Bye Bye Turkey

As we're about to leave our first country we'd like to share some random things. 

TURKEY
- Gas is insanely expensive here!  About $10 a gallon!
- Food prices are similar to US.
- A can of soda costs around $2.
- Getting around the country by a greyhound type bus is really easy and inexpensive.  It cost around $30 each to get halfway across the country. 
- Domestic flights are also very affordable.  About $50 for a one way flight.
- Local buses are easy to find and about a quarter of the price of taxis.  Taxis are a little more than US taxis.  We never took one.
- Whenever we arrived in a new place it never took too long to find a place to stay.  We just headed towards the center of town and always found a hostel (here, they are also called pensions).
- Private double rooms with a private bathroom at a hostel (most of the time including breakfast) ran about $10-15 per person a night.
- A turkish breakfast is usually some cucumber, tomato, black olives, cheese, maybe a hard boiled egg and ALWAYS a basket of bread with butter and jelly or honey.  If we never eat cucumber or tomato ever again, that would be fine.  Also, Steph thought she loved black olives, until she got here!  These are right off the tree and very strong!
- It is very strange to go from trying to stay away from carbs, to purposefully eating as much bread in the morning as we could!  With how much walking we do, skipping lunch (sometimes we had fresh fruit), and eating smaller dinners- we definitely wanted all the bread we could eat.
- Turkish people did not really like to barter.  We got hostel rooms for a bit cheaper sometimes, but that is about it.  It seemed they didn't care if they had business or not.

GENERAL
- When backpacking, weather has a huge impact on your trip.  You could be confined to your room for much longer than you would want when it's raining, snowing (it snowed the other day!), or just plain cold. 
- Washing machines are a beautiful thing.  Hand washing your clothes is not fun.
- Traveling is not always fun and games.  There can be a lot of down time where you're bored out of your mind.  We have to get creative and make our own fun.  For example, we just amused ourselves with a teeter-totter we found in a park for awhile.  It was fun : )  Also, traveling has made Shawn into a real live bookworm.  We've played a lot of rummy and other card games.
- I'm so grateful for Shawn!  He is naturally good at almost everything, and traveling is not an exception. 
- So far, we've only had two hostels without hot water.  We will NEVER take hot water for granted after this! 
- It's much harder to meet people than we thought it would be.  The language barrier, even between travelers, can be hard to overcome.  We met a fun couple from Japan, but it was hard to really get to know them : ( Thankfully, in Olympos there were quite a few English speakers who we had a great time with.  We've found that the less populated areas make it easier to find friends.

In conclusion, some dislikes and likes:

Turkey has a superstition called "mal de ojo" or "the evil eye."   The evil eye is a look that is believed to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike. We, unfortunately, got a lot of mal de ojo while we were here.  We believe, and it's been suggested to us by a few friends we've met, that it is because we are American.  It was hard at times, but we did not let it get to us and we tried our best to kill their bad feelings with kindness.  Of course there were a few Turks that melted our hearts!  For example, on one long bus ride, at a stop, a Turkish man bought us tea and bread for no reason.  That gesture erased all the evil eyes we received.

Turkey is a beautiful country with a lot to offer!  The bustling cities, quaint villages, ancient ruins, out-of-this-world landscapes (cappadocia), mountains, and coastlines.  Shawn LOVED the turkish pizza.  Steph LOVED these peanuts that were coated and baked with honey and sesame seeds.  The history was amazing and interesting.  The friends we met along the way were great. 

So long, Turkey.  Hello Nepal!