summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2011-07-15 12:07 pm
summercomfort) wrote2011-07-15 12:07 pm
Konya
Am currently sitting in a cheerful hillside cafe in the central park in Konya, site of the original Seljuk palace,smoking an apple flavored Nargile (hookah). The chairs are cushy, the music is unobnoxious turkish pop, and I am enjoying what is most likely my one and only smoking experience.
I had a wonderful fruit filled breakfast.. great cherries and melon, and even a kiwi. Discovered that Turks like their plums hard and sour.
Today we walked around Konya and visited barious museums. Konya is a bit different from the coastal towns that we had visited. It's inland and further north, so drier and cooler. The population is more conservative, prices are cheaper. I picture young men in Istanbul saying to their girlfriends, "I gotta take you home to meet the grandparents. You might want to find a head scarf or something. I want them to like you." The two main draw of Konya are its Seljuk history and its Sufi history, which means it is mostly internal tourism. They are used to tourists, but not used to English speakers and not used to non-tour group Asians. We got two photo requests, a lot of stares and asides about "Japones". Interesting enough, the Asian tour group we saw seemed Singaporean.
I was pretty tired today.. perhaps reaching the end of my travel desires? Anyway, when I am tired or stressed I tend to suffer decision paralysis and end up making poor decisions. I think I need to be more aware of that.
I am flying to Istanbul tonight, and then to Milan early tomorrow morning. The airport hotel is 120 euro, so I'm trying to decide whether I should get that or just spend the night in the airport. Is 6 solid hours of sleep worth 120 euro? I'm also going to have to get mymind to shift gear to Italian.
I had a wonderful fruit filled breakfast.. great cherries and melon, and even a kiwi. Discovered that Turks like their plums hard and sour.
Today we walked around Konya and visited barious museums. Konya is a bit different from the coastal towns that we had visited. It's inland and further north, so drier and cooler. The population is more conservative, prices are cheaper. I picture young men in Istanbul saying to their girlfriends, "I gotta take you home to meet the grandparents. You might want to find a head scarf or something. I want them to like you." The two main draw of Konya are its Seljuk history and its Sufi history, which means it is mostly internal tourism. They are used to tourists, but not used to English speakers and not used to non-tour group Asians. We got two photo requests, a lot of stares and asides about "Japones". Interesting enough, the Asian tour group we saw seemed Singaporean.
I was pretty tired today.. perhaps reaching the end of my travel desires? Anyway, when I am tired or stressed I tend to suffer decision paralysis and end up making poor decisions. I think I need to be more aware of that.
I am flying to Istanbul tonight, and then to Milan early tomorrow morning. The airport hotel is 120 euro, so I'm trying to decide whether I should get that or just spend the night in the airport. Is 6 solid hours of sleep worth 120 euro? I'm also going to have to get mymind to shift gear to Italian.