Muchacho Polaco

Yun and I have been ın Kusadası, Turkey sınce last Monday. We are stayıng at a very nıce place outsıde of town among the olıve groves on a hıll overlookıng the Aegean Sea. Turkey has been a wonderful place thus far – today we spent the entıre day at sea travelıng to varıous bays ın the area on a nıce boat. We found the swımmıng enjoyable despıte the cold water and Yun was brave enough to jump off the second floor of the boat ınto the sea (after much delıberatıon!). We are all burnt to the core though and wıll feel that paın for the duratıon of our trıp.

Yesterday we vısıted a number of ancıent cıtıes south of Kusadası – such as Prıenne, Mıletos, and Dıdyma. Fascınatıng thıngs to see and a lot of archıtecture from antıquıty. Tomorrow we wıll travel to the cıty of Efes (Ephesus) to explore that for half the day.

Matt and I have had ample opportunıty to smoke cıgars and drınk Ephesıan beer. The day before yesterday we had a spades match at a wonderful hookah bar where we puffed away on the hookah for hours. The Turks are very nıce and the owner of the hookah bar gave us a nıce handmade box as I had commented that I lıked ıt.

Yunuen and I finally arrived in Dublin after an incredibly long trip. It is certainly much warmer since the last time we were here, but thankfully Yunuen insist I bring a light jacket. We are heading downtown now to do some shopping before our departure this evening.

Yunuen and I went to San Carlos last weekend and returned this last Wednesday. We took two vehicles and traveled with Ben and Lis, Jeff and Beth, and Liam. As we couldn’t book a place at Condominiums Pilar, we were able to get a place at Condominiums Delfin which as it turns out is substantially nicer than Pilar.

The drive down was pleasant and mostly uneventful and we arrived before sunset, so we had the opportunity to relax on the beach and play some cards. Jeff introduced us to a new game called Tripoli which happens to be quite fun and accommodates an uneven number of people which Hand and Foot is less inclined to do.

Liam and I were able to do some SCUBA this time which was a lot fun – we rented two tanks each which turned out to be more than we needed really. The visibility was pretty good and the diversity of sea life was abundant. We saw a lot of string rays and plenty of colorful fish.

We had a lot of fun on the beach and the night before our departure we had a nice beach fire. We rented some sea kayaks on Tuesday and Ben and Lis, Yun and I went for an evening kayak ride out to sea and then to an esturary that was really beautiful with a lot of unique looking birds.

We had a great time on this trip!