Wandering Turkey

I've been physically home in Montana for nearly a week now, but a part of my mind seems to still be wandering around Turkey, because every morning when I wake up, I realize that's where my dreams have taken me: wandering Turkey, in search of...something.  Sometimes food, sometimes confused dream searches, but always wandering Turkey.

It really isn't that surprising when you consider that the last 22 days  (or so) of my life previous to arriving home were spent doing just that: wandering around Turkey in search of...something.  (And an additional week was spent wandering Greece in search of similar things).  

More often than not we were in search of food.  Cheap food.  Sometimes we would wander for hours, up one street and down the next, pausing occasionally to check prices on a menu.

"Not bad,"  one might say.  "Wanna stop here?"

"Mmm, whatever," the other might reply.  "I'm not starving yet.  Why don't we walk down this street a little further and if we don't find something better we can come back."

"Okay."

Eventually we would get so hungry we would have to pick a place. 

Sometimes we would wander in search of a specific type of food.  One time we wandered down toward the Galata Bridge area, in search of fish sandwiches (balik ekmek).  We must have walked past every booth that sold those sandwiches before we finally went back and got one at one of the first places we passed.

Other times we would search for a specific grocery store or restaurant.  Our first day in Istanbul, wandering mostly aimlessly, we happened upon a grocery store which had peanut butter, a substance which apparently doesn't exist in Greece and barely exists in Turkey.  Our rejoicing was great.  However, it took us several tries and more than one hour of wandering to find that market again on a different day.

When I finally found it again, I took pictures to make sure I would recognize it.

It was not uncommon for us to go in search of a specific place: a bus station, a hostel, or a museum or other tourist site.  Many of these places were actually labeled on maps, which didn't always decrease our wandering time.  I was usually the navigator on these expeditions (by virtue of being the only one who paid attention to where we were going) and using a combination of maps and GPS, I usually managed to make our wandering last at least an hour longer than necessary.  Not that it was entirely my fault.  Some places were mislabeled on the maps and other places had enough windy streets that you could be close to your destination and totally miss it as your little street wound in the opposite direction.  Eventually, though, we always managed to get to the right place.  

We passed some interesting areas as we wandered in search of the Spice Market (having missed the right street),

but eventually we found it:

Sometimes we wandered just for fun, seeing what there was to see,

in the city, 

A house in Istanbul - with the laundry out to dry

in the country, 

A more rural place in Cappadocia

and even in historical cities.  

Ruins in Hieropolis

Other ruins in Olympos

Sometimes we would pause to watch the sunsets,

In Istanbul

and Goreme

or the bird circling the mosque after dark,

Sometime we'd stop to laugh about the things we found, like the "Underpants Street of Istanbul,"

or a water park with two small slides and a hose,

We'd often pause to admire the view

...or to admire the view while trying to find the trail we were looking for,

or to eat ice cream

or watch the moon rise.

In Antalya

and in Olympos

Sometimes we would wander around in the wilderness, hiking, exploring,

Pigeon Valley near Goreme

Part of the Lycian Way near Olympos

even stopping to play with the occasional tortoise.  

Sometimes we even wandered around shopping areas (though we did very little actual purchasing), always searching for a slightly better deal on the few items we wanted.

All in all, I guess it's a good thing I like wandering.