Here Turkey, Turkey, Turkey

It seems that either the years are getting shorter or I am going on more vacations, as here we are once again on the eve of departure for another of our annual adventures. Since there are a finite number of the former, I certainly pray its the latter.

This trip, we are on our way to Turkey, flying through Chicago and on to Istanbul. It has been a lot of years since we were in Greece and I tried unsuccessfully to convince my trusty travel companion to go and see the ruins at Ephesus, so its a testament to her evolution as a road warrior that she didn’t even flinch at the prospect of spending three weeks there. After getting sick from undercooked chicken in Malaysia, suffering through a dirty massage in Vietnam, and flying in rickety old airplanes in Indonesia I guess Turkey just doesn’t seem that daunting anymore.

As further validation of our growing comfort in far away lands (or our increasing apathy depending how you look at it), we go into this trip with the least defined plan we have ever had. Out itinerary so far consists literally of fly to Istanbul on the 24th, check into the one hotel we have reserved so far, and then by whatever route ultimately gets us there, be at the airport in Antalya at 6am on the 17th for our flight home. At some point we figure we need to get to Cappadocia, and we have talked about spending a few days on a gulet cruise around the southern coast. Of course we’ll also see the many Greek and Roman ruins throughout the country, but otherwise, we’ll take each day as it comes.

In the lead up to this trip, we’ve come across a surprising number of people that have either been to Turkey, or know someone who has, and for the most part, the feedback is quite encouraging. I am excited to be going as there are sights there I definitely want to see (and food I definitely want to eat), but when I talk about it, something seems just a little off compared to other places we have been. The only thing I can attribute it to is the name itself. Where places like Egypt and China conjure up images of the pyramids and the Great Wall, when I hear the word Turkey, I think of, well, turkeys.

Delicious? Yes. Daring? Mmmm, not so much.