The Biggest Waves Ever

The waves in Alanya have always been a mystery. Some days they are nice and big and some days they are small but it's still possible to body surf. Today we decided to head to the beach in the morning, as we were walking to the beach we were talking about how big we thought the waves would be, I said decent, and Seamus said yummy. These waves were not decent, they were definitely not yummy. Today the waves were huge, they were enormous. 

Seamus instantly jumped in to the water and raced to the big waves, they were too powerful for him the slowly carried him towards the big rusty, sharp, metal pier. My mom had to come out there and carry him in.  From then on we just stayed out of the crash zone. We had a good time just playing around we found very smooth stones.  Once I dropped mine in the water, I had promised Seamus that I wouldn't lose my stone so I dived under and started feeling around for it, a strong wave crashed and hit me while I was under. I was being sucked away and had to find the stone so with out thinking I grabbed a clump of sand and searched through it to find the stone I was looking for, it was so lucky. So even though we couldn't body surf we still had a good time.

(These are pictures from a day with Yummy Waves, not The Biggest Waves Ever.)

Settled in Alanya

Now that I am settled in Alanya, I have been doing many things such as exploring  castles! Swimming in the Mediterranean! Enjoying walking around the city! I've also been doing homeschool -_-. 

First of all, yesterday I took a tour bus up to the top of a large hill and went to a castle. This is not your normal Disneyland castle, this is an ancient castle about 1,000 years old. Even if it's that old, we were still allowed to climb on it and jump on it. 

I have noticed they have very different safety requirements in Turkey. 

The view from the castle is amazing, it is a view of the Mediterranean with white streaks across it. Another view from a different part is the city next to the beach with turquoise water and big waves. 

On the inside of the castle were rock walls and a big well, there were small arrow slits in the walls and a huge door way. I think the trip to the castle was really fun and really cool and I hope I'll get another.

From Istanbul to Alanya

DAY FOUR:

I woke up and my mom and Seamus were awake. My dad was still asleep. I head down stairs with Seamus and my mom for breakfast. I get my normal cocoa puffs, egg, orange juice, and jelly on bread. I would have jelly on toast, but there it no toaster. My dad comes down to join us. Then he heads his way and we go back to the hotel room. Seamus and I play around a bit until we get completely annoying and my mom tells us that we should go to the local grocery store and get some food. This is true, but even though the hotel room has a mini fridge and a table, it doesn't allow outside food in the hotel so we had to carry everything in my mom’s backpack. We could fit everything in but the troublesome bananas, there were only five bananas that just couldn't fit. So we had to smuggle them past the guard (I put them behind me and walked past the hotel manager). We have something to eat, at this point it is like five pm (Turkish time) it is eleven am US time and we are about to have dinner in Asia. This is not only the first time I've been in Europe, but the first time I've been in Asia we have a 5 coarse meal consisting of food from all over the country. I like most of them but some of them I didn't even have to taste to know that they’re blah. After that we come home (hotel) and have some TV in English after watching Mission Impossible in Turkish and Spiderman in Turkish. After that we go to bed after a long day.

DAY SIX:

Today I woke up exited knowing it was the day that we would be taking a tour boat up the Bosphorus. I’ve been waiting for this day all week. Anyway I’ll get to the point. So we got on the boat. We got a good view seat. The ride there was amazing. The ride back was even better. But while we were there was the best. Seamus is allergic to anything cats. But today he got off with petting a cat we named Footins. Footins was one of those orange with white stripes cats, and it was also really cute. We went up a mountain to a castle. A real, legit, old, castle. Of course we couldn't go in, but it was cool. 

On our way back we saw lots of stray dogs. In Istanbul you see stray cats, not as many stray dogs. But on our way back we saw a bunch of stray dogs. And guess what else we found. We actually saw Footins, the same big, long whiskers, long eyelashes, cute Footins. At this point Seamus couldn’t pet Footins, but we both really loved him. We took pictures of him. I made him in Minecraft. I'm going to draw him. Footins is awesome.

On the boat trip back we had a good seat where we were but then we got a better view downstairs. Not only was this view better but we got splashed when a barge past by us. This was the treat of the ride. It had a great view and all but the splash was the best. Anyway we took our train home and started doing our own things and that was pretty much it.

DAY SEVEN:

Before I start, I just want to say that I did not write day five because I was not exactly feeling well. A lot of people were smoking and it was giving me a major head ache.

Anyway, I woke up thinking that it would be a normal day. Somewhere in my head I knew that something was not right, whether it was the fact that my Mom was packing or that none of the college kids were at breakfast. Then I remembered. Today we were going to Ankara. At first I thought I was going to Alanya because Ankara and Alanya are so similar but we were going to Ankara which is another big city in more of a high desert place. The bus ride there took forever probably because we stopped five minutes in to the ride and had lunch. I thought right after that we would get right back onto the new, air-conditioned, fancy, charter bus. No we were taking a whole tour of that part of the city.  It was hot and sweaty plus you couldn’t even hear the tour guide. AKA it was not fun. 

From there we got back on the bus and the ride went smoothly. By the time we got there it was late. We got in and I instantly knew that this was a better hotel. The rooms are much nicer including the view. Seamus and I got our own room with twin beds. This is the first time Seamus and I have our own room. That’s probably the easiest day yet. Well, that’s all that happened on the seventh day.

DAY TEN:

I am skipping yesterday because bot much happened. I mean all that there was was two bus rides and a plane flight, not much to talk about. Except that there was a really small airport and I went to the beach. The beach had good waves. Anyway, today there was more. So I thought that we would have a ten minute walk to the beach but it turns out that it's like a one minute walk. First thing in the morning we headed over there and played around. The beach is great. The waves are great, the sun is great, the water is warm, and over all I just have a really fun time. We had some fun there then came home for some lunch and school work. We had a fried egg for a sort of brunch. Then started on some schoolwork. This is my first day doing actual schoolwork during our trip (dont tell anyone).  After that I used the computer a bit then headed back to the beach.  It started raining after a bit. This is the first time I have been in the ocean while it was raining. We stayed for a little bit but then we remembered that our clothes were drying on the balcony and we immediately went back. We had some dinner and desert then we all took a rest and I started writing about my day. And that’s pretty much all that happened on our ninth day.

First Three Days In Turkey

DAY ONE:

Photo: Mary Hunter

I am now in Istanbul. I arrived yesterday night. We had döner kebab for dinner then watched mission impossible 3 in Turkish. After that we went to bed.

DAY TWO:

I wake up in the morning to find that everybody else is asleep. I instantly turn on my ipad and everybody wakes up at once. I have no idea why; I had turned the sound off and gone under a sheet. It must have been a coincidence. Last night Seamus learned that Netflix had not reached Turkey so I want to check amazon prime instant video, and of course it hasn't. That pretty much means no TV shows or movies that Seamus or me will understand at all for four months. After four hours we make our way out of a hotel that gives each room four beds squished together and only one drinking glass. We take the Turkish metro to the blue mosque and from there we walk around the city trying to make our way to the waterfront. When we get there it turns out there is a beach made of boulders. Seamus and me walk along the boulders until we get to the end of the (beach). 

Photo:  Mary Hunter

At this point we are tired, thirsty, and hungry. We find our way to a stand with water and from there to dinner. We had döner again but this time not on a kebab. We go back to the house to find out that we will have dinner again with a big group of my dad's collage students. After that we come back to the hotel and I start writing about my day,

In my writing I say "DAY ONE..." 

DAY THREE:

Today I woke up or was woken up to find the rest of the family rushing. The morning was kind of complicated. Basically I am tired and wont get out of bed and Seamus is playing with his Legos. Everybody rushes around to get what they need for the rest of the day. At this point everybody is ready but me, who is lying in bed. I finally get out of bed and get ready for the day. Our next stop is downstairs at the breakfast room. I have coco puffs, watermelon, and an egg. We head outside to the street car station and take it to a "tourist destination" with a lot of things about fourteen hundred years old, for example the mosque called Hagia Sophia which we just happened to be taking a tour of, which by the way was completely boring for kids, sure I got a great photo out of one of it's windows, but other than that it was not fun. 

Photo:  Booker McCann

By the time we got out of there we were completely tired and hungry. We had lunch at a place with really good chicken kebab. After lunch me my Mom and Seamus decided that we would split off from the rest of the group because they were touring another mosque, in the end they actually didn't but we broke off anyway. We then went up a little alleyway, which was kinda cool. 

Photo:  Mary Hunter                            .

We made our way from the gardens to the waterfront where we were yesterday. It was nice, the waves were bigger so we could actually put our hands into the water. 

Photo:  Booker McCann

For some reason the water gave us enough energy to get back to the hotel. We had dinner at a place that sells simit and other stuff but its known for its simit which is basically a Turkish bagel with sesame seeds on it. We came home and did our school work after that. And that was how our third day in Turkey went.