Day 29, or Where did the time go?

We have a lot of ground to cover here, dear friends. My plan of attack is to hit the highlights, do some complaining, some gushing, some analysis (not much) and then leave you with an assload of pictures and that thing about the soda that i talked about yesterday. My plan is to start from the beginning.
June 29: Trip to Efes:
This was to be out first glimpse into package tourism.
At 8:30 we get on our tour bus and hit the road. We had a tour guide. His name was Ihsan. He stunk. Not literally, but in terms of his job and personality. He wouldn't shut up, he wouldn't let us sleep on the bus, and he kept pestering us with the most inconsequential historical information ever. Then we get to Efes and things just started to go downhill from there. The place was pretty great. The ruins were cool, blah blah blah. But this trip will always be marred by Ihsan. He didn't want us to stop and take pictures. He wanted us to follow him as he rushed through the ruins and the listen as he talked for 20 minutes about columns. I'm not joking, he would give people a hard time if they weren't listening to him as he blathered on about kinds of columns or why someone would build something and then dedicate it to the emperor. He wanted us to take pictures as we walked. At one point he told us that if we learned Turkish as slowly as we walked then we'd never learn. He also told me that i shouldn't have started smoking just for a man. (no, i didn't start smoking for a man. he just assumed that i did) and went on and on about how no man was worth that. Then we went to Mother Mary's house which was cool because he didn't talk much and after that we went to a place called Şirince. It was a tourist trap, for certain, but it was nice. It was a quiet little town with about a bazillion shops and restaurants. Everything was seriously expensive and not that great, but the town itself was nice.
Pictures from Efes can be found here.
The next trip that we took was to a place called Alaçatı. It was lovely. Again, though, a tourist trap. But this time it was a tourist trap for rich folk who know where they're going. I'd go back there. Efes, i guess i'd go back. But only because i didn't have enough time to see everything i wanted to. Şirince, not so much.
Everyday after class, we had something planned. I say had because that has changed.
More on that later.
But in the beginning we were going somewhere everyday. The complainers in the group (this is referring to 3 out of the 9 people. They are among the oldest. 30, 28 and 25.) weren't happy about this because every time that they had some free time, they would go out and explore the city and thus had gone everywhere that was in the schedule. And perish the thought that they go somewhere twice. So, yeah. Thus the drama starts. They begin to complain and the two of us who are willing to go with the flow get stuck in the middle. Because while we agree that it is silly for us to go to places that we have already been, we also know that these people have taken the time to arrange these trips for us, to arrange for the school's bus to take us there and we feel bad telling them that we don't want to go because we agreed when we signed all of our paperwork that we would participate in the activities. (this paperwork comes up later, but suffice it to say - we all signed the same thing and mine said that i agreed to follow the rules of the place that i was staying and participate in all of the activities.)
The next interesting thing that happened was we went to Pamukkale and Hieropolis and Afrodisias. I liked this trip way better than Efes. For one, we got a different tour guide. He's awesome. For two, Hieropolis is way nicer than Efes and for three, in general it's way less crowded with awful tourists because it isn't a cruise ship stop.
Pictures of This trip are to be found in the same place as the Efes pictures.
Being on the Travertines in Pamukkale really reminded me of how much of a environmentalist i really am. I was out walking on the pristine white calcium deposits and looking back towards the walkways i realized that they are brown and gross because of people like me. It was really sad. You can see in my pictures what i mean about the discolored pools. And also, if you're interested, wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive explanation of what happened and what is being done to fix it.
After we came back from this trip is when the drama kicked in to high gear. So, we've all become pretty good friends at this point and some people wanted to hang out in other people's rooms. (and by hang out i mean study and drink) So they did. But what was never really explained to us was that under no circumstances are boys allowed in girls' rooms and vice versa. So they got in trouble. I was not involved in this because i don't drink that much and i was never invited to the hangouts anyway (high school flashback, what?). They didn't feel like they should have gotten in trouble for that so they went to our teacher and complained. She told them that those rules didn't apply to them, then she went to talk to the dorm people and was told that those rules did apply to them. The apply to everyone. Including the 30, 28, 28, 25, and 22 year olds. All of whom felt like they were too old to be told what to do. Yes, that's what they said. So back the paper we signed. We signed it. They continued to grouse about it until the program coordinator for Turkey came out to visit (for other reasons) and told us to shut up or something bad would happen. So they did. But this process took 9 long days of bitching and moaning to resolve.
The weekend before last, we went to Fethiye. It wasn't that great. I wouldn't go back. I don't remember why i didn't like it. That's how unmemorable it was. I guess we went to one kinda cool place, it was a ghost town. When all of the Greeks were sent back to Greece in the population exchange, no one moved into this town that had been completely vacated. So you can walk around and be creeped out by a ghost town. But that was really it. The beach there wasn't that great. We went to 3 beaches, actually and none of them were super fantastic. The only thing that was really great about it was that it rained. Man, i miss the rain. Nearly 100 degree weather everyday is getting kind of old.
Pictures of Fethiye and some other random pictures can be found here
Not much happened inbetween then and last weekend, but man last weekend...
Yeesh.
We went to Marmaris. Marmaris is a... mmm... (sorry mom and dad) SHIT HOLE.
I don't know how else to say it. The city is disgusting. Everyone there is from somewhere else, even the Turks. They go there in the summer time to cash in on the tourists. Every restaurant served american/brittish food. Every restaurant along the boardwalk (the boardwalk is really long btw, about a mile) served an English Breakfast that included bacon and or pork sausage. This is the first time in the almost 5 weeks that i've been here that i've seen any pork product. It was really weird. Also, nearly every restaurant turned into a disco at about 11pm. That was also odd. And the music was all awful. and loud. And the people working there were seriously obnoxious. Like, seriously. Drunken brits, aussies, russians and germans. They were the worst!
The trip's only redeeming quality was that we went on a boat cruise on sunday. It was wonderful. There were about 20 other people besides our group on the boat and none of them were awful drunken tourists and we didn't go to any gross beaches, all we did was sail around and stop in little coves to swim the clearest, cleanest water i have ever seen. I would do that again, but only if i wasn't staying in Marmaris.
Pictures of marmaris can be found here
Which brings me to The Drink. You have to go look at the picture first. Okay. So we're driving back from Marmaris, and i've just woken up from a horrible nap. So i stumble out into the light feeling hungry and thirsty. i go to the drinks section and begin to look a the juices. Now Cappy is made by minute maid which is owned by coca cola and the stuff is everywhere. Cappy is what most people drink when the drink juice that isn't fresh. So, i pick up this can that "gurme" on it. I don't know what Gurme means, but the last time someone had it it was vişne and hinidistan cevizi (cherry and coconut) and it was delicious! So i'm looking at this can and the first thing i saw was an apple and an orange and i'm thinking "oh that looks good" then i notice the coconut and i think 'hmm that's odd' then i see what looks like chocolate and hazelnut i thought 'nooooo. no way! it couldn't be!" Then I read the description and this is what i see. "Hindistan Cevizi(coconut), Fındık (hazelnut) ve Çikoltata Aromalı" and underneath "Potakalı, Elmalı Içecek" Altogether, that means Orange and Apple juice with a hint of coconut, hazelnut and chocolate. Now i can't figure out why Coke would allow this drink to be made, so i bought one. I shook it gently and opened it up. The first sip was weird, but not bad. The second, the same. So i shared it around. No one really liked it per se, but no one was out right disgusted. Until we got halfway through. The drink came around to me and i found out the hard way what i should have shaken that can WAY harder. The first sip was like drinking hazelnut flavored water. The second? worse. It was like drinking melted chocolate that was the consistency of water. It was the FOULEST thing i have EVER drunk. I don't think this will be making it to the states. EVER.

ok, that's all i can muster right now.
more soon, i swear.