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Day 147 :: Second Wind

Category: Around The World In 216 Days, Travel, Turkey

Day 147 - Istanbul

Beloved Turkey, where have you been my whole life?

A few notes on Istanbul:

They say Turkey is the Gateway to the East, but for us it is a much welcomed Gateway to the West.
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Day 151 :: Around Istanbul


Day 151 - Selcuk, Ephesus

Beyoglu's Main Street Fisherman on the Galata Bridge Inside the Hagia Sofia Our Hostel's Rooftop Terrace A few more photo's of Istanbul, the Princes Islands and other sites can be seen here. Photo's of the Taj Mahal are here.


Day 153 :: Typical Turkey


Day 153 - Selcuk, Ephesus

We couldn't have been more wrong.
 Fountain (our room in background) Backpacker "Living Room" If you're interested in our photos from Selcuk and Ephesus, a few more can be seen here.
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Day 156 :: Day Tripping


Day 156 - Fethiye

Here's a sample from our last three days: More photos can be seen here.


Day 160 :: Grapes and Q-Tips


Day 160 - Antalya


Day 163 :: Our Busy Life


Day 163 - Antalya

[Our camera broke. It could be three weeks before some wonderfully mediocre photos surface again.]

So we were talking about this website the other day. I was complaining to Kari about how I wished I had more hours to work on some post ideas that have been rattling through my brain. I explained that in Nepal and India I simply had more time to write and how, in Turkey, we were just way too busy for me to give the appropriate amount of time that each post deserves. And then I realized where we were and what I was doing at the moment this conversation took place.

We were sitting Indian style on a long pebbly beach with aqua Mediterranean water lapping up to our feet, and I was digging a hole to see how far down the pebbles went.

This realization and the laughter that ensued led to a further discussion about how when you're traveling, the term 'busy' takes on a whole new meaning. At home, being busy for us means a long day of work and a list of to-dos that runs into the double digits. But out here on the road, being busy might mean a special trip to the Post Office for stamps or a two-hour bus ride to another town. It's nearly impossible for the traveler to be busy. We don't have jobs and we live out of a backpack. The only purchases we need to make are for necessities like sunscreen and toothpaste. And the only to-do list we have require such little effort that it can usually be accomplished in under thirty minutes.

So I was digging a hole the other day and felt busy. I'll let you how it goes when we get back to Los Angeles.


Day 166 :: Hooray For Routine


Day 166 - Antalya

We're suckers for routine.

A few pre-broken camera shots from Antalya: 

Day 169 :: Never Never Land


Day 169 - Göröme

We've arrived in Cappadocia. (All pictures borrowed, of course.)


Day 175 :: Cyclicality


Day 175 - Istanbul

Time Out Istanbul Magazine - June 2007 - Issue 6 - Page 18

The Cycles of Traveling:

a) Enchantment - the "WEEE, I'm traveling!!" stage.
b) Normalcy - the "Here I am, still traveling." stage.
c) Drudgery - the "Traveling, schmaveling," stage.
d) Annoyance - the "Why can't anyone do anything right!" stage.
e) Hope - the "I can always go home if I want to." stage.
f) Indifference - the "Screw it, I'm used to it, I may as well keep going." stage.
g) Rediscovery - the "It's not exotic anymore, but it's more interesting now in other ways, and besides, I can always go home." stage.

While we've skipped a few of these stages, we meet long-term travelers all the time who are working there way through them one by one. The funniest travelers to run into are those in stage d - and they're usually English.


Day 177 :: Leg 2 Reading


Day 177 - Istanbul

The complete reading list for leg 2 of our trip (Nepal - India - Turkey). Leg one reading is here.

Into Thin Air - John Krakauer - 2 stars
Life of Pi - Yann Martel - 2 stars
Popcorn - Ben Elton - 2 stars
Freakonomics - Stephen Levy - 4 stars

Miss Wyoming - Douglas Coupland - 2 stars
The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson - 2 stars
Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland - 4 stars
...and every issue of Time and Newsweek for two months.

1968 - Mark Kurlanski - 2 stars
Made In America - Bill Bryson - 3 stars
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri - 3 stars
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggars - 2 stars
Primary Colors - Anonymous - 4 stars
A Season on the Brink - John Feinstein - 3 stars

Day 179 :: Goodbye, Asia

Category: Around The World In 216 Days, India, Travel

Day 179 - In Transit

We've endured.


Turkey Stats: