Cappadocia

Hey everyone,
Things are getting slightly more hectic around here; it's the last week of classes, and finals are next week and the week after. I still have no clue when exactly my finals are, but I'm sure I'll get it all figured out. I do know that most of my finals will be the 16-18, except for 1 that's on the 26th. If my cards fall just right, I might be able to fit a trip in the middle there. I'll keep my fingers crossed...
Last weekend, I headed to the region of Cappadocia, the land of fairy chimneys. It was, in a word, amazing. I travelled solo, for the first time ever, and had a really great time. On Friday, I hied to ASTI and caught a bus to Goreme; it was 15 lira, which wasn't too bad. I got to Nevsehir, the regional jumping-off point for Cappadocia, at 5, and was supposed to transfer to a minibus to Goreme, but as I was the only one heading to Goreme, they brought me there in a car, and dropped me off at the doorstep of the pension that I thought I'd stay at. I checked on the price of a single, and was unpleasantly surprised to find out that although Lonely Planet said they had singles, they didn't actually; I was shown a 5-person room, and told that they'd charge me 25 lira for it. Naturally, I didn't want to pay 25 lira, even for the opportunity to sleep in 5 beds, so I hightailed it off to Shoestring Pensyon, which I'd read good things about online, where they showed me a three-bed room and offered it to me for 20 lira. I figured I could do better, so I asked about a dorm room, which I got, for 10 lira, breakfast included. It was just 6, 6:30ish by then, so I strolled around downtown Goreme, stopped for cookies and hot cocoa at the most amazing pastry shop in Cappadocia, and bought some postcards. After wandering around the whole center area of town a few times more, I stopped at a restaurant for some excellent pide, and provided loads of entertainment to the little girl at the table next to me, who was fascinated with my appearance (I don't know if it was the fair skin, the short hair, the reddish hair, the short sleeves, or all of the above), before heading back to the pensyon, chatting with some friendly Australians, and heading to bed. The dorm was pretty cool: it was built into a fairy chimney, as a cave, so it felt half like a room and half like a fanciful playhouse.
In the morning, I got up before 8 (I know, this is really unlike me), because I had to be checked out by 9. After having the best menemen I've had in Turkey (and that's saying something), I headed out to explore Cappadocia. First up was the Goreme Open-Air Museum, a site with Byzantine monastic retreats and cave churches galore. It's really popular with tour groups (I saw mora Americans there than I've seen since arriving in Turkey...), so at first I kept getting stuck behind clusters of tourists and guides. I did eventually find a pace that allowed me to see everything between groups, and ended up with most of the tombs, chapels, and churches to myself, which was nice. Everything was incredibly gorgeous; many of the frescoes had been damaged or scratched, but they still retained magnificient colours and details (links to pictures and in-depth descriptions are posted below). The churches and rooms themselves were amazing: all carved out of the rocks, with furniture and storage carved into the rooms themselves. The scenery was gorgeous, as well, with valleys full of delicate fairy chimneys rising out of the trees. I saw the Chapel of St. Basil, the Chapel of St. Barbara, the Chapel of St. Catherine, the Apple Church, the Church of St. Onuphrius, and the Sandals Church, along with some unnamed tombs and small chapels. After finishing up at the Goreme Open-Air Museum, I strolled through some of the shops outside, and then... I rode a camel! It was really, really cool, and I was so excited: I've always wanted to ride a camel (or an elephant, but the camel came along first...), and I passed this guy offering camel rides through the fairy chimneys. It was one of the highlights of my trip. After that excitement, I wandered back to Goreme Village, passing a sign for the UFO Museum (see? tourist traps aren't just in America!), and booked my ticket back to Ankara for 6 that evening.
With 5ish hours to kill, I decided to go to Zelve, the other Open-Air Museum in Cappadocia. I snagged a bus there, but it let me off at the access road to Zelve instead of at the site itself, so I walked 4 very hot kilometers to the Museum entrance. About halfway there, I walked through Pasabagi, a scenic viewing area with lots of touristy shops, which was a nice change of scenery; I finally got to Zelve, got my ticket, and walked in. Zelve was really interesting: it was a Byzantine monastic retreat center, like Goreme, but it was also a fully-inhabited cave village, up until the 1950s, when the rocks started falling down and the villagers were evcuated to non-cave dwellings about 2 kilometers away. I saw the ghost village first: it was really cool. The houses were in cliffsides, just carved in; if they wanted to expand, they just carved out another room or two. I also saw the village mosque, also cut into the rock; its minaret was designed differently than most of the minarets I've seen here. After wandering through the main valley of the villages, I hopped 1 valley over and saw some churches: one of the cave churches was fenced off, because it was in danger of falling apart and/or dislodging rocks onto visitors' heads, so I didn't see that one, but I did see the Grape Church and the Fish Church, which weren't quite as well kept-up as the Goreme churches, but which were pretty nonetheless. I had a small moment of panic when my camera batteries died after my first photo of the churches, but I was able to leave the museum, buy batteries at a souvenir stand, and go back in to get my photos. After that, I was pretty tuckered out from walking to Zelve and hiking through the valleys, so I had some of Turkey's famous ice cream (the ice cream man hoists the entire slab of ice cream up into the air on a hook, that's how sticky it is) and bought some more postcards before catching a bus back to Goreme village, where I took some photos of the village mosque and a horse before grabbing some more cookies at that wonderful pastry shop and heading to the bus station, where I headed back to Ankara.
It was kind of strange being in such a touristy area, because I don't feel that I'm strictly a tourist, per se (even though I'm there to do touristy things). I was really proud of myself, as I was able to communicate almost entirely in Turkish; although the Turks immediately pegged me as yabanci (a foreigner), some of the tourists heard me asking questions in Turkish and thought I was a Turk(!). The one slightly unpleasant thing about being in a tourist center was all the touts, calling out to me in English. If I didn't respond, they'd yell at me, and keep calling after me as I walked down the street. I figured that if they were calling out in English, they were either trying to sell me something or trying to get something (speaking from experience, here), so I pretended my native language was Spanish or Chinese, depending on my mood (good thing they didn't speak either, otherwise that wouldn't've worked well at all).
All in all, I had an excellent time in Cappadocia: saw beautiful churches and scenery, got horrendously sunburned, walked my feet off, and, of course, I Rode a Camel! It was a great couple of days, and it was nice to get out of Ankara. Due to bandwidth limits at Flickr (I did post some Diyarbakir photos there, finally), I have all my Cappadocia photos on Facebook for the time being, you can see them at:

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038078&l=5129e&id=911357
and
http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038128&l=93f00&id=911357

This weekend, I'll be heading to Ephesus on a marathon day trip, which should be exhausting but incredible. Ephesus is the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean and is the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It's also home to the Library of Celsus. While I'm there, I'll also stop in Selcuk, to see the Basilica of St. John (the St. John of the Gospel-writing fame); I'm very excited!

Not much is new on campus; ODTU had Springfest last weekend, which is rather like an enormous street fair with concerts. They had tons of earring vendors, so of course I picked up some earrings; I also tried an ice cream dish that was served in a honeydew half, it was quite good. The Seniors are getting antsy: every once in a while, a caravan of little cars teeming with graduation-robe-bedecked Seniors will come careening around the perimeter road of campus, honking and screaking as much as they can; this's been going on for about a week now, and graduation isn't til June, so I suppose it'll continue for a while. It freaked me out the first time one came around a corner, honking madly, but I'm getting used to it.

Well, that's about all that's new here,
hope you all are doing well,
-R