHRISTIAN church service while the MUSLIM Call to Prayer sounded. That was an intense moment for me. I immediately felt like there was tension in the room and in the world. The tension was only elevated because the preacher kept talking as if nothing was happening, but there must have been a mosque nearby because I couldn’t actually hear the preacher over the Call to Prayer. Then, something very symbolic happened: a congregation member got up and shut the windows. I actually felt uneasy at that point. It’s hard to explain, but I felt like a bad guy, an infiltrator… even though I don’t prescribe to any religion or faith, I was still attending this Christian service that not only symbolically but physically shut out the Muslim world outside. It only reminded me how one-sided that religion can be… well that and there was some fire and brimstone talk about “where will you be on that day…” *eye roll* PS…this was on Halloween day!

The best part of that day, though, was my time at Starbucks later in the evening while waiting for my bus back to the cold. I logged on to gchat to have “brunch” with my Champaign family back in Illinois. It was so precious… almost all of my best friends were at Liz and Dave’s place (my second…or now my first? home). My girls from the wheelchair basketball team, my Kellner family, including Kelsey, Liz, Dave, Bullet *surprise, she’s still alive* and Crashley! :) Man that really made my weekend.

I knew I had a long trip back on the bus to YOZgat, but I wasn’t really all that upset about it cuz I had just had the most amazing weekend. In fact, the bus ride was much better on the way back because I had a better bus company and a much bigger and more comfortable bus.

Antalya, you saved my life!