No Moss For Us

Krka National Park

For our last morning in Zadar, we had one final round of a rich, flaky pastries and sweet ripe cherries before hitting the road. We drove a couple hours to our next outdoor adventure: Krka National Park. Similar to Plitvice Lakes National Park, Krka is a huge park that is home to a number of stunning waterfalls.

One thing we noticed online is that almost all commentary on Plitvice vs. Krka seems to award Plitvice first prize. We’d like to buck this trend and put a stake in the ground: Krka was definitely our favorite of the two! Here’s why:

The first distinction is that Krka is a waterfall national park, while Plitvice is a lakes national park that has several waterfalls (we like waterfalls better!);
Second, the boardwalks are different — Krka’s boardwalks wind through more of a jungle with bird song overhead and swift torrents underfoot, while Plitvice’s boardwalks are often open and next to sheer rock walls (we like jungles better!);
And third, Krka’s waterfalls are wide and powerful, as opposed to Plitvice’s tall precipice falls (hooray powerful torrents!).

All in all, we loved it! Grant had actually been to Krka 8 years earlier as part of a cruise with the Boyadjian clan, and was relieved to find it just as incredible just under a decade later!

Strategizing for our conquest of the falls.

Without further ado, see the Krka ‘earth porn’ pictures below:

Jungle boardwalks, with the Krka River peeking out from behind the trees

On the boardwalk overlooking the falls.

And our favorite part of all: you get to swim in the pool near the falls!

With crazy travertine deposit formations, you really had to shimmy and slide your way across.

Amazing! And with Jess for scale 🙂

Some local swans also paid the falls a visit (this was one of FOUR of them)

Above the falls where we swam was another gorgeous series of cascades

Incredibly enough, some of the torrents on these falls remained blue (see the left half)!

At the end of our Krka visit, we had a decision: climb back up the 875m path we had taken down to the boardwalks and falls OR wait for one of the park shuttle buses to pick us up. As with any important decision, we used a centuries old method: we rock-paper-scissor’d for it! With that, we learned another valuable lesson: none wins when you RPS for uphill climbs:

We then drove another hour to Split where we had a satisfyingly seafood-filled dinner and strolled the Riva before calling it a well deserved night!

Sea Bass, a pan-fried mixed plate of calamari, shrimp and 3 kinds of small fish, boiled spinach & potatoes and a fresh salad

-G & J

Grant & JessJune 6, 2015June 7, 2015 Croatia

Chillin’ the old school way in Zadar

While we would have loved to sleep in for our first morning in Zadar, we had a 7am wake up as we had to move the trusty VW Golf. It had been a holiday the day before (Feast of Corpus Christi) and so parking hadn’t been enforced, which meant we had to be up and out by 7am the next day to move the car. In a mini-adventure, we got to take an early AM ride on the city walls to our new (safe!) parking spot!

From there, we wandered by to our apartment, stopping along the way to pick up some perfectly ripe cherries from the farmer’s market just below our apartment, as well as a few fresh pastries and coffee from the amazing little bakery that ended up being ~10 steps from our house.

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From there, our only plan was to spend the day exploring Zadar. We started at the end of town nearest to the mainland at the Plaza of the Five Wells, and the Captain’s Tower. Now, if you know any of Grant or my previous adventures, you’ll know we love to get the bird’s eye view of places, even if it means hundreds of stairs, so of course we climbed right up! Along the climb, there were interesting paintings that looked like it explained the love story of a girl and sailor (explanations were all in Croatian, so we could only guess).

Cute, but oh-so-confusing!

The view from the top was amazing – blue seas, green trees and speckles of red roofs in between – definitely worth the climb! It also gave us a new target for wandering as in the distance we saw the bell tower of the Cathedral of Anastasia and remembered we could climb that one, too!

Panorama shot – click to see the full!

However, before heading off for another hike, additional sustenance was required (Sweet bread and fruit can only get you so far, people!), so we swung through a cute little café called Pasta Svasta (HA!) and each got the “brunch special” – 2 pieces of bruschetta and a bowl of homemade soup – both were excellent and left us 100% ready for more stairs!

Then finally our destination: The bell tower! We were delighted to discover that the bells were still present and active (and equally delighted that they didn’t go off while we were so close!) and got to hear them sound later in the evening. As the tower was built in stages, we also could see the difference in quality of the stairs, the one right near the top feeling a little less than stable, which is a little nerve-racking that high up! But the views – so worth it! This time we were looking back down the Peninsula, with a great view of the mountains in the distance.

Grant’s “heck yeah I’m climbing that!” face

From there, we headed back to the Riva, a wide, tree-lined walkway right next to the water that all seaside Croatian towns seem to have. At the far end was the Sea Organ, and it was so fun to listen to it while watching the boats go past. Some folks were jumping into the deep, clear water, but we’d (foolishly!) neglected to bring out swimsuits out with us, so we were relegated to wading.

As the heat of the day built, we retreated to yet another cute cafe. This one under some of the trees that line the Riva, and indulged in an early afternoon siesta, complete with excellent lime/cilantro/blueberry flavored Radlers (2% alcohol by volume, so let’s not get excited) and a random band that seemed like they only knew what they were doing a quarter of the time. It was weird, wonderful and oh-so-relaxing!

This is how you siesta, Croatian style

From there we hustled home for a quick shower pre-dinner; as we were heading out to a shmancy dinner, we couldn’t go in all our stair climbing grime! But first we caught the sunset at the Salutation to the sun – it’s the western-most point of the city, and the best place to watch the sun dip into the Adriatic!

We then headed off to dinner: again, amazing local wine (this time a Cab so good, our waiter promised it was free if we didn’t like it!), a whole grouper cooked on the grill, truffle and cream monkfish with house made gnocchi, and the spiciest arugula and tomato salad I’ve ever had! Note: it wasn’t the dressing – the arugula tasted like pepper and was almost too much for me!

By then, we were plumb tuckered out by the exhaustingly relaxing day, so headed off to bed (I know – we’re wild and crazy kids!).

– J & G

PS – Zadar has some great graffiti that we both enjoyed and thought we’d share:

Grant & JessJune 5, 2015June 7, 2015 Croatia

We went chasing waterfalls…

…and decided not to stick to the rivers and lakes that we’re used to.

We woke up early and had a nice simple, yet hearty, breakfast at our inn. The highlight being bread and lots of individually packaged spreads; the surprise being that one looked like a fancy walnut spread, actually turned out to be a some kind of creamy meat spread. We tried, but needless to say, did not finish it… Our host and cook was a lovely Croatian grandma who never failed to surprise us with pockets of perfect English!

From there we walked over to the park (really lucked out on the location!) where we spent the better part of the day exploring. We saw waterfalls both large and small and almost a dozen azure-green lakes which were absolutely stunning.

The brilliant color of the lakes comes from calcium carbonate laden water, which remains dissolved when still (hence the beautiful color) but deposits when moving and aerating, which forms the travertine rock that creates bigger and bigger waterfalls. The phenomenon also makes the water basic (chemistry-wise) so it inhibits algae growth that keeps the water crystal clear — so much so that the fish look like they are floating in mid air!

There’s a no firm “no swimming; stay on the boardwalk” policy at the park, which slowly drove Jess crazy… Fortunately, there was a submerged portion of boardwalk, where this happened…

But while Plitvice was gorgeous, it had it’s challenges… Specifically, the fact that it was the least marked park that we’ve ever been too! They gave us a map at the beginning, but as the trail markers were few and far between (and cryptic even when we found them), every intersection lead to about 6-8 people all discussing where we could possibly be. It was an adventure, to say the least!

In the evening, we drove the couple hours to Zadar, a small sea town on a peninsula.

We were staying in the old town, which still had it’s ancient city walls intact – a fact we didn’t know until we were on top of them with the car! On the plus side, that means that there are no vehicles allowed in the old town and so we were able to park the car easily and hike in.

Then it was dinner time, and we stopped at a restaurant known for local cuisine and had a great meal of stewed lamb in a wine & plumb sauce with homemade gnocchi, and an octopus & chickpea salad. We also washed it all down with an excellent local syrah (which tasted strongly of tobacco and leather, to Grant’s delight!).

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Dessert was equally tasty – a fig and white chocolate cake with wine poached fresh figs and a local dessert wine called “prošek”, which tastes a like a cross between vin santo and a muscato; so in a word, delicious!

We then wandered the city to walk off our enormous meal, and enjoyed the sights — including the local architecture, the “Salutation to the Sun”, and the sea organ (literally, a set of concrete tubes built into the sea steps that creates a beautiful organ sound with the rise and fall of the waves)!

Night view of the St. Anastasia Cathedral and baptistry!

This was one of the coolest things we saw in Zadar: called the “Salutation to the Sun”. It’s a series of solar panels and LED lights that charges during the day, and then creates an amazing light show at night!

– J&G

Grant & JessJune 4, 2015June 7, 2015 Croatia

Goodbye Armenia, Hellooooo Croatia!

Our last night in Armenia was a doozy. A 6am flight required us to leave for the airport at 3am, so we made the bold decision to stay up all night. Grant worked on booking us up through Croatia, and I worked on not falling asleep.

At 3 on the nose our taxi arrived and we took one last rushed ride down our building’s tiny, antiquated elevator. We’ve not mentioned it before but it’d had been a source of much humor and excitement as it seems to completely lack the safety features most modern elevators have: it closed (firmly!) on both Grant and I, does not stay open a consistent amount of time and has no floor indicators of any kind. Basically every ride was an adventure!

Distrustful Grant hates elevator!

A quick stopover in Moscow and we landed in Zagreb before we knew it (mostly because we were asleep for all 6.5 hours of flying time!).

Only in Russia do they have vending machines of Putin T-shirts!

We picked up our rental car (volkswagon golf, for those of you keeping track) and decided to take a quick jaunt into the city for lunch and a museum. After some chaotic driving through the very middle of old town (tiny streets and people, cars, trains, and buses challenging us at every turn) we stumbled upon a tiny restaurant with amazing food.

Then, with full bellies and a safe parking spot, we were ready for the museum, more specifically, the ‘Museum of Broken Relationships’.

In short, the museum shares items of broken relationships along with their accompanying stories, ranging from the pain of puppy love to the ending of 30 year relationships. It was quirky, certainly interesting, but admittedly a bit sad.

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From there we drove a couple hours to Plitvice National Park, and crashed for the night in a lovely little home stay inn, with plans to get up bright and early to beat the park crowds the next day!

– G & J

Grant & JessJune 3, 2015June 7, 2015 Croatia, Turkey

Solo Yerevan Wanderings: Part 2

After another relaxing morning (we could really get used to this lifestyle! ESPECIALLY when a delicious breakfast awaits down the hall in the fridge!) we ducked over to grab another tasty lahmujun for lunch.

From there, we headed over to the house museum of Sergei Parajanov, a Georgian-born filmmaker and artist. After seeing only a few of his works, it was clear that he was a man who very much walked the fine line between genius and insanity. His incredible knack for balance on this tightrope was astounding, as many of his creations were very odd, yet understandable and almost familiar.

From there we ducked back over to the GUM market to pick up some “thank you” treats for Linn, our gracious AirBnB host who has more than bent over backwards for us: arranging for taxis, getting us the keys to the apartment, helping to coordinate the madness of tracking and get our bags back. We love the market and went back to the same woman who we bought from before.

Our errands continued with a quick jaunt over to the Post Office, to mail a few postcards on our last day in Armenia. More importantly, on the way to the Post Office we passed a small bakery stand, where we found one of the last Armenian food items on our bucket list: a braided sweet bread called “choreg”. Though it wasn’t exactly like the ones grandma makes, it was close enough and oh so lovely!

As we continued our wander of the city, we happened across the biggest church in Armenia – a landmark that Maria had pointed out earlier in the week but that we’d not had time to stop at previously. With nothing but time, we decided to do a little photoshoot:

And then on the way back from the church, what should catch our eye but an amazing statue of some unknown Armenian man, who was riding not one, but two horses! So of course we had to capture that, too, as he was just too much Armenia for one horse!

At this point, rain clouds were more than just ominous – they were definitely starting to spit, so we ducked into yet another café to grab a pick-me-up and wait out the storm.

In the evening, we had dinner at Ayntep, which serves Western Armenian food – a cuisine we sought out in particular as it’s where the Boyadjian family originates. We had a terrific yogurt, cucumber, and dill “salad”; salty juicy pork BBQ with pilaf; a succulent bowl of stewed lamb with veggies; and a side of puffed sesame bread.

After dinner we checked the final food bucket list item off our list: Armenian Baklava!

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Finally, as capstone to our time here, we caught the hour-long dancing water and light show at Republic Square, in front of the National History Museum. It was a packed square for a Tuesday night, but for good reason! The show was full of flashes (and splashes) of brilliant colors and sound 🙂

Next stop: Croatia!

-G&J

p.s. Finally caught up on blog posts! Sneaking this one in on the same day, at 11:53pm Yerevan time!

Grant & JessJune 2, 2015June 3, 2015 Armenia

Luggage, Churches, and Temples… oh MY!

Our second day with Maria began with a multi-channel scramble (messaging our host on AirBnB, emailing our tour guide, and calling the airport baggage transfer office) to coordinate getting our bags back. Fortunately, we got them back 30 minutes before our touring began, and let us tell you, nothing feels better than the sweet, sweet embrace of clean undies!

After getting in the car with Maria to start our day, we were talking about how this was our first visit to Armenia, and even more interesting, about how Grant was the first Boyadjian to visit the motherland since his great grandparents came to the USA in the late 1890s! She also got a kick out of the fact that I looked like a close relative of one of her tour guide colleagues, David (more on this later).

Our first stop was Garni, an ancient fortress built by the Kings of Armenia as a summer retreat that was an ~28km drive outside the city. As we went along, Maria noticed that it was an exceptionally clear day, so we pulled over at a scenic point to take photos of Mount Ararat. Turns out our stopping point also happened to be the favorite resting spot of one of Armenia’s national poets, who would lay in the sun, drink wine, and compose poetry to Mt. Ararat. Sadly, he was killed during the communist purges while Armenia was part of the USSR, but today they’ve erected a beautiful arch as a monument to him on his favorite composing (and drinking!) spot.

After our photo op, we continued on to Garni, which was built on a triangular cliff and includes royal ruins, a Roman style bath house with pagan mosaics, and the only Roman temple to have survived Armenia’s conversion to Christianity. Maria says the King of Armenia agreed to let Rome treat Armenia as a territory and in exchange, he got the money from Nero to build Garni. The temple was to Mithros, but when the country converted, it became the bedroom of the King’s sister as it was famous for being cool on hot summer days!

On the left, the old lead pegs that hold the temple together. On the right, soviet-era steel pegs. I think we can tell which is superior!

Where there was once a marble statue of Mithros and the bull, there is now… Karate Grant!

After wandering Garni’s ancient ruins, we hopped back in the car and headed to Geghard, a medieval monastery that once held what Armenians believe to have been the spear that pierced the side of Jesus (now in Armenia’s equivalent of the Vatican city). As with many older Armenian monasteries, Geghard is built far back into a valley in an attempt to hide it from invaders and pillagers, which makes for very dramatic surroundings!

The building itself is also interesting because you can only see half of the actual church! 2 mausoleums and a nave have been carved directly into the rock behind the church in the late 12th century as there was no more room to expand the church! They created these spaces from the top down, and since they are located in an area prone to earthquakes, had to be very careful in their construction as a single flaw could have left the space at risk of collapsing.

It was as we were leaving Geghard, that we ran into Grant’s “brother from another mother,” David (That’s a direct quote, btw!). While they aren’t exactly twins, they definitely look related, thus proving that Grant really IS Armenian (as if there was any doubt?!).

That wrapped up our tour with Maria and we had to bid her a sad farewell — she really was a great tour guide and if anyone ever visits Yerevan or Armenia in general, we highly recommend her services!

For dinner, we headed to The Club, a semi-formal dining experience where we enjoyed fried camambert (cheese) with apricot sorbet, braised lamb shank wrapped in eggplant, Manti (traditional Western Armenia pockets of meat in a garlic, lemon, and yogurt sauce!). We also treated ourselves to a bottle of Armenian wine!

After dinner we wandered the city, which was humming as it was Children’s Day, complete with outdoor concerts and activities; shocking to us as it was 10pm — isn’t it their bed times!? Regardless, it was fun to watch the hubbub unfold while enjoying a nice after dinner cognac – Grant ordered his neat and I tried mine blended with black tea. We then called it a night… before the kiddies did!

– G & J

Grant & JessJune 1, 2015June 2, 2015 Armenia

Solo Yerevan Wanderings

We woke up later than usual since this was our first lazy morning since the gulet cruise (endless sight-seeing is hard work!). We munched on our GUM market bounty from the day before, and rallied to start our day.

Our first stop was the National History Museum, where we learned about the entire history of Armenia, from century old archaeological findings charting the development of the Armenian (and arguably human race) from cave dwelling, to pottery, to bronze, to steel, through modern times.

The highlight of the museum was this: the world’s oldest shoe: dated to be from 3,500 BC!

Source: Thanks, Internet!

From there, we wandered over to the Vernissage Market, a weekend-only street market, where we browsed aisle upon aisle of jewelery, trinkets, and art work. We were overwhelmed at first, but after a quick ice cream and baked goods pitstop, we were ready to go.

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Towards the end of our market explorations, we finally hit the art section, and found two incredible hand drawn pieces that summed up most of the history and culture of Yerevan:

Mount Ararat, Armenia’s dream mountain, plus the symbols of Armenia culture – the alphabet, the stone cross and the pomegranate!

Then, for dinner, we hopped over to Tavern Yerevan, a famous restaurant dedicated to preserving traditional Armenian cuisine, music, and culture. We had a delicious meal of: kharcho (lamb & rice soup), Tolma Yerevan (stuffed grape leaves), Khurjin (incredible lavash pouch filled with lamb & veggies), Stewed red-finned fish from Jermuk, with two glasses of lovely Karas (Armenian red wine).

During dinner, we were also seated in the area with live traditional music and dancing!

After dinner, on our walk home, we decided to swing by Freedom Square, which is a park right next to our apartment that is chock-a-block full of cafés that encircle an artificial lake (Swan Lake) and the Opera House. We enjoyed an Armenian cognac (Ararat 5*) and a local beer (Kilikia). Oh, and there was a hot air balloon; we have no idea why… but it only lasted for 30 minutes.

Lastly, we decided to finally check out Pub Cuba, a Cuba-themed bar right on the corner of our street, that we’ve literally walked by a dozen times. We walked in to a a barrage of sound, and after paying the 2000 AMD cover (~$4 per person) were treated to an intimate, but outrageously energetic rock performance.

That was just the nightcap we needed, and needless to say, crashed hard, eager to get up and go the next day!

-J&G

Grant & JessMay 31, 2015June 2, 2015 Armenia

Going going, back back, to Armenia Armenia

Yesterday we spent the day getting to know Yerevan (the capital city of Armenia) via an all day tour. Our guide, Maria, was terrific and full of information about everything Yerevan and Armenia, both past and present.

We visited Victory Park to see the “Mother of Armenia” statue which was erected on a former Soviet stone platform that held a statue of Stalin the 1960s.

Next we dove into the Matenadaran Museum of Manuscripts, where we saw beautifully intricate and detailed religious manuscripts from centuries upon centuries ago.

Posing in front of the Museum of Manuscripts, with the inventor of the Armenia alphabet (shown on the tablet on the left behind us)

Jess loves pretty manuscripts!

We then visited the Cascade, and incredible multistory art museum and outdoor park, set at the end of the main avenue in Yerevan. We saw sculptures and art of all kinds, and learned about the origins of the cascade (named for the fountains and waterfalls that ‘cascade’ between the various levels).

These lamps are simply nets filled with Swarovski crystals, with a lamp inside!

This lion is made entirely of old car tires!

We drove past Republic Square, which used to be Lenin square but was immediate renamed after Armenian gained its independence. The square includes the National History Museum,
the Ministry of Finance, the Government House, and several other government related buildings.

Click for a full panorama of the square — the building that gets cut off on both sides is the National History Museum

At this point, we were starving so were overjoyed to explore the GUM food bazaar. With Maria’s help we got to taste, and buy, delicious dried fruits and nuts; incredible fresh fruits; Armenian lavash (flatbreads); fresh Armenian cheeses; aged sausages; and pickles of every variety.

Our favorite dried fruit and nut vendor who HOOKED US UP

Strings of walnuts (and other nuts) covered in a layer of dried fruit roll

Dried fruits stuffed with nuts (left), more strings of nuts covered in fruit (right)

View of the slew of offerings; in the front are beautifully carved *candied* oranges stuffed with nuts and orange fruit filling

Lavash — traditional Armenian flat bread. It’s like a big oval Armenian tortilla.

Every kind of Armenian cheese you can imagine. The coolest is hanging just to the side of the woman on the right — it’s string cheese, but not like we know it, the cheese is actually string sized, roughly the size of strands of yarn!

Everything in this photo is pickled. Everything.

The produce was also incredible. We bought some apricots (one of the most famous Armenian fruits) and strawberries. All the fruits and vegetables in Armenian are terrific thanks to amazing volcanic soil and 300+ days of sunshine a year!

With full bellies, we were rejuvenated and prepared for the somber part of the day: our last stop was the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial. Both by coincidence and design, 2015 marks 100 years since the genocide occurred. We’ll leave it to you to read up on this as much or as little as you’d like, but in short, 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks, starting in 1915. Sadly, though this tragedy is often referred to as the event that lead to the coining of the term “genocide” only 24 countries formally recognize the genocide. Shamefully, this does not include the United States.

Approaching the memorial.

The monument (above left) is actually two parts that become one spire. The memorial (above right) is surrounded by stone pillars that surround the eternal flame and are leaning in towards it, as if they are mourning.

There were lots of very creative and interesting, billboards around the city. This was one of the simpler images, but was also one of the most common. The phrase “I remember and demand.” is core to the 100th anniversary, which remembers the 1.5 million Armenians that were killed during the genocide.

The Forget-Me-Not flower was chosen to be the symbol of remembering the genocide 100 years after it took place. This infographic does a great job of explaining the component symbols within the flower. (Click for a detailed view)

Certainly a tough end to the day, but an important one. Fortunately, there was just the pick-me-up we needed, right down the street: LAHMUJUN!

-G&J

Grant & JessMay 30, 2015June 2, 2015 Armenia

TTFN, Turkey; Hello Urban Camping

For our last morning in Turkey, we decided to head to Cafe Privato for a traditional Turkish Breakfast. This spot was a favorite of Grant’s from our last visit to Turkey, but a pleasure I’d not gotten to experience as I arrived a day later. He insisted that it was not to be missed and oh, how right he was!

Breakfast was in 2 parts – the first being an amazing array of cheeses, tasty spreads both traditional (tomato/garlic/dill paste, homemade fruit preserves) and more modern varieties (sweet hazelnut spread and clotted cream!), and tasty breads – all washed down with a strawberry/mint lemonade (all organic fruits with no water or sugar, we were assured!) and the traditional and ever present cup of Turkish tea!

We were stuffed after the first part, but then on came the fried things – pan fried cheese, sweet and spinach filled pancakes, Eggs Menemet (a spiced Turkish omelette) and traditional sausages. We were pretty full already but couldn’t let this goodness pass and so ate until bursting!

Then it was a quick sprint back to the Airbnb to grab our things and head out to our next flights. Because of all the conflict in the region, we ended up having to connect through Abu Dabi in order to get to Armenia. This is the equivalent of flying from Jersey thru Atlanta to get to DC -painful and longer than necessary.

Interestingly, our flight from Abu Dabi was aerated with “non-toxic aerosol insecticides” before taking off to Yerevan – apparently it’s required? This entails one of the stewardesses walking up and down the main aisle with a handful of small metal containers shooting a funky smelling cloud over all of us for 5 minutes prior to take off. We’ve never experienced anything like it before!

All our fun and games, however, came to an end when we reached Yerevan at 2am, only to discover that our bags, alas, had not made the connection. Let this be a lesson to all – Abu Dabi is a HUGE airport, and often has flight delays, so plan accordingly! We had 2.5 hrs (shortened to 1 because of, shockingly, delays) and it still wasn’t enough for our bags to make it. Additionally, because there are only flights every other day and at the late time, it would end up being 3 days before we could get our bags back (SUCH SORROW!).

On top of all that, because of the late time, we were not able to buy bottled water prior to getting to our apartment which left us without anything to drink or brush our teeth with! Fortunately, Grant busted out his sweet, sweet Eagle Scout knowledge and at 3am boiled up a bunch of water for drinking and hygiene – modern day urban camping at it’s finest!

– J & G

Grant & JessMay 29, 2015June 2, 2015 Turkey

#TurkishThings

With our departure from Turkey imminent, we thought we should note a few things that surprised, delighted, and amused during our time in this wonderful country:

Tea, tea and more tea: we were once told that Turks drink ~16 cups of çay (pronounced “chai,” meaning black tea) a day, and while we never came close to that, we did drink it a lot. Also, at 1 Lira a cup, it’s often a steal and a great source of instant energy!
A bajillion cats & dogs: While lots of places have strays, and Turkey does seem to have an abundance of cats and dogs. For the most part these aren’t sad looking piles of fur; they seem healthy and clean, and while it’s annoying when they beg for scraps from the table, the puppies/kittens definitely melt even the iciest of hearts.
Roses, roses everywhere: Everywhere we went in Turkey we saw big, beautiful roses. And when we say big, we mean HUGE — basically the size of an open hand. Even more, they smelled phenomenal, which made walking down most streets a real olfactory treat, and not in the way you usually associate with cities!

Water spigot car washes: While driving through southern Turkey, every few kilometers we saw pipes with upside-down spigots gushing water near gas stations and snack stands. At first we thought it was a burst pipe, but the more of them we saw, the more confused we became. Finally the mystery was solved when we saw a dusty car drive under one of the man-made waterfalls and begin running their windshield wipers >> instant car-wash. Apparently Turkey is not as concerned as California when it comes to water conservation!

Crazy, bold jaywalking: What’s that? A 6 lane freeway with cars doing 80 kph? No big deal, Turks will still jaywalk it! While driving, we definitely noticed this phenomenon, MANY times. We were almost lured into trying it ourselves by blindly following them into the fray whilst walking around. Fortunately we never overcommitted, and yet were always amazing at how this chaos always worked out! (Sorry, no photos of this. It always happened too quickly. Trust me when I say it’s a sight to behold…)

– J & G

Grant & JessMay 28, 2015May 31, 2015 Turkey