Up at 8am. Left 8:30am for the Göreme Open-Air Museum, which is just awesome geology.
I sort of recall Ibo saying this was a nunnery.
Cappadocia. The 2nd C is hard. I'd been calling it Crandall! (I wavered on keeping this reference here because it's so obscure.)
Rock houses.
I used to dream of living in a fort, but now I could go with a rock house.
Dining room table.
The cool part. That cove toward the left where people are lined up is where the Dark Church is. It was a separate TL 8 to get in. Don't know if it was worth it, but the paintings inside were the most vivid and undeteriorated in the area.
Cappadocia.
Cappadocia.
Aw, I made it pretty with flowers.
Cappadocia.
Cappadocia.
For lunch we went to a pottery kebab place, where they cook the food in a sealed clay contained and then crack it open. I got to crack mine.
No idea why this was outside the restaurant, other than as a reminder that THE YET-TAY IS TALLER THAN THE GIANT!
Horses and Cappadocia.
UFO Museum. Last 3 photos are all from the same spot. That's a weird spot.
Next was a carpet store/factory. I've hated these places all the way back to the perfume factory on my first Contiki tour. They show us the process, then try to sell us their wares (presumably the tour company gets a cut), and most of us stand around bored while one or two people (the same dicks who sat in the front row in college and kept asking the professor questions after the bell rang to prolong the class) make us wait as they buy stuff. I knew before I came to Turkey that I didn't want to buy a rug. Would have preferred an alternative to watching guys unfurl 60 rugs in front of me. Now then, if this had been a carpet-munching demo, then I would have been more inclined to participate. And hey, why did the premiere of the movie 42 have a black carpet instead of a red carpet? I've heard Jackie Robinson's widow complain that he wasn't really into black carpet.
Another stop at Pigeon Valley.
I took this photo to remind myself that we stopped in Pigeon Valley. One of the Hillbillies in the WWF was billed from Pigeon Forge TN. Why can't Google tell me which one it was?
Next we went to Uçhisar Castle.
View from the castle.
We waited behind that woman for a minute or so because she was trying to take a photo of her friend next to the flag and some guy was lingering in the shot. Here's a proposal: Taking photos of people in front of things should be done during a designated half-hour once a week, preferably in the middle of the night. The rest of the time is for normal photos. A photo you took of a famous site is awesome. A photo someone else took of you posing in front of a famous site is shit.
Ah, so this is why we didn't see a carpet-munching demo. It's forbidden.
Cool volcanic formations through a hole!
Turkish flag on top of the castle.
Cappadocia.
Cappadocia.
Cappadocia.
Cappadocia.
Uçhisar Castle.
Cappadocia.
Back to hotel 3:50pm. Freshened up. To the lobby 5:40pm to go through my notes and do Internet stuff and drink and see if I'd run into anyone for dinner, as there was no group dinner planned. Hung out with Andy, Megan & Andrew for a bit. Some people came back (I think they were coming back from the Turkish bath, which was supposed to happen yesterday, and I forget why it didn't) having already eaten. Katie & Kent said they were going to Fat Boys (an Aussie place) for food, and Lonely Planet recommended it, so I left the hotel at 8pm (maybe 20 minutes behind) and joined them as a third wheel for a burger, which was yummy and tasted like a gyro.
Back to the hotel at 9:30pm, and in bed at 10pm. Presumably everyone was just tired tonight.