Kizkalesi part 3

Fun at the beach!!!

Bread anyone? We bought one piece for 2$. I think this was a rip-off, but oh well. I wanted to try some. It was alright and was covered in sesame seeds. This guy took this platter of bread off his head only to give me the bread I bought. How does he do it? This can't be good for the neck.

Eating dinner at the Rain Cafe. This was a nice, quaint little restaurant.

Yes. That's Danielle in the picture. She decided to join us for dinner and a stroll along the beach.

The Ak Deniz (Mediterranean Sea) Supermarket across the little street.


Working off dinner at the exercise park. I don't know if the park has a name, but we were certainly getting a little workout. This picture is NOT an optical illusion. Danielle IS smiling here.

Our friends Carrie and Kerry.

"Sittin' on the dock of the bay"

Turkish boy fishing

Now there's a family picture. Thank you Danielle.

Kizkalesi continued

CASTLE IN THE SEA: THE LEGEND
"...It seems that a local king had a very beautiful and much loved daughter. Unfortunately, a soothsayer visiting the court one day foretold that this attractive girl would die tragically young -- after being bitten by a venomous snake. In an attempt to thwart destiny, the king ordered a castle to be built out to sea. Once the castle was completed the king sent his daughter off to live there -- protected from serpents by the natural barrier of the sea and castle’s ramparts. The girl passed her time quite happily until her 16th birthday. Unfortunately, as a gift the king decided to send his daughter a present -- a basket of figs. Excitedly the girl uncovered her treat -- only to reveal a deadly viper hidden amongst the delicious fruit. Destiny was not to be averted and the girl succumbed to its deadly bite. Locals claim the castle is still inhabited by venomous snakes -- descendents of the lethal viper..."
Borrowed from the following website:

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=139796

Castle by the Sea...

Kids playing at the beach

Savannah enjoys the paddleboat ride out to the castle. She rode with our neighbors, Dwayne and Kerry.

Almost there

Looking up from inside a room of sorts within the castle walls

Exploring the castle grounds

Kids looking through the "window"

Rick & Kim

A tourboat with visitors docking on the small island

Climbing the stairs

Inside one of the towers, Dwayne is explaining how the archers used to use the small window to shoot at their enemies.

They also used to pour hot liquids down the carved out stone to defend against enemies trying to scale the tower.

The family photo...minus Danielle who chose to sleep in our hotel room through all this excitement.

Back in the boat and dry land

I've still got more pics to post from this trip. Maybe I'll send them all next time around.

Trip to Kizkalesi

Our first family trip in Turkey was to Kizkalesi, better known as "Castle by the Sea." We were invited to go with two other families. It was a 1 hr and 30 minute drive from Incirlik. Kizkalesi is a small town with narrow streets and tiny parking lots. The hotel we stayed at was called the Barbarossa and it is as close to the beach as you can get. Our back patio overlooked this beautiful pool.


The kids couldn't wait to see the beach.

This was not only our first glimpse of the castle in the water, but it was also our first time seeing the Mediterranean Sea (or in Turkish = Ak Deniz). It was a very cool experience.

CASTLE BY THE SEA

Back to Bloggin'

It's been just over 3 weeks since I last wrote anything. There are two reasons for this:

1. Our camera isn't working


2. We finally got our household goods shipment

We got rid of our loaner furniture the same morning our stuff was delivered. While waiting for the delivery, Kylie had nothing but a rug to sit on while watching TV.

Our household goods finally arrived. They picked them up in Tucson on February 22nd and delivered them in Turkey on April 24th. That's 62 days without our stuff. It doesn't sound too long, but when you have a whole family living without familiar belongings...it just seems like a lifetime. Oh, wait...could that truck be loaded with our stuff?

Why, it sure is. All 10 crates and a sofa box.

We don't have any more pictures because as soon as the boxes arrived, Kim and I were thrown into a crash course of basic Turkish language so the movers could understand where to put our stuff. Just in case we couldn't catch on, they labeled each upstairs bedroom with a yellow sticky with either a 1, 2, 3, or 4 on it. We spent the morning shouting out things like...

Bir = 1 (sounds like beer)

Iki = 2 (icky)

uc = 3 (ooch)

dert = 4 (dirt)

Yimic Odoso = Dining Room

Salon = Living Room

Mutfuk = Kitchen (mootfuck) We had a lot of fun yelling out that one!!!

Aside from that, the other interesting thing about our delivery was they didn't use any ramps or dollies to unload the boxes. They carried almost everything on their backs. I'm still not quite sure how they picked the boxes up or set them down.