Istanbul - A simple night out for a change...

For the first time myself, Iain, Cristhian, and some others went out just to have a calm dinner in Istanbul close to the port. Nothing very exciting, except I spent some quality time with Paul and he's a really nice guy. Excellent in fact at his job. It was just nice to go out and not feel pressured to do sight seeing, or work, or anything. Just to be calm.
I ordered water with dinner (part of my biggest loser regiment). I got this... which I thought was awesome. It's like a plastic pouch of water sealed like a pudding cup. I took pictures because it was neato burrito!

I am 23 pounds down with Biggest Loser, by the way :)

A night on the town in Istanbul

A few of the shoppees and I went out for a night in Istanbul, Turkey. I had the night off for a change which was very relaxing. While I was off all day, they did not get released until 7:30pm, so we weren't able to leave before 8. The free shuttle stops running at 6pm, so we were forced to divide into two taxis. It is amazing how taxi prices vary. At the port the drivers will work together to force you to pay a high price. They were asking $20 to get to the Hagia Sophia which we were simply not willing to pay. On the street we found a cab willing to run off the meter, and we owed 9 Turkish Lira (about 4 dollars) for the ride. So silly.

When we got out of the cab we just started walking around and enjoying the beautiful night life of Istanbul. There is a general feeling in all of the small shops of "the more stuff the better." Some of these places are so cram packed with stuff that it really ends up looking like artwork, not souvenirs. The pictures below are from the inside of one really cool shop.

Display posters on the face of the steps.

Walls and walls full of magnets and plates.

Ceilings covered in decorative lanterns.

Below is half of the gang that went out with us. Iain is of course on the left, sitting next to Abdul. Then Praful, and Tony is on the far right. Abdul and Praful are really neat guys, and unfortunately they are signing off on the 25th (next Istanbul). We're really going to miss them... and the shop will certainly miss their sense of humor terribly. Abdul used to always call me Mary until he finally read my name tag one day and got really embarrassed. Now he calls me MaddieMaddie. Very sweet.

The rest of the gang, Christhian on the left and JC on the right.

Some street views of the bistro where we dined.

I wish these pictures had come out a bit brighter.

All in all, an excellent evening of relaxed fun with some really good, new friends. Couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my evening off.

My very first visit to Marmaris, Turkey!

Marmaris, Turkey... (gobble gobble)... someday that joke might get old

I can't even BELIEVE how blue the water is here!!!

Today was the first day I got to swim at the beach :D Best time of my life.

REALLY good local beer:

Since we didn't sail out of port until midnight, we only had one performance at 7:45pm. Granted, it's my least favorite of all the shows we do onboard, but one show nonetheless. Which freed me up to book into one of our onboard specialty restaurants - Tuscan Grille. I made a reservation for 5... Iain, Christian, Olgiza, Elizabeth and I. Elizabeth never made it - but thats another really long story in its own right. For $24 (we got 20% off the $30 cover because we are crew and they are desperate for money), you can order as much of anything you want off the menu. I had a calamari apetizer, a tomato basil mozarella salad, and seafood risotto. For dessert - chocolate fondue!!! YUM. We also get 50% off any drinks that are $12 or less, so I had 3 or 4 glasses of Prosecco :D My favorite! This is me all dressed up and on my way out to dinner!

After dinner, and a few more drinks, Iain and I were feeling very sophisticated. He challenged me to a game of scrabble. In which I promptly kicked his ass. Below is a picture of him calculating exactly how bad his ass was handed to him by yours truly.

And this is the shot of the winning board. If you find any words that aren't real don't tell on me!
A WONDERFUL day in every way.

Bodrum, Turkey

So it is awesome that I have a job that allows me to enjoy almost all of the ports we are visiting. However, it is a little less awesome that I am friends with the entire gift shop staff who are always free for every port (the onboard gift shops are not allowed to be open when we are at port, so thus they are never working). Since none of us like to wake up early, we never manage to leave the ship before 11:30am. They usually don't have to be back until 5:30, but I usually have to be back by 3:30 - 2 hours makes a big difference when your day is only 4 hours long. So I always end up either rushing everyone back to the ship, convincing them they are in desperate need of a nap before their 6pm shift, or stuck walking back to the ship by myself and loosing a good time.

More often than not, as soon as we get off of the ship - a source of infinite free food - we get immediately hungry and focus on finding a cafe or outdoor patio-style restaurant to spend far too much money on beer and (lately) shish kebabs.

By the time a group of 8 people agree on a restaurant, find a place to sit, debate beer or no beer, soda or cappuccino, etc. etc. etc., order drinks, order food, get food, eat food, pay for food (this usually takes about 30 minutes to figure out since we all sort of pay separately and in a total of 3 different currencies - turkish lira, euro, and dollars) - that my entire 4 hours has come and gone and I have to return to the ship. They - on the other hand - then get 2 hours of post meal beach time - of which I am endlessly envious.

Bodrum was nice. The lunch was delicious. The water is so blue :)

Kusadasi, Turkey

TODAY WAS AWESOME!

I went on another crew tour to a waterpark!

Water slides and tubing all day.

Swimming in pools.

Fish ate the dead skin off my entire body.

It was AWESOME!

I didn't take any pictures but I am going to steal Christian's soon and I'll share what I get!

:D

Freckled & tan in Turkey!