Another early start another country. Though we were a little slower to start this morning for some reason we still made it out pretty early. Right off the boat we were greeted by a hoard of taxis. They all wanted to give us a ride, but we told them we liked to walk. We'd be eating those words by the end of the day, but it was true when we spoke it. We were headed to the bazaar, which one of the cab drivers told us was about half hour away.

We walked along the water past several restaurants all serving deliciously fresh looking meals. Our breakfasts felt heavy in our stomach as we saw people enjoying tomatoes with cucumber and cheeses and all sorts of goodies. We stopped at one and got a Turkish coffee. It was a little different than we were expecting. An by little I really mean a lot. It was like a straight shot of espresso with an herbal aftertaste.

We kept moseying on down the damn road looking for the bazaar. The funny thing about being in a foreign country is that it's really hard, practically impossible, to read the road signs. We did learn the international sign for bathrooms though: WC. All the public bathrooms in these countries charge you to use them which I think actually makes some sense. We found a WC in the bazaar and Kim needed to go. When she came back she was in a state of shock and told me that it was basically a hole in the ground she had to squat over. After that little experience we wandered through the bazaar, bought a couple hot pads and a bottle of peach wine. It was a little overwhelming and there were several times we noticed we were being followed. Each time it turned out to be a shop worker who would pop out whenever we got near their shops. The nicest one was a leather shop owner. It's too bad I have no interest in a leather jacket because I would have like to buy something from him.

We left the bazaar and wandered around the town. Getting a little hungry we started looking for a place to eat but didn't see anything that looked as good as the places we passed along the water so we headed back that way. We found a little spot which had a great deal on lunch; a plate full of food with two beers for 35 lira! We ate and played a little backgammon looking out over the water. Realizing that we a) didn't have that much time left before we had to get back to the boat and b) still had a bunch of lira still we headed back to the bazaar, which by the way is the holy land of s*** shops. We shopped our butts off.

We bought a backgammon set which I have always wanted since it was one of the first real "grown-up" games I can remember my dad teaching me how to play. We somehow managed to find our way back to this one store we saw a bunch of stuff we liked but passed up the first time around. The guy there didn't speak any English which made shopping a little difficult but also kind of fun. We were asking him about a decorative throw thingie and he took us up to the store room to show us all the different kinds he had. It was fun, like we were being shown the secret stash of the goods instead of what the commoners could buy. We picked out our throw thingie, a couple of pillow cases and a statue all for a pretty reasonable price. With almost all our money spent and only twenty minutes left before we needed to start heading back we rushed around the bazaar. We ended up buying these hanging light shades for the bar we plan on building in the basement. I think we got a good deal on them. The bigger ones were going for 35 lira apiece. I tried to get three of those for 70 lira, but dude wasn't having that. He gave us three of the smaller ones for 75.25 lira, which was everything we had left. The fun part is going to be to bring these glass orbs all the way home with and of them breaking.

The walk back was dreadful. It was hot and we were packing all these bags of the crap we just bought. It was way further than we remembered walking and I definitely wish we had a few more lira for a taxi. By the time we made it back to the boat I was a mess. If I thought my back was a sweaty mess. I was also wearing my backpack which conveniently put some sweat rings from my back under my arms and back over my shoulders so when I took the backpack off I still had a perfect shadow of where it had been made out of sweat. It was gross and unpleasant.

Back on the boat we were worn the eff out! We kicked it in our room for a bit, then went and got an ice cream cone, then back to the room. We watched some movies ordered a snack from room service and napped a bit. We went for a late dinner of prime rib which wasn't that impressive anthem came back to the room and passed out.

It was a fun day. I would definitely go back to Turkey. I don't think we saw the best parts of it on our few hours ashore and I am very curious to see what else the country has to offer.