Istanbul

Made it back to Istanbul safe and sound. it's a lot Cleaner and cooler here than in athens. Whew! I'll spend tomorrow walking around the city one last time for my birthday and then I start the journey home the next morning.

Poros!

Evan and I are on the adorable little Greek island of Poros! Population 4,000 something, but there are also lots of Athenian tourists here for a weekend at the beach. The food is amazing at the little harborside tavernas, but it's still too hot to really do much during the day so we have been sleeping late and staying up late since it's more bearable to go out at night. I was definitely not built for heat. Tomorrow we are leaving by the 6am ferry for Athens and we spend one more night in Athens before heading back to Istanbul and finally Portland!

Hot Hot Hot!

It's awfully hot here in Athens! We're off to the island of poros tomorrow though!

Athens!

It's so hot here!!!!

Travel day

After three buses one airplane and one taxi Evan and I made it from uchisar to our hostel near ataturk airport. Whew! Now we can rest. My iPad types for me when I dictate!! That is so cool!

The modern troglodyte

We spent yesterday exploring one of cappadocia's underground cities. It was eight levels deep, the first levels were built by the Hittites, and the deepest levels were dug by the Byzantines and used to hide in when they were attacked first by the western Romans and then by the Muslims. They would burrow underground and use the deepest levels which you have to get through by crouching through narrow passageways easily blocked by big millstones. Even the ventilation shafts were really well hidden above ground. Our tour guide/the security guard who called himself "falcon" told us that 4-5000 people lived down there.

We spent the second part of the day hiking through a beautiful valley and climbing through old caves! It iwas so much fun! There are abandoned thousands of year old dwellings that you have to climb up to or crawl trough dark passage ways to explore. I felt like Laura croft.

Cappadocia - land of the good horse

I've discovered the biggest climbing rock playground! There are dwellings thousands of years old carve into the rocks that you can climb to! So much fun :-) it is beautiful here. Yesterday we hiked and climbed all day. Today we are going to the underground city. This morning I woke up at six thirty to see the hot air balloons rising over the rocks, very cool!

Selcuk

Ephesus

Lots of ruins! Mom - you should have been an archeologist so that you could use your puzzle skills