We are now in Olympos, on the south coast of the med. It is very sticky here – not really all that hot, but very very humid, and there is very little air flow, hardly a breeze to speak of. I can’t tell you how frustrated I am at not having a pair of shorts. You’d think I would have bought a pair by now, but I haven’t. Silly me.

We did go to the beach yesterday, it wasn’t too crowded, but I’m not used to going to public beaches, so it felt a little crowded to me. Mostly Turks yesterday, as it was Sunday (the weekends in Turkey are oddly enough Saturday and Sunday, despite Friday being their holy day. We have been told, and are noticing, that although Turkey is about 99% Muslim, they are not nearly as strict about it as the Arab countries we’ve come from (and we found them fairly liberal as well)). Even though the med is fairly warm (especially compared to northern Alberta lakes!) I’m still a little chicken to get in all the way – something about it being too cold. I know, I’m weird.

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Some things we’ve observed about Turkey:

Turkish pants – in Antakya we saw men wearing funny pants (people of our generation may remember the fashion trend of Hammer-pants?); they are really baggy pants with the crotch hanging down close to the knees, but the waist is at the waist (not like the young hipsters back home these days who wear the waists around their butts to accomplish a similar effect). I think they remind me a little of pants that genies wear in cartoons. Around Egirdir we saw women (but not men) wearing similar pants, but with even lower crotches, almost halfway down the calf. I would compare them to “gypsy-pants” (though we are eventually heading into actual gypsy country, and I may have to revise my Hollywoodized notions).

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We decided against going to the Black Sea coast in the Northeast, as much as we’d like to, because it was just too far away, and it looked to be a bit pricey. We told ourselves that we would probably pass through the region if we ever do the Silk Road trip (from China to Turkey) that we’d really like to try someday.

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Cappadocia really does have it all. Well, everything except low prices, that is. The landscape here is amazing. When we arrived, we came in during a lightning storm, shortly after sunset, so the lightning was flashing behind all these API Call Errorrock formations. One particularly large formation, which looks a little like a castle, had a flash go off behind it just as we were going by, and looked like something out of a Dracula movie.

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What a difference a border makes. It is only 100km from Aleppo to Antakya, but once you cross the (very disorganised) border, all of a sudden, you enter Europe.

While we are technically still in Asia, it is a much more European atmosphere. The streets are wide, traffic is a bit calmer. Headscarves have gone from being worn by a moderately sized majority, to being worn only by a tiny minority of women, mostly older women, at that. Western brand names, which were almost non-existent in Syria, have reappeared. The stores are better stocked than anywhere we’ve been since Malta (excepting the Amman Safeway).

There are still a few things to remind us that this isn’t Europe yet. The call to prayer is still heard 5 times a day, though still soundly ignored by most people; there are still people wandering the streets to shine shoes, sell tea, and, in a new addition, weigh people.

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