Perfect Turkish Rice..

Posted on September 26, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

I’m not a great cook, never have been and probably never will be, but for the past few months I’ve been cooking more often and trying my hand at some Turkish dishes after being ‘trained’ by Berkay. He rarely compliments my food, it’s never salty enough or oily enough, but a few days ago he told me my attempt at Turkish rice was great, and that’s good enough for me! ‘Turkish rice’ as I call it, is a tough one to master but I think I’ve nearly got it. I know it’s a favourite of some so here’s our version!

Ingredients for 2-3 people:
1 cup white rice ( In Turkey, we use Baldo rice, you may be able to find that in certain supermarkets in the UK but if not, basmati rice will be ok)
2 tablespoons şehriye (This is like a thin pasta, if you’re in the UK look for ‘orzo’ pasta which is almost identical)
A knob of butter
2 cups of hot water
half a chicken stock cube
salt and pepper to taste
+ a shallow saucepan with a lid

Firstly rinse the rice in cold water, then you need to soak the rice in HOT water for around 30 minutes before cooking. After the 30 minutes, wash the rice again in cold water, the water should run clear. Drain it well.

Heat the butter in the pan on a medium heat and once melted, add the şehriye. You need to keep an eye on it and keep stirring so that it doesn’t burn. Wait for it to change to a darker, toasted color.

Once it has changed colour, add the rice into the pan and stir thoroughly for a couple of minutes, again make sure the heat is on medium so that the grains do not burn.

Now add the hot water, half the chicken stock cube and a little salt. Stir a few times, turn up the heat and bring to a boil.
Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat to low-medium and cover.

Leave the rice to simmer for 8-10 minutes. Now, if there’s one thing Berkay has taught me it’s to NOT lift the lid to check if the rice is done, this is apparently very important. How do you know if it’s done if you can’t open the lid? Well, give the pan a little shake, judge the best you can and/or just turn off the heat and hope for the best! It’s difficult to judge – it can either end up soggy, stuck to the pan or perfect and there is very little time between each stage. I find that 10 minutes is the perfect amount of cooking time for 1 cup of rice with 2 cups of water.

Turn off the heat and keep the pan covered until you are ready to serve, again this is apparently very important!

Use a fork to fluff up the rice and serve. Berkay puts black pepper on his to spice things up a little.

Enjoy!

Do you like this ‘Turkish rice’? Have you mastered it or found a better recipe? Let me know (:

Home Sweet Home…

Posted on September 25, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

I’ve been living here for nearly 4 months now, how did the time go so quickly?! Last year I wrote a post about our old apartment (click HERE to read that) and I thought I’d do the same for this one. If you’re nosey, you’ll enjoy it, and if nothing else it’s nice for me to look back on later on! (:

We rent and live in a fairly typical Turkish apartment, we pay 550tl a month (roughly £160 at today’s rate), it’s nothing special and I think we are definitely paying a little too much rent for what it is, but I guess what we really pay for is location.

Our last apartment was a 20 minute walk to any other civilisation, no shops, no bus route, just a farm and our neighbours. This time we’re living near the sea, about 150 meters and less than a minutes walk to the beach, which I like. Although I loved living further out in Calis away from the busy parts and hotels, I did feel a little isolated. I never went out without Berkay as I didn’t like walking down the busy main road that ran past the house (it’s the main road to Calis from Dalaman so it was always very busy and difficult to cross). Now I’m able to leave the house, walk along the seafront, go to our friends house or even just walk 10 seconds and go to the corner shop for bread instead of the 20 minute one way walk previously. We’re at the quieter end of Calis just behind Guven’s restaurant so we still avoid a lot of the noise, it’s really the best of both worlds.

Our apartment is in a block of 10, and most of my neighbours are Turkish. It was 2 and a half months before I realised that one of my neighbours was actually English, I was wondering why I could hear English music and TV shows and one day it suddenly clicked! I’ve since found out that I have another English neighbour as well, but although I’ve been here 4 months and they live directly underneath me, I’ve not spoken a word to either of them!

Our apartment only has one bedroom, it’s fairly small but has massive wardrobes which we never had in our old house, so that’s a big bonus. It’s a very basic bedroom, wardrobe, chest of drawers, bed, mirror and fan. This fan has been on constantly since we moved in, the poor thing gave up recently so we had to buy a new one! We haven’t been sleeping with a duvet, just my blanket although we have pulled the duvet out of the cupboard this week as it’s been getting chilly! You may notice I’m a bit of a big kid, my blanket has Tinkerbell on it and I have a little soft toy army! I’m a sucker for teddy bears and soft toys, see that frog on my pillow? I can’t sleep without him!

Next to the bedroom is the bathroom/wetroom. I’ve had an argument with this room recently after slipping on the floor after a shower and badly bruising my elbow and grazing my foot and wrist! These things are so dangerous but I guess it’s much cheaper to have a wet room rather than installing a shower cubicle, and having a bath is definitely rare in Turkish houses, if you’ve got one of those, you know you’re doing well!

Further down the hallway is the kitchen, which is really tiny. Our landlord got us a new fridge after we moved in and when they brought it upstairs I was amazed it actually fit in, it takes up half the width of the room! It’s a basic kitchen, there are no fancy appliances, no dishwasher, no oven, no microwave, just 3 gas rings, a mini oven and an ancient washing machine. Surprisingly we bought the current gas bottle when we first move here and haven’t replaced it yet, one day I know I’m going to be in the middle of cooking dinner and it will run out… all part of the fun of living here (; Note the cupboards, these are the infamous ‘Turkish cupboards’ that are part of everyone’s houses..well maybe not everyone’s, but they are definitely very common, must be the cheapest version they sell!

The only other room in the apartment is the living room, where I spend every evening glued to my laptop and writing my blog! This room has an abundance of chairs as you may notice, two 3-seater sofas and 4 armchairs, and there were also 5 wooden chairs in here but we managed to give them back to the landlord. Seriously, who needs that many chairs, considering it’s a one bedroom apartment? I guess it’s for those sociable Turkish people who like to have the world and it’s mother around for cay everynight, we however, are not those type of people…

We actually have a TV in this house, which Berkay is very grateful for! He’d watch it every waking hour if he could, it drives me mad, Turkish ‘soaps’ are so bad, they make Eastenders look like an Oscar winning film! My favourite thing in the room is the cabinet in the corner with a few of our photos and Berkay’s diploma proudly displayed in it.

The thing I hate most about this room is that rug on the floor…. it’ lime green with an orange and purple clown on it… who buys these things? I’m not afraid of clowns and this one is quite cute, but it still creeps me out a little, I considered rolling it up and putting it out of sight but I’m a little too afraid of it… so it just sits there, at least it’s unique I suppose, I bet you’ve never seen a rug like this before?

We have two small balconies, one off the bedroom which we only use for drying clothes outside, and one off the living room which is where we sit and eat or play backgammon, our favourite things to do (; It’s nice out there, but it’s on a street where there are two hotels and a shop, so there are usually people or cars driving past which means it’s not very private. I love sitting out there being nosey though, I used to sit there every evening during Ramadan and listen for the call to prayer and cannon fire at sundown, lovely.

That’s all, it’s nothing special but it is our home, for now at least. When I first moved in here, I always wanted to be out and about doing something, I didn’t want to be sat at home. I realised that the reason I didn’t want to be inside too often was because I didn’t want to get too attached to this house, like our last one, as it’s just too heartbreaking when I have to leave it and go back to England. After 4 months, it was inevitable that this house would feel like home and now there’s nothing I like more than sitting on the balcony with Berkay playing backgammon and watching the world go by… Oh well, only another 5-6 weeks here then back to England for the foreseeable future… but for now, this is home.

Ölüdeniz from above!

Posted on September 23, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

Two weeks ago we decided to go for a long walk up part of the mountain overlooking Ölüdeniz . The path we took forms part of the ‘Lycian Way’ – a 540km long walking trail between Ölüdeniz and Antalya.

We got on the dolmus near the otogar in Fethiye, and what an experience that was. I’d never seen a dolmus so full! 3 drove past us completely full to the brim before we managed to squeeze (literally) onto the next one. It was a horrible journey – far too many people which made me feel quite claustrophobic, I’m so glad the Calis-Fethiye dolmus’ are rarely like that! We got off the bus on the road down to Ölüdeniz near Montana Pine resort and crossed the road.

This was the part of the walk that I struggled with most and this wasn’t even part of the trail! It was fairly steep uphill and not shady at all which made it quite difficult. I’d hate to be staying there, although Berkay used to work there (I swear there’s not many places he hasn’t worked…) and says they have a free shuttle bus, presumably for that reason! We reached Montana Pine resort hotel around 5-10 minutes later and saw the archway signifying the start of the ‘Lycian Way’.

We followed the road and had our first glimpse of the sea through the beautiful pine trees that cover the area. After a while the road split into two, one which headed down to another hotel, and one which was a more narrow road leading through the trees along the mountain side. It became more shady here which was a real bonus, and being quite high up from ground level meant temperatures were very slightly cooler too.

Every so often we’d get another glimpse of the sea and beach through the trees and realise how high up we were going, the further we walked, the further around the mountain we got and we were able to see more of the lagoon which looked beautiful. I kept stopping to take photos because everytime there was a break in the trees, we got an even better view! We stopped after around 15 minutes of walking and sat down to eat some of the watermelon we’d carried along with us (don’t ask!) It was actually really refreshing and juicy, just what we needed. Apparently we weren’t the only watermelon fans as lots of bees/wasps decided to come and join us for some as well. Ugh. I have a somewhat irrational fear of wasps/bees, I’ve never once been bitten but cannot cope with having one within a meter of me without wanting to cry! Needless to say, I didn’t sit down enjoying the watermelon for long and ended up standing flapping around instead, much to Berkay’s annoyance!

We walked a little further and stepped off the main path towards an area on the right-hand side which had a few little sheep shacks made out of sticks.

We couldn’t see the beach at this point, so we climbed a few rocks and down the other side where this view greeted us. Wow

I think this may be the look-out point that is quite well known, but I could be wrong. We were standing on the mountain edge, surrounded by trees and rocks, one that seemed to have formed a bench – a perfect place to sit and admire the view. It was obviously a popular place to stop as there was litter around, cigarette packets, bottles, crisp packets – quite sad really. We had the entire place to ourselves and didn’t see anyone for miles, just us, bees, birds and butterflies. Lovely.

We had a breathtaking view of the lagoon from this angle too. The boats looked so beautiful on the other side and the mountains behind the lagoon made for an even more beautiful backdrop. I just couldn’t stop taking photos! It’s amazing how blue the sea really looks here, the colour of these photos isn’t altered in any way, the sea really is that colour.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Ölüdeniz , I have always thought it looks absolutely beautiful from above when I see people’s paragliding photos, but when you’re standing down on the ground, it’s not that special and I always felt a bit disappointed, so it was great to see it from above for myself for the first time. Very impressive.

I would have loved to have carried on walking a bit further up the mountain to get even better views, but we had limited time and Berkay had come off a night shift and was very tired, so after admiring the view from this point for a while, we headed back on the path down towards Montana Pine again. It was a much easier walk downhill, although it wasn’t particularly hard going up either, and it only took around 25 minutes to get back to the main road where we hopped on the dolmus (an empty one this time, thank goodness) and headed back to Fethiye.

It was a lovely walk and I really recommend it for the photo opportunities. You can go as high as you wish, but be mindful that the walk does get a lot harder the further up you go, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend it in the height of summer. Now would be a perfect time to go as the days are getting a little cooler. I wouldn’t advise going after 4pm at the moment as once the sun goes down around 6.45pm it gets dark very quickly and there are no lights whatsoever along the path we took. If you’re in the area and feel like doing something different, definitely check it out. You most definitely will not be disappointed by the views!

I’m so glad we went. We’re always looking for things to do that are free, or cheap, and this only cost us the bus fare so it was perfect. Sometimes you just can’t beat a nice walk with amazing views like this, it’s so easy to take our surroundings for granted but when you see them from a whole new angle it’s a real eye-opener and a great reminder of how beautiful Turkey really is.

Kuru Fasulye – Turkish white bean stew recipe

Posted on September 14, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

I really like Turkish food, and this is a delicious, easy dish to make. I posted a photo on Facebook earlier this week and a few people asked for the recipe, so here is the version I follow…

Please note, we judge things by eye, we don’t really measure things, you’ll need to adjust the recipe based on your taste. This recipe is more than enough for 2-3 people, we had leftovers.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of dried white beans. (Dried cannellini beans is the name I believe, you can buy them in supermarkets in the UK – I checked).
1 or 1.5 onions, chopped
1 heaped tablespoon of tomato paste
olive oil
salt
red pepper flakes
water

First, you need to soak the beans in water for around 12 hours, or overnight the day before you plan to cook them.

When you’re ready to start cooking, drain and rinse the beans then put them into a large saucepan/cooking pot with 4-5 cups of fresh water, bring this to the boil and then turn down to a low heat. Leave this to boil gently for around 45-60 minutes, but keep checking back and topping up the water as required. You need to cook the beans until they are soft, but not quite fully cooked.

Once they reach this stage, you can begin to prepare the other ingredients, but don’t turn off the heat on the beans.

Add a little olive oil to a frying pan and saute the onion with the olive oil for around 3-5 minutes or until soft, don’t let them burn. (If you wanted to add meat, you could at this point, diced red meat works well. You could also add peeled, chopped tomatoes and/or peppers if you wish – we didn’t).

Then add your tomato paste, stirring it into the onions. Once it is all stirred together and soft, add this mixture to the beans and water and stir gently. You can add salt and red pepper flakes, we like this dish both salty and slightly spicy, so we added quite a lot of both.

Leave this on a low heat to simmer for around 20-30 minutes, or until the beans are soft enough for your liking, there’s no set time and cooking times vary according to the appliance, just keep an eye on the beans and keep testing them until you’re happy with the taste and texture.

The result is a delicious, hearty bean stew. We serve it with a plate of rice and fresh, crusty bread, which is perfect for dipping in and mopping up the ‘juice’ – yum! Berkay eats his with a quarter of raw onion covered in salt, I never understand that, it must be a Turkish thing!

It’s such a cheap and easy dish to make, it’s filling and really warms you up too so it’s a very popular winter dish here. We don’t make it too often as it uses up a lot of our gas bottle due to the length of the cooking time, but you can easily make it in bulk and freeze the leftovers. It’s also possible to skip the first 2 steps and use canned white beans instead, which greatly reduces the cooking time.

I’m always a little nervous posting recipes, I’m not a very good cook and all these Turkish dishes I learnt from Berkay so I’m hoping he knows his stuff and is teaching me well – it’s difficult to learn when he’s not very specific on exact measurements! Let me know if you try this recipe, or perhaps suggest a different version? Have you tried the dish before?

I’ll be posting a Turkish rice recipe soon.. (:

200,000 views!

Posted on September 9, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

Yesterday this blog hit 200,000 views, just 5 months after reaching 100,000 views back in April. That means that people have clicked on my blog two hundred thousand times since I started it just over a year ago. While this is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things on the world wide web, the fact that so many people have visited my blog makes me incredibly proud.

Thank you to everyone who regularly reads my blog, comments and shares it with others.

I have been blogging everyday for the past week and really enjoyed putting the effort in to do so again, even though it is time consuming. I find myself wandering around daily thinking ‘ooooh, I should take a photo of that for my blog!’ – it’s taking over my thoughts, but I love it.

It’s hard thinking of ideas for new blog posts, and as the summer season draws to an end it will become even harder. I’ve been thinking about doing a few Turkish recipe posts, is there anything else you would like to see me write about? Please let me know in the comments, or via Facebook.

Don’t forget to like my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/livingtheturkishdream where I post daily photos and updates.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken an interest in my blog, and here’s to another 200,000 views!

Sunday market day in Calis..

Posted on September 8, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

We went to the market for the first time in over a month yesterday, we used to go every week but haven’t been recently for one reason or another – I was ill, we had plans with friends, it was too hot, etc. We normally wait for the Tuesday Fethiye market as it’s bigger, but we needed fruit and vegetables for this weeks meals, so we headed to the Sunday market in Calis instead.

I love the food on market days, we used to always go to one of the snack cafe’s inside to have a Turkish pancake for lunch, but we had leftovers from yesterday’s dinner today so we didn’t go there. I’ve written posts about our favourite market cafe food before, click HERE to read that.

We bypassed all the cafes and went straight to the fruit and vegetable stalls, this is where we buy all our weekly fruit and vegetables as it’s generally much cheaper than the supermarkets or small shops. Prices vary dramatically throughout the year for certain things, obviously it depends what is in season and what is not, for example – a month ago we got kiwi’s for 6tl per kg, now they’re 20tl per kg, that is one crazy price increase.

The colours you see in the market are so diverse, vibrant and fresh, from the multi-coloured spices to the pastel coloured Turkish delight and the bright fruits and vegetables. It all smells so good too, apart from the olive and cheese sections, I always hold my nose around both of those stalls…stinky.

I was surprised at how quiet the market was, there were very few tourists around at all, in fact I can’t recall seeing, or hearing any! We went around 5.30pm, perhaps it was too late? That’s another trick you quickly learn, shop in the early evening to take advantage of both the cooler air and the lower prices as people prepare to pack up their stock and go home. The atmosphere at the Calis market compared to the Fethiye one is very different – its less busy and there’s less of a sense of urgency, everyone is always in such a rush during the Tuesday one! There was even a cute fluffy dog just strolling around.

As well as all our fruit and vegetables we usually buy all our chicken here too, from the ‘ay pilic’ van which is our favourite place to buy from. They also sell eggs, but we usually avoid buying those here as the whole tray rarely survives the journey home, there are always a few casualties! My favourite thing about this stall is the fact is sells HP Sauce. This is the only ‘English’ item I regularly buy and insist on always having in my cupboard! I ran out a few weeks ago and we were waiting for pay day to arrive to restock my supply, so I was very pleased when I saw some on the shelf today! Last year they sold it for 4.5tl, now it’s gone up to 6.5tl (£1.85) , along with the beans. Who in their right mind would pay 6.5tl for a tin of baked beans? They’re not even Heinz! The price of imported goods has rapidly increased here. While we were at their van/stall I spotted a big bottle of sweet chili sauce and asked how much it was, 11tl they said (a good deal for the size of the bottle!). We only had enough money on us to buy this or the HP sauce, and of course the latter option won. “We’ll buy the other one next week” Berkay told them, “no, no, take it now, you can pay next week, we know you!” they said. Now this made my day, how kind and how trusting? People are always complaining about Turkish people ripping them off in resorts, and I don’t deny that that does happen, but some of them are so kind and really lovely, genuine people. It makes no difference to them whatsoever if we bought the sauce this week or next, yet they let us take it away anyway. They know us, we use them all the time, but that’s still a really trusting, nice thing to do.

Apart from food, of course there are other aspects to the market too – there are stalls selling clothes, shoes, belts, bags, toys, homewares, baby clothes, towels, sunglasses and an abundance of ‘genuine fakes’. I wrote about some of that in a previous post from last year, click HERE to read.

We ended up coming home with 1kg of chicken wings, 1 chicken breast, 2 chicken drumsticks, HP sauce, several kilograms of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, peppers, bell peppers, green beans, apples, pears, 2 garlic bulbs and one huge 8.6kg watermelon. (Ouch!) This will probably last us 7-10 days and all came to a total of 60tl or £17, which yes is cheaper than you’d pay in the UK, but please consider the wage differences here in Turkey, this is more than a days wages for Berkay.

When we lived at our old house, the bus route didn’t run along our road, so we had to walk for 15 minutes, that was never fun with several kilograms of fruit and vegetables (we certainly wouldn’t have been able to carry that massive watermelon!), so I’m thankful the bus now goes practically to our front door!

The markets are always worth a visit even if you don’t intend to buy anything, it’s a brilliant place to sit and enjoy a cool drink, a Turkish pancake and do some people watching too. (:

Sailing the day away on a Fethiye boat trip..

Posted on September 7, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

This post is long overdue! 10 days ago we went on a boat trip to the islands around Fethiye. We went along for free with one of the tour groups that visit the hotel Berkay works in – the perks of the job!

The tour group we went with is calls ETS, they go traveling around on excursions from Istanbul and stay in the hotel for 3-4 days, using it as a base while they see the sites of the surrounding areas. We hopped on their coach and headed to Fethiye where we boarded the boat.

The boat’s name was Grand Baris. We set off around 10.30 and went on a different route to most of the other ’12 islands’ trips, which I quite liked, although we seemed to be sailing forever until our first stop, it must have been over an hour.

The first stop was called Olive Island and was near Gocek I think, we had a swim and stopped there for 45 minutes. It was all going well until my foot touched a sea urchin, those things really hurt. I didn’t even step on it, just brushed it with my foot and it hurt for the entire day! I could see a really tiny black dot which I removed, but my foot felt like it had painful pins and needles until the following day – it was so weird, thank goodness I didn’t step on one completely and get the entire spike embedded in my foot, because that would definitely have ruined our day!

After that, we moved onto the next stop, I’ve forgotten the name but it was lovely there, turquoise water and really pretty. This is where lunch was served. Everyone else on the boat had to pay 15tl for their dinner (I assume because they didn’t pay for the boat trip individually, it was just part of the tour group’s excursions) but we got it for free as we knew them. It was fish, chicken or meatballs with spaghetti, salad and bread. It was a big plate full too, I couldn’t eat all mine, but it was lovely. I found the price of the drinks/food on board more expensive than usual. We had a small glass of Turkish tea which were 2tl each, and I noticed the 5tl Cola and Fanta were smaller glass bottles, rather than 33 cl cans. We also paid 5tl for a tiny plate of about 20 chips… I know we can’t really complain as we got everything else for free, but everyone else who were paying customers still had to pay those prices.

After another swim, the next stop was Flat Island. It was a lot busier here but really beautiful. We got off the island and had a walk around, it looks even better from photos above (google search ‘flat island fethiye’ to see some!). The flat part of the island is shaped almost like a number ‘6’ with a calm, shallow area of water in the middle which you can walk through. We walked along the flat strip until we reached the hill and then turned back, it was so hot we didn’t fancy hill climbing! There were some ducks and chickens present on the island hiding in the shade of the bushes – cute. After another quick swim we got back on the boat and headed off to our last stop – Red Island.

Red Island is the name of the island you can see from Calis and which forms the backdrop of most of my sunset photos! Berkay had had no sleep and had been working all night, so he was napping on the boat, but I went for a swim and took my goggles so I could look for some fish. The boat moored near a corner of the island and I was able to swim to it, there were alot of beautiful fish there, I wish I’d taken my iPod in with me to get some good underwater photos, but I forgot! I’m so glad I took my goggles, because towards the side of the island the water became shallow and I could see and feel the rocks underneath – I peeked through my goggles to see if it was safe to step down and there were so many black, spikey sea urchins waiting for my feet… Definitely learned my lesson the first time and kept my feet firmly off the ground! More boats starting arriving at the island so I swam back towards ours and after 45 minutes they pulled the anchor up and set off back towards Fethiye.

This is always my favourite part of the journey, it was around 5pm so the sun wasn’t directly overhead, making it slightly cooler. I love sitting at the back of the boat with my feet dangling in the water watching people fishing – they caught 2 fish and a starfish – Berkay was jealous, wishing he had bought his fishing rod! The sight as you come into Fethiye marina is beautiful, with the mountains and rock tombs in full view – lovely.

The boat itself was nice, clean and well-kept. The women’s toilets were large, clean and well-lit but Berkay said the men’s weren’t so nice – so much so that he actually used the women’s one instead! The staff were really friendly and it was a good day out, but we probably wouldn’t chose to use this boat again ourselves, we preferred the one we were on back in July. (click HERE to read the post about that trip)

Also, I always cringe when British people complain about the lack of fellow Brits in their hotel or on boat trips etc, we are in Turkey afterall… but there was one small family of English people on the boat who booked separately to the huge (over 100 people) entirely Turkish tour group that we went with and I can understand that they may have felt a little awkward mixed in amongst them. I do wonder if they were informed when they booked that a large tour group was booked on the boat for the same day? That being said, the staff made sure everything was announced in Turkish and English and were equally as welcoming to both groups of people from what I saw.

We had a great day and I’m grateful we got the opportunity to go for free (apart from extras like drinks). I recommend the boat, we had nothing but a good experience, but I would suggest making sure there are no large tour group bookings on the day you plan to go if that bothers you.

I just love being at sea, perhaps I should have been a pirate! ~~Or married someone with alot of money and a fancy yacht.~~

A morning at Ölüdeniz Waterworld Aquapark!

Posted on September 6, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

Today I spent the morning at Ölüdeniz Waterworld Aquapark.

I’ve been wanting to go since it opened in June but it was proving impossible to convince Berkay to come with me as it’s quite expensive. My friend messaged me yesterday and asked if I wanted to go along with her as part of a large group since her husband couldn’t make it, so I took his place. It was a large group of mummies & babies/kids from the Fethiye area, so they had got a good deal on entry tickets.

The actual waterpark is located in Ovacik. We got there early and were allowed in before anyone else even arrived which meant it was compTletely empty. Lovely! After a while other people who were part of the group arrived and it got busy really quickly. I was surprised at how many British women with Turkish partners and children there are in the area! I recognised a couple of faces from Facebook groups, and it was so surreal having a few people come up to me and say ‘Hi Danni, I feel like I know you – I read your blog!’ – It always surprises me when I meet people who read it, people are usually shocked by how quiet and shy I am in person compared to my ramblings on my blog and Facebook. It’s also a reminder that everything I write on my blog is public knowledge and that real people read it – not just online profiles. It’s lovely meeting them, even if I was totally out of my comfort zone and having to overcome my shyness.

I spent the morning playing with my friends children, having water fights (which I definitely lost!) and playing catch with giant yoga-type balls, all great fun. Someone commented “the little ones seem to be drawn to you” and that it must be helped by my experience with my little sister. I love young children and have always wanted to work with them, that would be my dream job I think!

The children’s area was really impressive and there were lots of small slides and things for them to do. I didn’t take any photos once it got busy because I didn’t want to put photos of people’s children on here without permission, but it looked really good with all the water fountains in the pool turned on. There was a shaded area with toys, lego, colouring etc too which I thought was a brilliant idea. There were staff around the pool area making sure things were kept safe too.

After a while the big slides were turned on and I went off to have a go on those – they were great fun, I wish I’d taken my underwater camera to take photos and videos. The view at the top of the steps was pretty impressive too!

At 12.30 the big slides were turned off and the lazy river was opened, apparently it only stays open for an hour a day but I don’t know how true that is. There was quite a big queue and we had to wait a while for a rubber ring to go around in, but once we got in it was nice and relaxing, although entering and exiting the rubber ring was impossible to do elegantly! The only thing I’d say about the lazy river is how the bottom of the floor looked, all the paint had flaked off and the walls felt a bit slimy – I guess this will be fixed for the start of next season though, the park is new so teething problems are to be expected.

We were only able to stay until lunchtime so we missed the wave pool, but that sounds like fun too. The whole park was well designed, it looks beautiful with the mountains as a backdrop and is a great day out. The toilets are well kept, there are lockers available to keep belongings in and the food and drink prices weren’t overly expensive.

Overall it was a good morning out and from what I saw of it, it’s a well looked after, fun day out for children (and big kids like me!). I recommend it. I probably won’t go back again because the full price is too much to justify when we live off a Turkish wage, but when you convert it to pounds it’s around £12-13 each adult, around £9 for 6-12 year olds and free for 0-5’s, a good deal for the amount of things to do I think.

So grateful to my friend for inviting me along, I had a lot of fun, even if I did get quite sun burnt! Ooops!

Football, Fethiyespor & icecream…

Posted on September 5, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

On Sunday we had a rare evening together and went to a football match – Fethiyespor v Menemen Bld.Spor. Berkay arranged to go into work 3 hours later than normal so after dinner we headed into Fethiye town centre.

We had been trying to get tickets for the game in advance but they kept telling us to ‘come back tomorrow’ – much like everything else in Turkey it was very unorganised! In the end we just gave up and got them from the gates on the day. We got the cheapest seats which we only 5tl… bargain!

After getting tickets from the stadium (just behind the Tuesday market area) we walked back in to the main town and sat down in a little cafe for some ice-cream. It’s real Turkish icecream and if you’ve ever eaten it you’ll know what I mean when I describe it as slightly chewy – it’s delicious and really filling. We got 4 scoops for 2tl which is an absolute bargain. I’ve heard horror stories in recent weeks of people being charged £10 for one ice cream in resorts – even 10tl would be extortionate! This was a massive ice cream, I got a mixture of lemon, blackcurrant and chocolate chip…dipped in chocolate sauce and nuts. Yum. They have so many different flavours to chose from too.

After that we took a slow walk through the park in Fethiye and managed to catch the sunset – click HERE for my previous blog post for photos of that. I love this park and it’s so much nicer to walk around in the evenings when it’s cooler and the sun isn’t directly overhead.

Berkay popped to the shop to stock up on sunflower seeds for the match (you’ll see why if you keep reading) and then we headed off to the stadium again.

I was suprised by how much security was outside the stadium. There were stewards searching people and police with guns and truncheons, it was really quite intimidating. I used to have a season ticket for Chelsea FC and considering the massive difference in the standing of both clubs, there wasn’t an awful lot of difference in the security measures in place, the only things that were missing were police horses! At Chelsea games we were allowed to take our bottles of water inside the stadium as long as the lids were thrown away (or hidden in our pockets – shhh) but here they didn’t allow any kind of bottles – strange.

Once through the turnstiles we searched for our correct seats, but failed to find them. The numbering seemed to be totally illogical – I ended up sitting in seat 245 and the seat next to me was numbered as ‘407’ – go figure! It didn’t matter, because despite the speaker on the tannoy announcing that everyone should stick to the seat number stated on their ticket, very few people actually did.. at least not in our stand. There were very few stewards inside the stands, I can’t actually recall seeing any.

There was a small snack place to buy food in, none of the usual hot dogs, burgers, pies and pints of beer though – toasties, chicken doner kebabs only. There was also a crate full of packets of sunflower seeds for sale which seemed to be everyone’s snack of choice! Turkish people do love their salted sunflower seeds, they eat them like a little chipmunk or something – it’s quite a skill to master or you end up with a mouth full of cardboardy shells. Bleugh. Literally everyone was eating these, and none of them seemed to care where they disposed of the shells – look at the massive pile Berkay made on the floor!! After all the salt we needed a drink of water so had to buy one from the young boy selling them from a massive ice barrel in the corner of the stand – they were 1tl each, for a tiny little carton.

It was soon national anthem time, something the Turkish people take very seriously. Everyone stood still with their hands by their sides singing along. Nobody moved a muscle apart from the photographers!

I enjoyed the game, although it was very frustrating as neither team managed to score and boy did they have a lot of chances! Even my Fethiyespor themed nails didn’t bring them luck.

The match was pretty much the same as any other game of football I’ve been to, passionate fans, jeers, swearing and booing at the referee, fights on the pitch leading to red cards and players diving all over the place. Oh, the beautiful game eh? Don’t get me wrong, I do love football. I thought it was interesting how they had a ‘water break’ 23 minutes into the game due to the hot weather, something that is certainly never necessary in England.

There are a very passionate set of Fethiyespor fans in one of the other stands, they’re the hardcore, season ticket holders. They were singing and banging drums for much of the match – I found it so funny how most of their chants were to the same tune as the football chants I’ve heard at Chelsea – different words, different language, same tune!

The match ended in a 0-0 draw which was disappointing, but it was a good evening regardless. As soon as the full time whistle was blown we hurried out of the stadium, got on the dolmus and headed home, Berkay went straight to work. I wish he’d get a full day off sometimes, he’s not had one day off since the end of May and isn’t likely to until the season is over in November. I’m thankful that his boss and his colleagues are flexible and will allow him to make up hours if he asks to go in late.. that’s better than nothing (:

Fethiye’s best chicken döner kebab?..

Posted on September 3, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

We don’t often eat out in restaurants here in Calis/Fethiye, it’s nice every once in a while to splash out and go out for dinner but it’s expensive when you’re on a tight budget. We do however, go to small Turkish cafe’s regularly – usually once a week.

You can’t beat the small cafe’s in Fethiye for their Turkish food, whether it be beans and rice, green beans, pide, köfte, chicken saute or our good old favourite – chicken döner. It’s all so cheap, in fact I think a lot of it is cheaper than actually buying the ingredients and cooking it yourself at home.

Our favourite place to go for a good chicken döner kebab is Dönercim. It’s located in Fethiye on the corner of the main town centre road behind Mercan Pastanesi and Cem Optik.

A Turkish döner kebab is nothing like the ones you’ve come across in the UK. They’re not greasy, mixed meats all slung together into a brown pile served in a pitta bread with chili sauce and greasy chips… When we were in a kebab shop in Essex, Berkay asked the owners (they were Turkish too) what the meat was in their version of a ‘doner kebab’ and was shocked at their answer – it was a mixture of everything and made up of several meats including pork, something Turkish people do not normally eat.

The döner kebabs here are different. There’s no such thing as ‘doner meat’ – it’s either seasoned chicken, beef or lamb. The name relates to the way the meat is cooked slowly on a vertical rotisserie. As the outside layers of meat get cooked, they are carved off and served. There are various ways the meat is served – e.g, over rice with salad, in a wrap (dürüm) or in a half-bread like a sandwich (yarım ekmek).

We usually get the half-bread, the perfectly cooked chicken is shaved off and put inside along with onion, tomato and lettuce. It’s always served with a side of pickled hot chili peppers too – I love them, although they took a bit of getting used to, once I managed to control the mouth burning sensation I grew to love them. (;

It’s not a very ‘Turkish’ thing to do, but we always order a side of chips, pour some salt and vinegar on them and stick them inside the half-bread too – trust me, it’s perfect!

We love this cafe so much, the staff know us. They see us walking down the road towards it, Berkay gestures to let them know we’re coming in, they know our order (including drinks) off by heart and have it ready and waiting by the time we’ve sat down at the table. That’s how you know you visit a place a little too often, isn’t it? The first few times we went they had to ask if we wanted ketchup and mayonnaise in the half bread (ewww no), what drink we wanted and always gave us weird looks when we asked for the vinegar (apparently vinegar on chips isn’t a normal thing to do here), but now they don’t even have to ask and the bottle of vinegar is always bought out to the table without thinking twice. They are so friendly and I really recommend the place. Our bill usually comes to around 12.5 lira. 3.5tl for one half-bread with ayran, 5tl for one half-bread with a cola light, and 4tl for the side portion of chips. Bargain.

This cafe doesn’t just sell döner kebabs of course, it has other Turkish meals – various kebabs, chicken saute, fish, liver, meatballs etc and it also caters for those wanting something more ‘British’ although I’ve never tried any of these meals, so I can’t comment. The prices are clearly displayed outside so there’s no ‘double price’ system for local people v tourists, something that is an issue in a lot of places.

If you’re in Fethiye give it a try – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, and for the prices you really can’t go wrong. There’s a good chance you’ll bump into us there too! 😉

Two weeks ago we decided to go for a long walk up part of the mountain overlooking Ölüdeniz . The path we took forms part of the ‘Lycian Way’ – a 540km long walking trail between Ölüdeniz and Antalya.

I really like Turkish food, and this is a delicious, easy dish to make. I posted a photo on Facebook earlier this week and a few people asked for the recipe, so here is the version I follow…

Disclaimer – I’m not being paid to advertise, the owners have no idea I’m writing this post.