Happenings...

We went to a place in Istanbul called Taxim. It is this area that is just filled with people constantly. It's busy and fun and there is a lot of good, good people watching to be had. One thing that was cool was that we walked off the bus and there was russian traditional dancing taking place in the middle of the square. They were doing snippets of their show to get people interested in coming. I love this! It really was so fun to watch!

Just the main area to walk down and shop, eat... people watch.

Soon after walking around Taxim and shopping, we hoped on a bus to get to the Airport to pick up Ross, John's dad. It was great because we got to sit front row and get a small bus tour of Istanbul. 

On our tour we saw one of the members of the Turkish Hells Angels chapter. Yeah... never ever did I imagine seeing this in turkey.

Another thing we saw was an aquaduct. A Real live Aquaduct! Still working too! Honestly, I study these in humanities and was so fascinated by them and so seeing it just part of the scenery (not touristy) was so awesome! It was beautiful too!... and massive...

We saw some super old places as well on our drive. I literally thought I would witness this one just collapse right then and there. It is so old looking and would make me nervous to live in it. haha

Love it when John makes these faces just for me.

We then traveled the next day after picking Ross up from the Airport to Marmaris. Marmaris was where we would meet up with our sailing friends and take off on the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. We stayed at a very quaint Hotel called "Otel Dost" which translates to "Hotel Friend". The man that owned it was incredibly nice. He held 2 large suitcases for us at his own home while we sailed for 7 days. Seriously a good, good man.

The room we were in. Very cute. Something that has been common here is that they don't have actual queen size beds for guests to sleep on, instead they push 2 twin size beds together... (I may have already mentioned this in a prior post, sorry).. The fact that I could nearly get the entire room in this photo says everything about its size... perspective.

The one and only night that we stayed in Marmaris was fun. The main streets are full of people and stores. Tourists come there- to the max- and the turks take advantage of the ability to make money (not in a negative way just in a touristy way)... anyway, we went into this one store where they were selling perfumes for a good price. We even smelt the tester and checked the packaging and thought they seemed pretty legit. Plus, I shop in LA all the time, I am used to this kind of selling. Anyway, we purchased 2 perfumes and 1 cologne. We were pretty excited. After about another 30 minutes of walking around we were ready to head back to the Otel. I started thinking, what if this stuff sucks and we can't do anything about it. So I suggested that we pull it out and test it. The one we chose to test was Aqua Di, a smell that I am all to familiar with (The one smell I demand John wear), and we sprayed it... and nothing. I could not smell a thing. A couple more sprays... nope. nothing. Then we thought, maybe give it a sec. Nope... nothing.. Ayse was so upset. So we set off to go back to the store. With my knowledge of LA- there is almost guarantee that we would not get out money back and I figured that was the case here. I was a little nervous. So was John. We decided to hide in a store nearby so that she could do her thing. She walked out with a smile on her face and nothing in her hands. She is good. 

We had asked her what she said. I was purely amazed. She said that she kept it simple and said to the young man that he was not honest. That the perfumes were not as he had advertised and that he needed to give her her money back. Its amazing what a small but stubborn woman can accomplish! Needless to say, I was incredibly relieved that we took care of it before it was too late.

The next morning we said our goodbyes to Marmaris and set sail for the coast of Turkey.