Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Cappadocia: Heading Home

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We had such a blast in Cappadocia and both of us have said multiple times that it's a must see when you come to Turkey! It has hiking, guided tours and tons of stuff for almost anyone to do.   Three days was enough time to feel like we really saw the area without running out of things to do.  You could probably spend a week there hiking, but in order to keep things exciting, we limited ourselves to three days, which was perfect.

On Tuesday, when we woke up, we packed our bags and headed upstairs to the terrace for breakfast.  Mike isn't a fan of Turkish breakfast (too many vegetables, not enough meat), but personally, I love it.  It's all fruit, cheese and bread.  YUM! Our friend, front desk guy, brought us our plates and proceeded to bring us platter after platter after platter of food.

Breakfast of (Turkish) champions.

We spent the morning just hanging out and walking around before grabbing an early lunch.  The shuttle came at 12:30 to take us to the airport. We had an hour flight to Istanbul with a three hour layover there before our hour flight to Izmir.  When we arrived in Istanbul, we had the virtual boarding passes for our connection, but it was on a different airline and we ended up having to check in at the desk anyways.  Add in a three hour layover and a half an hour delay and you've got two very tired Hogans ready to be home. 

We didn't end up getting home until 11:00 and we were very happy to walk in our door.  We spent the next two days recovering from multiple days of hiking and non-stop traveling.  It was glorious!

We had so much fun in Istanbul and in Cappadocia.  We definitely have the travel bug and are loving exploring Turkey in all of it's glory.  It's a gorgeous country physically and culturally.  The people here are always so friendly to us and want to hear about America (and they usually tell us how much they love Obama!).  I feel just as safe here as I did in Arlington or Boston.  Before I leave, I just want to share a little story with you of the kindness we see here.

I was walking home from the grocery store and we have to cross a busy street to get to our apartment.  There is a median in the middle of the street.  Standing in the median was a blind man.  As cars were whizzing by, the man began to cross the street. A man on the other side of the street from me saw the man and dodged traffic to grab the blind man before he entered the street.  He stayed with man in the median, talking to him, until traffic stopped for him to cross.  The man helped the blind man cross the street before turning back around and heading back to his store. 

There's a lot of news about violence in Turkey, but there's also a lot of good here. It's a beautiful country, both physically and culturally.

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