Turkey With All the Trimmings.doc

It is currently 1:20am on Christmas Eve and Emily and I are camping out overnight at the John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. From here we jump on an Easyjet flight and arrive in Paris around 9:30am just in time to explore the city during Christmas. We originally were dreading this time spent in the cold and small airport but were elated upon arrival to wander upon pay-by-the-20 minute slot internet hubs. What a better way to pass the time (who needs sleep?!) than to recount our adventures since the infamous holiday video which we left for you upon our departure.

It was a joy to have Emily for a night at Warwick. Because I am moving the first week of January, she is the only person from home who will have seen my residence digs and life as I described on the blog. We stayed up late planning the minutest details of our trip and catching up on the stories that have accumulated over the past three months on the continent. I gave her a quick tour of the facilities and we enjoyed one last lunch in the residence kitchen, two frozen pizzas, before heading off to Manchester.

Upon arrival we checked into our hostel, the Hatters Manchester, and then made our way around the city. We wandered through brightly lit Christmas events and soaked up the atmosphere of the bustling metropolis. It was here that I introduced Emily to PRIMARK where we each bought extremely cheap clothes for our Turkish adventure - Em picked up a pair of sandals and sunnys while I purchased a new sweater to be worn on Christmas day. From there we wandered to the Manchester Christmas Market (every UK town boasts their own) were we had a wholesome dinner.

Anyone who talks about Manchester usually mentions that the nightlife is the feature of the city - our one night in Man did not disappoint! We went to a hip little bar on Canal Street called Churchills that was offering (surprise, surprise) Karaoke. The bar was eerily similar to Crews and Tango and reminded us of a number of fun TWT nights spent in Toronto. After overcoming a little apprehension (some beverages helped) Em and I scribbled our name as "The Canadians" and put down Twist and Shout as the number we would deliver. After mishearing the DJ twice (he had a thick accent), it was finally our turn to wow the crowd with our Toronto Karaoke skills - we felt like we were singing for all you guys back home. A great night on the journey to Turkey.

We left the hostel early the next morning with Thomas Cook Airlines and chatted with a sweet older lady on the plane who had moved from the UK to Turkey four years ago and swore she would never go back. She regaled us with stories about the country which made us extremely excited for the trip we were about to begin. After a quick process through customs (we got the coolest visa stamp in our passport) and a two hour shuttle to the resort, we had arrived. Now, I've never been to a five star resort before so I had no idea what to expect. All in all, I'm told the service where we stayed is more like what you'd find at a three star resort, but you'd never know it entering the lobby at the Beach Club Doganay where we stayed. The six floors surround an atrium that is lit up like something you'd find in Vegas or Atlantic City. While the balcony was a little small and it was a bit too cold to spent our evenings outdoors, the room looked extremely luxurious.

Emily and I think we might have been the first Canadians ever to vacation there. The whole week we were surrounded by Germans, Brits,Turks, and Dutch tourists who all mentioned they had never really heard of Canadians vacationing in Turkey. Whenever one of the bartenders or waiters would ask us where we were from, they would always be surprised to hear the word Canada. Two of the staff entertainers in particular made an effort during the week to ask questions about where we were from. Since we were the only ones there, it wasn't long before most of the workers there were referring to us as The Canadians. One drawback of the resort was the lack of anyone under the age of twenty-five. The first night we were pretty certain the median age at dinner looked to be forty. We later found out that a seniors home in Turkey brings the residents to the resort for one week out of the year. I wish I was kidding. If you know Emily and I you know that this did little to dampen our spirits - we had a fine time filling our evening with alternative socializing since the disco was sparsely populated (understatement of the trip).

The food was fantastic. Before leaving, a friend told me that Greek food and Turkish food is fairly similar, but that no one from either country would tell you that. The highlights of the all-inclusive meals included : fresh baked bread, a variety of different olives, many cheeses, and lots of meat. My mom is a huge fan of feta cheese and there had to be about half a dozen types of feta each with a different spice. The dessert of the trip was an extremely decadent baklava that melted in your mouth (obvi, Emily and I packed up five for our room). There were about six to ten different cats that pranced around the resort. As opposed to animals I had seen in Cuba or the Dominican, these felines looked extremely well-fed and well-groomed so I didn't mind having them wander by in the dining room. Em and I even took to naming some of the cats after our friends as if they were there at dinner with us (too weird?)

On the whole the weather wasn't the greatest. We had three full days where it didn't rain while the other four were either overcast or had patches of clouds. On the days it didn't rain it was HOT. I'm talking 22-24 degrees! This meant that on the two full days of full sun we hit the beach early in the morning and stayed until the sun began to set around 4pm. These were my favorite days. Only in certain places in Europe can you bask in the sunshine in just a bathing suit and need to cool off in the sea, and Turkey is luckily one of them. We sat in lounge chairs and listened to our favorite songs through ipod headphones, we frolicked in the Mediterranean sea, we drank beers from the beach bar, and finally, we wondered what everyone back home was doing while we were lucky enough to be on the Turkish Riviera (apparently it was shoveling snow??)

On Thursday we went on a day excursion to Alanya, the city closest to the resort. We were told that from the top of the castle you could see the whole city so we decided to make that our first visit. A kind man in the village had told us that no one usually walks up the roads to the castle since it takes an hour. We listened politely to his advice but promptly decided that walking up to the castle was exactly what we wanted to do. During the trip up I couldn't have felt more away from Canada. As we walked, we took in the architecture of our surroundings, interacted with a few of the city's inhabitants, and heard a prayer from a mosque over a loud speaker far in the distance. The view from the top was extraordinary. We spent a good 45 minutes walking through the ruins of the castle and peering down on the colourful city of Alanya. We walked down a different route along the harbour where we were continually offered "great deals" on boat tours - since it was the off-season, street vendors and anyone who had something to sell was continually bombarding us with questions.

After purchasing a few small items from a shop, we settled into an outdoor cafe for an authentic Turkish coffee - it looked like tar and created a muddy type of coffee solid at the bottom of the cup. It was delicious. The nice man who served us also asked us to try the hookah he was smoking outside the shop (when in Turkey!) We had a most perfect day trip to Alanya where the orange trees grow and the coffee is strong and bitter. On the topic of "when in Turkey", every toilet at the hotel had a bidet. If you are unaware of the term I suggest you place it into a google search. Without going into detail, Emily and I made a decision to use the bidet at least once while at the resort. Talk about saving the environment! Why haven't bidets been mentioned in any plans for paper conservation? It's a different way of doing things, but I don't see why it's an inferior method.

The two most relaxing parts of the trip were our time spent in the Mediterranean and in the Turkish Bath and Sauna. The sea was the cleanest water I've ever swam in. You could usually see to the bottom where you were swimming and, as always, I felt like the salt water was doing wonders for my skin. The Turkish Bath was a room made of marble with basins of water attached to the wall. The combination of the marble, steam, and air-tight seal meant it was like a sauna where you'd take a bowl of water from a basin and continually pour it over you. Near the end of the trip I spent 20£ for a spa deal which included a full body scrub in the Bath, a facial peel, and a 30 minute massage - the price was lower because it was the off-season. The massage alone was forth the twenty quid; I felt like a new man after the treatment.

Aside from all the comforts of a week away from school and commitment, Emily and I had an absolute ball. There wasn't really any young pals to tag around with at the resort so we amused ourselves observing the characters, lounging in the lobby bar, watching Turkish MTV (which played the same videos on a six hour loop), playing our usual survival games, and considering just where else this crazy European adventure would take us. It was comforting to spend a week with a dear friend from home who knew all the in-jokes and had a shared history. We were able to talk in-depth about the future, the fate of the world, and all that is great about the place we call home. It's at this time that all the news outlets will produce their 2008 Year in Review. I feel that, without talking about it, Turkey was both a year in review, for two friends who spent the majority of the year together, and also a look towards an exciting 2009 full of possibility.

From here, after hording the internet computers for over an hour, Emily and I head to Paris where we are sure to have a memorable Christmas. It will be sad to be away from all that is familiar, but exciting to explore how the holiday is celebrated in another country. It is my hope that you aren't burdened by too much snow, and are happy back home in a country I miss more and more with each passing week.

Doc's Prescription of the Day: I'm taking inspiration from my surroundings at John Lennon Airport and wishing for a peaceful holiday for you and yours:

"And so this is Christmas

For weak and for strong

For Rich and for poor ones

The road is so long

And so Happy Christmas

For black and for white

For yellow and red ones

Let's stop all the fight"