Pictures from my school trip to Alanya and Antalya!!


Alanya

Beach in Alanya

Engin, Gökçe, Tuğba, Seda, Tuğçe, Me, Nesibe,
and Mustafa in Alanya

Damlataş Mağarası

Me, Tuğçe, Nesibe, and Hikmet inside Damlataş
Mağarası

A view of the coast of Alanya

Me and Tuğçe in Alanya

Seda and Tuğba in Alanya

A shot of the city of Alanya along the coast from
the top of the Alanya Kalesi (Alanya Castle)

Alanya

Another picture of Alanya

Türk Bayrağı (The Turkish flag)

Another picture of the coast from Alanya Kalesi

And another picture of the coast

Manavgat Şelalesi (Manavgat Waterfall)

Tuğçe at Manavgat Şelalesi

Aspendos Theatre

Another picture of Aspendos

Aspendos is a really big theatre

Tuğçe and Me at Aspendos

Furkan, Seda, Gökçe, and Mustafa in Aspendos
Theatre

Düden Şelalesi (Düden Waterfall)

Another picture of Düden Şelalesi

Düden Şelalesi is so pretty

View from behind the waterfall at Düden Şelalesi

Another view from behind the waterfall

Can anyone understand this sign? If so, would
you please explain it to me?

Kurşunlu Şelalesi (Kurşunlu Waterfall)

Hikmet, Kemal, Murat Can, and Oğuzhan at
Kurşunlu Şelalesi

Eren, Engin, Mustafa, Me, and Nesibe chilling in
Antalya

Kadir, Seda, Mustafa, Tuğba, Fikro, Emre,
Gökhem, and Can

Seda, Tuğba, Gökçe, and Kemal in Antalya

Seda, Tuğba, Tuğçe, Gökçe, and Kemal still in
Antalya

Mustafa, Tuğçe, Nesibe and Me

Me and Nesibe at dinner

Three weekends ago, I went on a school trip to Antalya. Antalya is a city located on the southern coast of Turkey, where it is warm and beautiful. Actually, on Saturday, it was rainy and cold (which, as I found out afterwards, was the weather all over Turkey), but on Sunday, it was gorgeous. The trip was fun, but rather unorganized. It all started on Friday night, when we met at school to wait for the buses. We were told to be at school by 11:00 PM because the buses were going to come at 11:30. That didn't happen. We were all there on time, but the buses weren't. They didn't come until 1 in the morning, and we didn't leave Afyon until 1:30 AM! The whole trip was kind of like that.
The first place we drove to was Alanya, which is a small city near Antalya. Alanya is about 7 hours away from Afyon. We had two buses, I was on the first one, and my bus kept arriving at places way before the second bus did. For example, we arrived in Alanya an hour before the other bus. So while we were waiting for the other people to arrive, we walked along the beach in Alanya and had breakfast. Once the second bus arrived, we visited Alanya Kalesi (Alanya Castle), which is built on top of a cliff and provides a spectacular view of the city as well as of the coast. The next place we went to was Damlataş Mağarası (Damlataş Caverns). It's this ginormous underground cavern filled with stalagmites and stalactites, which was formed between 20,000-15,000 B.C.
The next place we went to was Manavgat Şelalesi (Manavgat Waterfall). It's a small waterfall, but a pretty one. There was a glass blower near the waterfall, who was making glass animals. He was really talented, and I ended up buying a little family of glass penguins from him.
After seeing Manavgat, we went to Aspendos Theater. It was built in about 155 A.D. by the Greeks and has enough room for 15,000 people! It has been beautifully restored and is amazing. We spent some time there, and then we went to Side, which is another town near Antalya. There are a lot of Roman ruins all over Side, among them, an amphitheater and Temple to Apollo, and even though I had been there once before with my host family, it was cool to see them again.

On Sunday, the first place we visited was Düden Şelalesi (Düden Waterfall). It is a somewhat large waterfall park, and is really pretty. We also saw Kurşunlu Şelalesi (Kurşunlu Waterfall), which is smaller than Düden, but just as beautiful. After that, we went to the main city of Antalya and wandered around there for a bit. Sunday afternoon was a good example of how the trip was unorganized: the group got separated into 3 smaller groups, and it took us 2 hours to locate each other, and then we spent another hour just sitting in a park waiting for the buses. So unfortunately, we wasted three hours that could have been spent doing stuff in the city, but whatever. The trip was still fun. The last place we visited before coming back to Afyon was a beach, Konya Altı Plajı (Konya Altı Beach), to be exact. The ocean was freezing, (that would be the Mediterranean, by the way), so I didn't go swimming. But that didn't deter everyone, we had some insane members of our group who dove right in.

On Sunday evening, we were supposed to leave at 7 and then arrive in Afyon at around midnight. However, like the rest of the trip, this was not on time either: we didn't end up leaving until 10:30, and we arrived in Afyon at 3 in the morning on Monday. So that was fun.
But besides the perpetual lateness and unprepared-ness of the trip, I had a good time. The next school trip will be this Sunday, and it is to Pamukkale. I am planning on going on that trip (and the one in May to Çanakkale as well), so I'll let you know about them when I get back!

Yesterday, I had my fourth birthday cake. My birthday was two weeks ago, on Friday, April 6th, and my friends and family here made it a really special one. The Thursday before, Semra and Fettah had to go to Bodrum because Fettah's mom just had surgery. I was sad because I thought that they weren't going to be in Afyon for my birthday. But on Wednesday night, they had a surprise celebration for me, with a cake and everything. The cake said "İyiki Doğdun (which means happy birthday) Rebeka". And no, my family didn't spell my name incorrectly, the cake place did. This is because in Turkish, "c" is pronounced like "j". So when Turks read my name, they read it as "Rebeja". So, when the cake place heard my name, they just assumed that it was spelled with a "k".

That was my first party. During school on Friday, not only did I receive a lot of surprise gifts from my classmates, but I got another surprise cake as well. When I was waiting in line for lunch, my friend Apo came up to me and started taking me to his classroom. I visit his class all the time during his English lessons, but I couldn't figure out why we were going there during lunch. I kept saying "Apo, nereye gidiyoruz? Yemeğim geliyor..." (Where are we going? My food's coming). It wasn't until after we got there, and I walked into the classroom to see another one of my friends, Mustafa, lighting candles on a cake for me, and their entire class started singing "Happy Birthday" (in both Turkish and English at the same time) that I figured it out. I was so surprised, I am not even an actual member of that class! But I do visit it at least twice a week, so I guess I'm an honorary member...

My third party happened on Friday night. Because Fettah and Semra had to go to Bodrum, I switched families. I am now staying with my counselor, Ender's, sister and her family. Ender and his sister, Dilek, are neighbors (they live two houses apart), so I am kind of staying with both families at once. So now my new host mom's name is Dilek, her husband is İsmail, and they have two daughters: Işıl (who's 7) and Damla (who's 12). Semra and Fettah are going to be doing a lot of travelling during the coming month, but when they come back, sometime in May, I will be going back and finishing my exchange year with them.
Anyway, on Friday, there was a class meeting for Damla's class, so all the parents of her classmates (and some of her classmates as well) came to my house. In the middle of this meeting, Dilek had me come into the living room, where I found my third birthday cake. I also received gifts from my new host family and from the parents at the meeting as well, which was really sweet of them.

Yesterday, my friends gave me a party at place in town called Cafe Paşa. That was where I had my fourth cake. It was going to be a surprise party, but when my friend Merve told me not to plan anything on Saturday, because there was this "thing", I figured it out. It was really nice of them to do that for me, and it was a ton of fun.

Last week I had another surprise; it wasn't a birthday surprise, but a Passover surprise. There is no passover-kosher food to be found in Afyon, and it was just too hard for me to have Passover this year. But one day, my neighbor Fatma invited me over to her house. When I got there, I found that she had made haroset and an entire yeast-free meal for me, which was delicious.

So that's whats been going on with me. Hope everyone had a good Passover or Easter!