We went to a small beach town in the south called Fethiye, which is right on the Mediterranean.
We only had two days there, and we spent the first on a boat that cruised around the islands of Fethiye all day. We swam in the Mediterranean, ate a delicious fish lunch, and explored one of the islands. Mostly, though, we just hung out on the boat talking and taking in the sun and the beautiful views.
That night after resting a bit, we went out to dinner at one of the many restaurants surrounding the fish market. The waiter escorted Gio and me to the market and we picked out the fish we wanted them to cook for us! Gio ordered us a bottle of Raki, an infamous Turkish drink, and that got the party started. The food was delicious, and as we were one of the last tables to linger at the end of the night, many of the waiters swung by to talk with us (or rather, with Gio, since she's the only one that speaks Turkish). Gio even read one of the waiter's fortunes at the bottom of his cup of Turkish coffee.
We stopped by one bar that played our favorite Euro music, but since NO ONE else was there but us, we moved on to a more popular establishment, where there was a wedding celebration and live band. It was SO LOUD and SO SMOKEY but also SO AWESOME to hear live Turkish music (from a flamboyant gay man) and people watch. The waiters would swing by and pick up any small piece of trash as soon as we'd put it on the table. The weird thing was, they'd just brush it to the floor. Once the floor had accumulated a lot of trash, then they'd sweep it up. It was so odd!After that we wandered down by the pier and found a playground where we had way too much playing like big kids. There was a boat named Olive Oil that we wanted to adopt. Instead, we ended up adopting a pack of very loyal dogs that followed us all around the pier and then back to our hostel. We named them: Rabies, Cream, and Asian Willy (he looked like Shawn's western dog, Willy). Charlotte kept exclaiming, "When did we become the pied pipers of dogs?!"
The next day we took a sort of hike up to look at the Lycian ruins that were still lodged in the hillside. We had another dog that followed us up every hill that day and he was named Straciatella (Italian chocolate chip gelato flavor) and we nicknamed him Ella. When we stopped for beverages he joined us and when I tried to get a bowl of water for our loyal companion, the waitress thought I was crazy.
In the afternoon we took a cramped bus down to the beach and hung out for a few hours. The water was such a beautiful shade of turquoise. When describing it to my Italian friends once I arrived in Italy, I learned an important vocabulary distinction between the sea that is Turko (Turkish) and turchese (turquise). Luckily, it was both! After some time on the beach, we stopped by a restaurant for a while to watch the Portugal-Brazil game.
By then it was time to fly back to Istanbul! And that was the end of our glorious Beach Holiday in Asia. We just hoped the weather in Istanbul was beginning to cooperate...
