After a few days in Olympos, Krista and I took two buses to meet up with Mike in Pamukkale. Pamukkale is home to stunning calcium carbonate travertines. It was a surreal landscape! We learned that some of the travertines are left empty so that they can be further bleached by the sun. Consequently, a lot of them were empty which we were a bit bummed about (you can see the empty ones in the photo third from the bottom). However, we were still able to find some that were filled with water at sunset. We were treated to just a killer sunset and were running all over the place taking a million photos. We walked back down at dusk and then got some hilarious dondurma. HA!

After Cappadocia, Krista and I temporarily parted ways with Mike. He wanted to spend a few days in Istanbul as he had never been there before. Since we had spent a lot of time in Istanbul a few years ago, Krista and I decided to check out Olympos in the south. We took an overnight bus (which broke down, of course!) and then a mini bus to get to Olympos Orange Pensions.

Olympos is known for its treehouse accommodations, but from what we read, they're a bit over-rated. So we decided to stay in a tiny room with AC which turned out to be a great choice. The pension had a nice big courtyard to hang out in and communal dinners which were included in the accommodation fee. It was so nice to not have to worry about dinner each night! The dinners had lots of different options and were really tasty. The staff members were also really helpful and ended up not charging us for a lot of stuff  (free lunch & snacks!) so I will give them a ringing endorsement.

We hung out by the nearby beach one afternoon but then decided to go on a boat trip the following day. We signed up for one through our pension and it was just what we were looking for - simple, laid back, and lots of opportunities to jump off the boat and swim in that turquoise water.  And oh yeah, an ice cream boat!

One blustery morning in Cappadocia, we got up well before the dawn, bundled up, and got in a hot air balloon. The landscape below us was gorgeous, the lighting was amazing as the sun came up, and the hot air balloons around us seemed so magical. I had been told that we simply could not skip this in Cappadocia. So glad we took that advice.

Hello again! I'm happy to be back share some of our summer travel photos. At the end of June, Mike headed to Israel for a week and I showed my mom around Korea (film photos from Mike's time in Israel to come!). We then met up with our friend Krista in Turkey. Krista and I traveled to Turkey in 2010 (see old posts here!) but were keen to come back to visit some of the spots we had missed the first time. First on the roster was Cappadocia!

I have been wanting to see Cappadocia ever since I saw it on Julia & Yuriy's blog (Gemma also has some great photos). Cappadocia is home to some wild rock formations called fairy chimneys as well as underground churches and cities. We stayed at Shoestring Cave House (as recommended by Gemma) and loved it. The owner was so helpful and we thoroughly enjoyed the pool! Over the course of a few days, we did the Rose Valley hike, the Open Air Museum, and the "green tour" through our hostel (hitting up Derinkuyu Underground City, Ilhara Valley, Selime Monastery and Pigeon Valley). Cappadocia is quite unlike we have ever been before and I highly recommend it.

Coming up next - a hot air balloon over the fairy chimneys!

as temperatures have begun to dip plummet into the -30ºCs (-20s ºF), mike and i have been revisiting our travel photos and videos from the last year with reckless abandon (him - thailand + laos. me - greece + turkey). a beautiful, sunny, but ultimately depressing escape. why again, do we live in this freezing wasteland? why are we not wandering around outdoor markets, reading books on sandy beaches and racing around on scooters in asia? oh right... that's supposed to happen after i graduate.

in any case, allow me to offer you one of my favourite escapes as of late - a video mike put together of his time in asia last march. it's beautiful. feel free to get lost in it for awhile, but don't hate me if it makes you even more bitter and depressed about the winter chill...

*song: anoraak remix of 'psychic chasms' by neon indian = perfect accompaniment.

asian adventure from Mike Severloh on Vimeo.

*we have also been dealing with the cold by plowing through seasons of lost. another pleasant yet dangerous diversion.

heybeliada island.

heybeliada island, turkey

well, i may be back home...but the turkey posts will probably still keep coming for awhile. because that's what happens when you take hundreds+hundreds of pictures of a beautiful country. bear with me, mes amis.

on one of our glorious days off, krista and i took an hour long ferry ride (for a whopping $2!) out to heybeliada island. heybeliada, the second largest island of the princes' islands, can apparently be translated as "saddlebag island". luckily for us (and you my dear blog readers) the island turned out to be much prettier than the name suggests.

the island has a cute little tourist centre, filled with shops & restaurants & a gorgeous waterfront. a stroll along the water took us into a bit more of a run down area of town, which still had a certain charm. we also walked to the national park and saw heaps of families have huge barbecues by the water. that's my kind of weekend activity.

sunday supper.

sunday evening, my friends and i went for a beautiful supper at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the bosphorus river. we ordered an assortment of mezes (appetizers). we decided to skip the main course, ordering instead a lavish fruit platter and a chocolate soufflé to share.

perfection.

abra cadabra.

..........................................................................................................................................................

here at the summer camp in istanbul, we have officially finished the first session! this past weekend, my roommates and i took it very easy. we enjoyed a nice late breakfast at the adorable café abra cadabra. beautiful décor, fantastic looking menus (it sounds silly to admit, but that's sort of a big deal for me), fantastic view of the bosphorus, and delicious breakfast options. remember, i love breakfast so this basically made my weekend.

afterward, we headed to a traditional turkish bath,  çemberlitas hamami. we were scrubbed down and washed by turkish woman (an interesting and incredibly wonderful experience) and then given an oil massage. it was absolutely just what we needed!

two lovely little weeks.

two lovely little weeks. from Janis RoseAnne on Vimeo.

this evening i was feeling a bit nostalgic about our two weeks of traveling around in greece + turkey. while there were many things i should have been working on... i decided to put together this little video!
song: to rest in peace on righteous tides by ohbijou

ice cream by the bosphorus.

..........................................................................................................................................................

basically the best idea ever after a long day with the kiddos...

bodrum boat trip.

**windy boat ride + salt water + short hair = unfortunate hair in boat trip photos...

when we arrived in bodrum, we almost passed out from the heat. carrying our huge backpacks down the winding streets of bodrum and up a few flights of stairs to our hostels proved to be a trip low-point. we spent a warm quiet evening on the rooftop terrace and ended up sleeping up there for a whopping $6.50!

the next day, we decided to beat the heat by going on a little boat trip. the boat visited five different beaches on the mediterranean, served lunch, and cost about $16 - incredible! while i loved diving off the side of the boat into the clearest water i have ever seen, i may have gone partially deaf from the turkish dance music that was pumped at an extremely loud volume the duration of the trip.

oh mediterranean, i love you.


ps. sad to report that our mini-vacation is finished... kd & i started orientation today at the english immersion day camp that we're working at in istanbul - phew! what  long day! my boat trip days seem long behind me...

ephesus etc.

..........................................................................................................................................................

we arrived in turkey a few days ago and the first thing we noticed was the INTENSE HEAT! we thought that greece had been hot, but boy oh boy were we wrong!

yesterday, despite the forecasted 39 degrees celsius, we visited the ruins of the basilica of st. john, a mosque nearby, and the ruins of ephesus. we were dripping sweat the second we went out the door and it just got worse as the day progressed (i drank 1.5L of water over lunch!). the heat made it sometimes a bit difficult to appreciate the places we visited.

ephesus was an ancient greek (and later roman) city that at it's peak housed over 200, 000 people. there are extensive remains of the city - which were beautiful and overwhelming all at the same time...