Beach - School/work/blog - beach

11/4 - 9: These days have involved a bit less touring and more enjoying our current lovely accommodation and the beach nearby. Even though it seems like we 'should' be doing more, there are not as many 'things to see' here, and we are loving taking advantage of walking together at the beach every morning as soon as we get up (7:30). Then we come home, eat, work, and leave our place to head back to the beach to enjoy the sunset. These are activities that we cannot do at home, and I'm loving this routine this week!

Remote school life

Not as warm as the day with Josie, but the kids still got in! Bob and I got in to our knees and we all tossed the ball around a bit.

Windier today - people learning how to handle the wind for parasailing behind us.

The kids enjoyed goofing around - Simone covered Quinn with rocks

We enjoyed a snack and a drink with the sunset at one of the many beach bars

Quinn is in a photography class - these are some of his ‘pictures in a frame.’

Not exactly a frame but I love this shot

Chess on our upstairs balcony

Every morning was perfect for our beach walk

HH on our upstairs balcony

Exploring the Old Town and the marina

A bit of tourist fatigue - this is an old tower. Neat.

Beautiful sunset - and rats crawling around on the rocks below. Yuk.

Hiking up the hill to our dinner spot

Right at the edge of a cliff. We had a stray cat navigating the 6 inches between the edge and certain death.

We had a harrowing Uber ride home after this dinner - super aggressive driving and weaving.

We heard it’s a snow day back home today!

Beach side beverage stop

The pebble beach was a little tough on bare feet, but fun to look for colored stones

We had amazing weather

Our last evening in Antalya

We will miss our place here! It had 3 bedrooms, plus 2 living rooms to relax/workout in. The upstairs living room was the perfect area for Josie when she visited. We all agreed this Airbnb was our favorite so far.

One highlight was hanging out with Shad, our host. We had a drink with him at the bar by the pool, and had some great conversation. I asked him about the dichotomy between Turkey supposedly being a secular nation but yet the Muslim call to prayer is blasted throughout the cities 6 times/day. He referenced their president, Erdogan, as wanting to bring more religion into the government, and said, “religion is one more way to control people.” He went on to say religion isn’t grandstanding and preaching - that religion is in your heart and in your home. That’s an interesting talking point. 

We were wrapping it up when 3 of his colleagues came to eat dinner together at the table nearby. They all invited Bob and me to join them. We were hesitant at first, because we felt like we were imposing, but they insisted, and so we enjoyed a delicious pasta with them (served with the ‘sauce’ which was a dollop of yogurt).

Antalya was our favorite city so far in our tour of Turkey. It was definitely more liberal (I felt comfortable wearing shorts and my bikini on the beach) and more of a vacation spot vs a tourist spot (where people go to spend a week or more vs a day or two to say you’ve been there). It definitely seems like a party town in the summer!

Bob did a great job driving like a local - you first need the attitude of ‘me first’ or more strongly ‘F you.’ I’m glad I’m only a passenger. No one stops for pedestrians. We laughed as he drove past people waiting to cross the street and the kids and I would say, “Nope! Not your turn! We go!” It seems that people going straight on a road need to yield to drivers coming out from side streets - drivers don’t wait for a space to pull out, they just pull out and make a space.

We loved going to the beach, beachside beverages, our place, and hanging out on the patio playing cards.

As much as we loved this accommodation, we are so excited to NOT share walls with people. Even though we were on the top floor (ie no one above us), Bob and I still heard people moving furniture around at midnight and the early morning hours each night. We just got so annoyed - and wonder what in the world are people doing?!?! For as nice as the place was, we still struggled to sleep all night.

We also struggle with the inability to drink the local water, and the associated lack of recycling to dispose of all the plastic water jugs we need to buy. After a few days we saw a few small recycling containers outside the grocery store, so I started walking our recycling items to drop them in those bins. People were definitely looking at me quizzically when I unloaded all my empty cans/bottles into these receptacles. Who knows if that stuff actually gets recycled...but I felt better at least trying.