ROLLERCOASTERS!

Posted on April 8, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

On Saturday Berkay & I decided to go for a little trip out. We were planning to get the train to Southend to have a walk along the sea front, visit the aquarium and go on the rides at adventure island, but after looking into it, and realising what would normally be a 45-60 minute car journey was going to take 2.5 hours and cost £40 on the train – late on Friday night we decided we’d go to Thorpe Park instead. It’s crazy to think that this actually worked out slightly cheaper, as it’s 100 x better!

We caught the 8:30 am train from our town to London Waterloo, then another train from Waterloo to Staines. Then we got the shuttle bus from Staines station to Thorpe Park, which was only 10 mins down the road! I was suprised at how quick the journey was, it only took an hour and a half to get there altogether, but it seemed a lot quicker. I’m also pretty impressed that I didn’t get us lost once.

When we arrived Berkay got concerned about the HUGE line of people queuing to get tickets, luckily, we paid for ours online the night before and printed them out so literally walked straight in past the massive line of people and through the ticket scanners.

We went on a few ‘tame’ rides first of all to warm Berkay up, then we attempted the bigg’uns! We queued for an hour and a half to get onto the next ride – Colossus. I can’t believe we waited so long really, not sure if it were really worth it, but we did get back row seats – nothing quite like sitting at the front or back of a big rollercoaster!

After that we went to go and get some lunch, but on the way we spotted a ride with no queue whatsoever – not even one person. So we made our way over to that. Now I’ve been to Thorpe Park before, so I knew what to expect- but it didn’t take Berkay long to figure out why exactly there was no queue for this ride on a grey, not-too-warm, April day in Surrey…

The ride in question was ‘Tidal Wave’ – clue is in the name really isn’t it? Up we went in the boat, sat in the front row I must add, we got to the top, the boat went around towards the steep drop and baaaam, it all became clear to Berkay – the huge tidal wave splash flowing into the boat was pretty much like having a shower, we were SOAKED, that’s why nobody else was queuing – who wants to be wet and cold during an English Spring?! I bet the ride is really popular in summer though! This is my favourite ride in the whole place – I’ve always loved it because of the theme, 1950’s American fishing village hit by a tsunami- the surrounding area of this ride all blends in well, all the buildings look like they’ve been hit by the ‘tidal wave’ – including the KFC we went into for lunch, the roof is all caved in and wonky with a giant shark poking through the building! I love the 1950’s theme going on – reminds me of Grease, which incidentally I’m currently watching on tv!

After KFC for lunch, we went to the other side of the park and went on the water raft ride – a nice tame one to keep our KFC safely in our tummies. After that – the spinning teacups – and after that … the big one… Stealth!

The queue for this ride was suprisingly not as long as I thought it would be – we only waited 45 minutes, and it’s arguably the most popular ride at the park. You really can’t quite comprehend how tall or impressive it is until you’re standing underneath it and hear the gas propelling the coaster, the roar of the cars on the tracks and the screams of everyone riding in it. It accelerates from 0-80mph in 1.8 seconds – impressive! If you’re not quite sat in the right position as it takes off up the track though, you really feel it, the first time it jolted my neck and hurt for a while.

When your feet are firmly on the ground watching it climb over the tip of the arch, there’s always that bit of doubt in your mind that it might not have enough power to make it quite over and end up rolling back down – something which apparently it is designed to do safely – but that would be scary to experience! When you’re on the ride at the top, all you can see all around you is sky and cloud – no track – not the car in front – just sky. Berkay loved this so much the first time that when we spotted a sign later on in the day advising that the waiting time was currently only 5 minutes for this one – we took advantage and went back on it for a second time!

After that we headed for the newest ride at the park – which was really cool and well designed – apparently it cost £200 MILLION to create. Ouch! The whole area is themed around ‘unexplained incidents’ and riots/war – with a very realistic looking plane crash, upside down burnt out emergency vehicles etc etc. We loved this one so much we went on it twice too!

Berkay tried to win me a giant minion teddy as we saw literally HUNDREDS of people walking around the park with them after winning them from the typical things – climb the ladder, basketball shooting etc etc, but it appears we’re just not lucky – he must’ve spent about £20 trying to win one! ):

After realising that the shortest queues of the day for the big coasters were after 5pm when most people had already gone home – we managed to squeeze in a couple more big rollercoaster rides before heading home. Berkay absolutely loved them and we had a really great day.

We caught the shuttle bus back to Staines station and spotted a little Chinese/Indian buffet restaurant and took a little detour in there for some dinner. It was soo yummy – especially the cakes for dessert! Mmmmm. After that, we headed home via London Waterloo – I love how old that station looks with the massive clock in the middle! We were so tired and achey from all the walking and being bashed around on rides that as soon as we got home we went to bed, but we had a really fab day, glad we chose to go there, even if it was a last minute decision!

Weddings!

Posted on April 1, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

This weekend was a busy one. On Saturday, my mum got married!

It was all a bit of a whirlwind romance really. She split up with her previous partner last year and moved into her own house, my uncle helped her move in with a few of his friends, one of them, unbeknownst to her, would be her future husband! He helped her move in, sent her a ‘new home’ card, got her number from my uncle and started talking. Two months later they told me they were getting married! Won’t lie, we all thought she was nuts. Bat-shit-crazy nuts. But so far, they’ve proved us all wrong, her new husband is lovely and I’ve never seen her so happy.. Who are we to judge? (:

Anyway, Saturday 29th March, 7 months after meeting, they officially tied the knot!

After doing some last minute wedding preparations and getting the venue ready for the reception, me and Berkay stayed at my Mum’s house on Friday night, along with my aunt.

We had a 7am wake up call, ate breakfast and spent the next 4 hours getting ready, helped along with a glass of bucks fizz of course! Poor Berkay was stuck in a house of girls. Mum was having her hair done by her hairdresser, my aunts friend was doing her hair, and then there was me… Berkay was just sat downstairs flabbergasted by what was going on… so much so that he took himself off on a long walk around the town for an hour! Bless.

Mum had 3 pairs of wedding shoes – decreasing in height and increasing in comfort! I also took along a ‘back-up’ bra, dress, shrug, and shoes, which quickly made an appearance after stuffing myself with the buffet!

When he came back, all our hair was done and we were all fighting over the only mirror with good-lighting in the house so we could do our make-up. “Hurry up and get ready Berkay!” we nagged… “I’ll only take 10minutes”… he said. He wasn’t wrong either. He was all suited and booted within minutes while us 3 girls were all rushing around like sweaty headless chickens upstairs.

The photographer arrived at 11, by then luckily we were all ready, and began a mammoth photo shoot in the garden, what a lovely sunny day it was, thank God! I can’t wait to see all the professional photos, she took hundreds! The only thing I don’t like is how posed they all were, “til your bouquet towards me a bit, move your hands down a bit, now stare up at that tree” – I’m not a fan of cheesy posed photos like that, candid shots are best, they capture the special moments best.

Berkay went off to the register office in a different car, and Mum, grandad, my aunt and I followed in the wedding car. We got stuck at every set of traffic lights, and the sunny warm weather meant the streets were full of people walking, so everyone kept stopping and pointing “oh look, someone’s getting married!”

We got to the register office and had a 15 minute wait until the part I was dreading most – walking into the actual register office room. Anyone who knows me knows how shy I am, walking into that room with everyone turning to look is the worst thing I can imagine! I know everybody was looking at how lovely mum looked, rather than at us two bridesmaids following, but it was still very scary. Uhhhh.

I took my seat next to Berkay, and a few minutes and the wedding vows later, it was official, they were Mr & Mrs Gormley! It’s so weird now that mum has a different surname to me, even after her and dad divorced she still kept his name, so we’ve had the same name for as long as I can remember! I was a witness and had to sign the book, so once again I had to stand at the front of the room of 70 people all watching… my worst nightmare!

After all the necessary paperwork was completed, and marriage certifcate all signed and handed over, it was time to head outside for more photos! We were there for ages having lots of photos taken by the photographer, all 70 guests managed to squeeze in at one point. I’m sure the photographer got some nice shots. After the photos were all done, it was time for the traditional confetti throwing, some people had bubbles to blow too – the groom’s family couldn’t resist a little rendition of ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’ – most of them are West Ham fans!

All us guests headed off to the reception venue, and waited at the bar for the guests of honor to arrive. Everyone grabbed a glass of Bucks Fizz to raise when they walked in.

When the speeches were over and done with, and presents given out, it was time for the buffet! Pride of place on the buffet table was the wedding cake – which everyone was admiring. As you can see from the photos, mum didn’t have a red dress, she wanted a claret one, so claret was the theme of the day, the cake, roses, ribbons, banners , balloons. Our bridesmaids dresses were blue. Has anyone figured this out yet? Claret & Blue? West Ham. Ewwwwwww. The groom even had West Ham cufflinks and there was an alternative bride and groom cake-topper, with co-ordinating claret dress and West ham shirt!

After the buffet it was time to cut the cake, then the first dance, which was to Ellie Goulding’s ‘How long will I love you?’ – a few other people joined in the dancing, but me and Berkay were too shy. He did eventually get up and do one dance with mum, but I just sat down all night!

The reception was lovely, but it was a very long day. The wedding was at 12, so we were all sat in the reception venue from 1pm til very late evening – this meant everyone had plenty of time to get nice and drunk – resulting in some pretty hilarious dance off’s! I didn’t really speak to anybody most of the night, people were coming up to me and saying hello and I had no idea who they were – ours is one of those families who only gets together for events, which doesn’t occur very often, so I’m so glad Berkay was with me.

After chatting, eating and dancing the day away, it was time for the bride and groom to leave – everyone formed a circle on the dance floor, had a kiss and a hug and wished them well – and then off they went. We followed literally 2minutes afterwards as we had a taxi waiting. We were so knackered from the day that we were in bed ~~snoring~~ asleep by 10.30pm!

Mum & Berkay enjoyed a little boogie.

Click here to compare to my experience of a Turkish wedding last year.

Back to the Village..

Posted on January 12, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

Berkay received a call from his brother a few days ago to tell him that his step-mum was ill, so he got on the next coach to his hometown of Beyağaç, Denizli to visit.

Fethiye to Denizli is a 5 hour bus ride, and then it’s a futher 1 and a half hours on a small dolmus from Denizli to the very remote town of Beyağaç, which has a population of less than 7000.

It’s a very traditional Turkish town, it is not at all modernised. Berkay’s family live in a small ground level house, it’s very basic, no luxuries, they don’t even have beds, just floor cushions. They have farmland and own 19 cows, 23 sheep and lots of chickens, which they keep for milk, cheese, eggs and meat. It is a very different way of life to what I am used to.

Some of the youngest cows are only a few days old, so cute. The photo on the left is Berkay’s step-mum, who is thankfully feeling much better now. .I love this photo on the right, who has a baby cow sitting in their garden beside their motorbike? Berkay’s family do 🙂

I have visited the village twice, and absolutely hated it. The main reason is because of just how traditional they are, and how alien I am to them, as a ‘ yabancı’ (foreigner). Both times we visited I wore modest clothes, jeans or a skirt with long leggings, socks, and a top that covered my shoulders, boobs and belly, yet I still looked like an outcast because quite literally every single other person was wearing ‘village pants’ .. the typical flowery type, and headscarves. Whereas people in Fethiye are normally mistaking me for a native Turk due to my skin colour, the people in Beyağaç were staring at me as if I had two heads, and they weren’t shy about it, I felt like I was in a zoo cage with hundreds of people staring and giggling at me. Another thing I found very difficult to cope with was the way the men and women were so segregated. Within the house, the roles of men and women were clearly defined. men outside sitting at tables smoking, women inside preparing food and cay. There was no mixing or conversation between men and women, they weren’t even allowed to sit in the same room. This was really horrible for me, as I couldn’t understand nor speak Turkish, and I was sat in a room full of people who couldn’t communicate with me either, add this to the staring they were doing and I became very paranoid!

Berkay rarely visits his family as he had a tough childhood and as a result, isn’t close to any of them. Berkay’s real mother left him when he was 28days old and moved elsewhere with his dad, temporarily, then they moved back to Denizli and had his brother. His mum then, again, abandoned his brother and left his dad. Berkay was being bought up by his grandparents, whom he adored. When his grandad sadly died, Berkay had to move back to his dad. His dad then remarried and had another son. When Berkay was just 15, his dad sent him away to Fethiye to attend school. He sent him with no food, no money, nothing. Berkay lived on the streets for a while until he met someone who took him in. He attended school and got a job, the money from which was all sent back to his dad. One month Berkay kept the money to pay bills, and his dad made the 6 hour journey to Fethiye to attack him and get the money for himself. Needless to say, their relationship does not exist now. They never speak and only see each other if there is a family death or special occasion. Berkay is quite close to his brothers still, but he is definitely the ‘black sheep’ of the family.

How someone can go through such a tough childhood and still be such a caring, kind, loving person I don’t know.

Anyway, thankfully Berkay’s step-mum is well again, and he is already back in Fethiye now. When he told me he was going to visit, I asked him to take tons of photos, so I could share how different his hometown is, he seems to have only taken photos of the animals, he knows I’m a sucker for animals! (:

Christmas Day!

Posted on December 31, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Well, it was nearly a week ago, but we had a nice Christmas.

Dad was working nights on Christmas eve, so me, Berkay and my step-mum were on ‘constuction duty’ helping Father Christmas build and deliver his presents… We were up til gone 1am helping him.

My very exicted little sister left Father Christmas a mince pie, a cupcake, a glass of milk and a carrot for Rudolph, we tried to convince her to leave a glass of baileys out, but she wasn’t having any of it..

This is what we all woke up to on Christmas morning, Father Christmas even wrapped up the living room doors so no little people could get downstairs into the presents before Dad got home… Little did we know that neither of the ‘little’ people would wake up til gone 9.30!

We all went up to Dad’s room and opened our stockings, me and Berkay had our own ones, which you can tell her was thrilled about! Apparently Father Christmas knows Berkay loves Nandos, as his stocking contained 7 bottles of Nandos sauce!

After crumpets and the traditional Bucks fizz for breakfast, my brother and sister ran through the wrapping paper into the living room and were greeted with presents. It took a good few hours to open them all, my little sister was amazed by it all and wanted to play with everything before opening the next.. I miss being a little kid, but have great fun playing with all her toys myself!

Berkay got me some lovely presents, one being a traditional Turkish cay kettle, and another this Fethiyespor shirt, I wanted one before I left in September but didn’t have a chance to get one, now I can wear it with pride! He also had a skirt specially made for me, I had one similiar before that was my favourite, but it had holes in it and was ruined so he took it to a dress maker and got a new one made, how thoughtful! Bless.

After presents it was dinner time, Berkay tested out one of his new bottles of sauce and ended up using about a quarter of it on his potatoes, he must be the only person in the country who has Nandos hot sauce on their Christmas dinner!!

After dinner we went to my step-mum’s Dad’s house for a buffet and a little evening together, poor Berkay didn’t enjoy it very much as pig was pretty much the only thing on the menu, bless him.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a very happy New Year to everyone, we’re off to London tomorrow to watch the fireworks along embankment, wish us luck, I expect we will end up very wet, very cold and very squashed, it’s all part of the fun!!

Early Christmas..

Posted on December 22, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

3 more days til Santa, but Christmas came early for us today, as we celebrated at Mum’s house.

We woke up this morning after a night of sharing the sofa bed with the dog, who was also feeling very festive.

We had crumpets for breakfast and then opened our presents, while still in our pajamas, as per Christmas tradition 😉

Even Boncuk got some presents, she wasn’t forgotten! 🙂
We ate a huge Christmas dinner cooked by my mum’s partner (apparently having pickled onions with roast dinner is not normal?!) and had yummy dessert along with countless chocolates and other treats.

Of course we all had Christmas crackers and wore our cracker hats too, everyone has to have a silly cracker hat photo, right?

We’re currently watching rubbish films on TV, and waiting to go back to dad’s house soon. Work tomorrow and Christmas Eve, time is flying. Berkay has been here a week tomorrow already… Crazy.

He’s here for 2 more weeks until the 5th Jan, which I suspect will also pass by very quickly, unfortunately. Poor Berkay is bored out of his mind and probably can’t wait to go home 😦 I’ll have to get Dad to find him some jobs to do while I’m at work all day tomorrow, he’s already washed the car and done some babysitting duties, bless, anything to keep him amused!

BERKAYS FAVOURITE PLACE – NANDOS

Posted on December 21, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Nandos is most definitely Berkay’s favourite thing about England. He absolutely loves it.

After work on Friday, we had a spare couple of hours before we had to babysit my brother & sister, so we took a detour to spicy chicken heaven, Nandos.

Being a Turk, Berkay loves spicy stuff. Very spicy. Not content with the hot chicken he had, he tipped loads of extra hot sauce over his garlic bread, pitta, chicken and chips. How he eats it without smoke coming out of his ears I have no idea, good job you get free refills for the drinks!

Nandos is my favourite too. Red pepper dip, chicken in pitta, spicy chips… yummy.
Afterwards we got the bus home, but not before stopping to take a photo of this pretty tree.
3 days til Christmas 🙂
Writing this post is making me so hungry, Im going out with my friends for dinner tonight and table isn’t booked til 8pm… mmmmm, We’re spending the weekend back in Essex in mums house, we are celebrating Christmas tomorrow here, 3 days early, as we won’t see her, so lots of festive photos coming tomorrow!

🙂

A Turkish wedding..

Posted on October 24, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Turkish weddings are spectacular occasions, I’m pretty certain they invite every person they’ve ever met, literally, hundreds, even a thousand people all gathered together to celebrate, the Turks do know how to throw a party.

The wedding celebrations go on for days, and it’s not unusual for the legal wedding ceremony to take place months before the actual wedding party, the equivalent of what we would call the ‘reception’. This was the case for our friends. They were legally married in April this year, and had a very small family get together in a restaurant. They held the actual wedding party, and everything else that goes with it, a month later at the end of May. I have their permission to share their photos so thought I’d do a post sharing my experience of a Turkish wedding.

The days and weeks leading up to the big wedding party were spent planning, we went to their house often and each time they were doing something wedding-related. On on particular occasion, they came in with a massive box of invitations to send out, ”how many people are they inviting?!” I asked, ‘not too many, just 500”….

500 people, and that is considered a fairly small wedding by Turkish standards! I don’t even know 50 people, let alone 500. The wedding party was taken very seriously, the groom’s father spent an awful lot of money on it, with the help of credit cards!

The night before the wedding, they had a henna night, I’ve heard this is normally a women-only thing, but both bride and groom attended in this case.

The next morning, the day of the wedding party, Berkay headed off to our friends village where they had sacrificed a cow and were serving up traditional Turkish meals to everyone who happened to be passing by. There was a steady flow of hundreds of people throughout the day, all coming to eat the food being offered as part of the celebrations. This carried on until late afternoon when it was time to get ready for the big party..

Typically, wedding parties are held in the late evenings, and can go on until the early hours of the morning. They are often held in large halls, ‘wedding salons’ or school yards. In this case, it was the school yard directly opposite their house. It seems so bizarre to me to hold a party in a school playground, when we think of traditional British wedding receptions, they are held in fancy halls or venues, all beautifully decorated tables and chairs, balloons, seating plans, perhaps a buffet or meal, and plenty of alcohol flowing. This was not the case here at all. Everyone was sitting on plastic garden chairs, hired from the local council, there was no food, no alcohol, not many decorations. It was all very simple, yet completely bonkers at the same time. We arrived at 8 o clock, just in time to see the bride and groom’s extravagant-looking car speeding through the village beeping its horn loudy to let everyone know there’s a wedding going on. The bride and groom’s names were written on the banner draped over the car, and it was covered in streamers and huge ribbons, I wish I had taken a photo!

After greeting the bride and groom’s parents, we found a couple of spare chairs and sat down, completely overwhelmed by the amount of people and the noise of the drums, something that is ever-present at Turkish weddings.

The bride and grooms close family and friends stood up and lit some sparklers, held them in the air and formed a little walkthrough archway with their arms, the bride and groom arrived and walked hand in hand through them, it all looked quite romantic with the sparklers! They walked straight into the middle of the yard and stood opposite each other, the bride had a veil over her head and a red ribbon tied around her waist, this is a ‘maidenhood belt’ or bekaret kuşağı which is tied around her by her family before leaving for the wedding. The groom said a prayer and removed his bride’s veil, revealing her face. Small fireworks were lit in the background and they then had their first dance, a typical slow dance, and then other couples started to join in.

After the first dance, the real party begins. Loud drums, all kinds of musical instruments, live music and singing and A LOT of dancing. The dancing goes on all night and is crazy, traditional Turkish dancing. The wedding we were at had only Turkish music, but many are more modern and include western music, I can’t count the number of times I heard wedding parties in the school yard behind my house playing gangnam style last year!

After a while, it was time to bring out the cake. The cake was HUGE, 7 tiers (yet still nowhere near enough to go around all the guests) and had yet more fireworks lit on top. The bride and groom placed some lira notes on the cake and it was cut up and distributed to guests, we didn’t stay around long enough to get any, unfortunately, as Berkay had to get to work!

Just before we went, the dancing was put on hold for a while and the bride and groom stood at the front of the seating area with ribbons draped around their shoulders. Guests are expected to pin money or gold coins to the ribbon, instead of giving presents. This was one of my favourite parts, I think it’s a good idea and a nice little tradition that looks great on the photos! We were near the front of the queue to pin money on, right after the groom’s family. Each person that pinned money on got a photo taken with the bride and groom and then went back to their dancing.

We had to go home after this as Berkay had work, but I’m certain the wedding carried on until the early hours with plenty more fun and dancing.

It was very different to any wedding I have ever been to before, but it was an experience to say the least. If we ever get married, I’m sure we’ll incorporate elements of both traditional British and Turkish weddings, or maybe we’ll do as many of my friends have and have two, they are very different after all. (:

Turkish food shopping..in London!

Posted on October 22, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Today Dad took me to the Turkish Food Centre near us, and we stocked up on a few Turkish goodies. Always on the look out for new blog post ideas, I thought Id take a few photos and share the store for anyone else in London who may be experiencing withdrawal symptoms from their favourite Turkish snacks!

The TFC we went to is in Welling, south east London, but they have branches all over London. Click here to visit their site and see if there’s a store near you!

The shop has a selection of fruit and veg as well as a meat counter and bakery. The bakery sells that fresh Turkish bread we all love, along with all kinds of traditional Turkish cakes and pastries, most importantly there is a good selection of baklava too!

They sell everything else you could want, shampoo, toiletries, snacks, cakes, biscuits, crisps, juice, cheese, butter, all brands that you would find in Turkish shops and that you wouldn’t normally see in the UK. In typical Turkish style, the ‘pickled vegetables’ aisle was the biggest, along with huge jars of olives and bags of cay!

Everything in the shop seemed reasonably priced to me, more expensive than in Turkey, but not by much. We came away with a bag of Turkish tea, apple tea, sunflower seeds, simit bread, sachets of salep, cracker sticks, pop keks and wafer chocolates.

It was so weird seeing all these Turkish brands in the shop, it was like being back home in Fethiye! When you spend 2.5 years in a country you get used to their food and I really quite miss it when its not there anymore. Seeing the shampoo I used to buy in Turkey made me smile, sometimes it’s the small things! In the same way when going abroad you miss home comforts, when returning back after so many years, you miss things you never thought you would. It’s a lot of adapting, even down to the little things like which shampoo you buy!..Perhaps I’m just a little odd and too sentimental (:

Bodrum Day 2. Castle, boats & starbucks.

Posted on October 2, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Not so impressed with Gumbet, on Thursday we decided to go to Bodrum town. I absolutely LOVED IT. Perhaps even as much as I love Fethiye!

After the previous nights dinner, expectations were high for breakfast, we weren’t disappointed though. A huge buffet table greeted us, boiled eggs, omelette, tomato, cucumber, cheese, salami, chicken, fruit, honey, jam, biscuits, olives, chips, bread..and of course bottomless glasses of cay/Turkish tea.

After breakfast we got the dolmus to Bodrum and walked through the main town towards the marina. It was beautiful, all undercover and hundreds of little boutiques and shops selling everything from paintings to jewellery, clothes, bags, food.. I found these cute cushions with paintings of Bodrum on, clever.

The harbour/marina was lovely, such a pretty backdrop with the bright blue skies and hundreds of boats. We walked along the harbour and found the castle. So pretty and impressive too, especially at night when it’s all lit up.

We walked along to the castle for a better look, I wanted to go inside but we decided the 20tl each fee was too expensive, instead we walked around the cafe in the castle grounds and found the little photobooth offering photos dressed up as a Sultan. This was great fun and we ended up spending 40tl on photos, we could have just paid the castle entry fee after all. Oh well. It was a lovely place.

While we were having these funny photos taken, I spotted a lady walking around with a coffee cup that looked suspiciously like Starbucks. I made it our mission to find it and had Berkay asking 4 different people for directions. We eventually found the Starbucks and sat in their little garden with our Frappuccinos. Yummy. So refreshing in the heat! We paid 20tl for two though, ouch. We really were living like tourists for these 2 days!

The view from Starbucks was lovely, crystal clear water and a little path at the side where you could walk up to the castle. We followed the path and the views were amazing from the top. We had a little mini photoshoot as always, and made our way back down.

It was 4pm by this point and we really wanted to go back to the hotel for a swim before it got too late, as we knew the pool would be cold again. We got the dolmus back to Gumbet and had a swim and another game of volleyball, we had the pool to ourselves again and had some fun taking some underwater photos with my special iPod case.
So cheesy.

Then it was time to get ready for dinner again, I wore a new dress I bought in Bodrum. I hate clothes shopping, I can never find anything that looks right on me, but I loved this dress.

Dinner was amazing again, this time it was vegetable soup, mized meze, manti, salad, bread, steak with mushrooms and cake for dessert. Mmm.

After dinner we walked all the way to a mini themepark, it was a long walk, 30-40 minutes there and another 30-40minutes back again. It was lovely and cool so it was a nice evening walk. We purchased tickets for 2 rides, a giant pirate ship, which was the scariest, steepest pirate ship ride i’d ever been on, and another ride that span you around.. I thought I might see my dinner again haha!

After the rides, we walked back to Gumbet and met Berkay’s brothers in bar street. We went to a bar and paid 50tl for 4 beers and a vodka and coke, OUCH. Bodrum is not cheap, it’s the most expensive place i’ve visited in Turkey, even in the non touristy parts, water, crisps, bread..everything in the shops is more expensive. I’m glad we don’t live there.

Just another day in Fethiye..

Posted on September 14, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Off we went to Fethiye again today, Berkay wanted his hair cut and we decided to stop off for chicken doner for lunch too!

4tl, bargain. Perfect with the chips in too. Probably not too healthy having half a loaf of bread in one sitting but hey, who can resist when it tastes so good and is just as cheap, if not cheaper than cooking a meal at home?

We went for another walk around our favourite place in Fethiye again too. I love the fountains and the topiary in all shapes and sizes… all very pretty! Of course we had another little mini photo-shoot, I never go anywhere without my iPod camera! I LOVE my iPod.

I like the clock tower too, it has the names of a few cities and shows the current times in each location, London, Moscow, Berlin and of course Turkey! The temperature read 39 oC , I’m not sure if that was the actual temperature or just in direct sunlight, but it certainly felt like 39 oC was a true representation, it was absolutely boiling! We resorted to walking around Migros for 10 minutes to use the aircon and cool down, that turned out to be a bad idea as we got distracted by the goodies and spent 35tl on some shopping.. Oops.

The park was nearly empty, which meant we could have some fun taking silly photos without looking stupid.. but it’s sad that more tourists don’t come into the main town of Fethiye and see this place, they’re missing out.