Kate & Chris

Kate and Chris are our two holiday friends. We only started hanging about with them on the supposed last night of our holiday but since then we have spent most evenings chatting over a red wine or a sea breeze. We share a love of Japan, Florida theme parks, Studio Ghibli films and other types of nonsense. I haven't any photos of them yet. I want to get one of them as we land in Glasgow as this best represents our friendship. We only really started talking because we were in the same boat and we used to get the latest Volcano Gossip from each other so I want the only picture I have of them to be the big grin that we will all have at 4am as we leave the cabin at Glasgow Airport.

Antalyaspor!

When we went to Florida, Jason came up with the idea of going to a local basketball game which turned out to be a great idea. Me, J and Scott Currie all went and we all had a great time. So, when Jason did his research on Antalya, he noticed that a local football team, Antalyaspor, were playing on Sunday afternoon. So we decided to go. We knew it would be vibrant, to say the least. The Turks are known to be wild crowds, sometimes clashing with rival supporters and using flares to show their support. So there was a mixture of excitement and apprehension. We had went on a scouting mission earlier in the week so we knew where the stadium was so it was a nice stress-free journey on Sunday morning. We strolled down, bought our tickets and headed up to the museum before coming back down in time for the match at 3pm. We got to the stadium at about 2.15pm to soak up some of the atmosphere. It was such good fun. We were in a quieter part of the stadium but there was no restriction. If we wanted to walk around and switch seats, we could have.

There were lots of girls there which was one of my concerns. I didn't want to be the only female but I had no need to be worried about that.

Neither of us realised that the crowds had "conductors" who instructed their stand in what songs to sing and what movements to make. I got a snap of these conductors who were in the stand behind the goal. Each stand had their own.

The video is of one chant that involved everyone in the stadium. It started in one stand and they shouted something and all pointed to their left. Then the next stand added to the chant and all pointed to the left. So on and so on. It was a fun chant and we joined in, despite not knowing the word that our stand was to chant. It was quite easy to just shout anything and point to the left hee hee.

The game was really good. Actually, the game itself was okay. There have been better matches, but the overall experience was excellent. And Antalyaspor won by 2-1 which was good. Denizlispor only had a handful of away fans but it didn't stop the RIOT POLICE from coming out, just in case. The whole event happened without incident and was brilliant fun. We wandered up to the bus stop and came away having had a really good but exhausting day out.

Cycling Tour

On the way back from the museum, the road was all closed off and when we got closer to town we saw that the Turkey Cycling Tour was in town. It was like the Tour De France! So many cyclists but so many more cameras, photographers, TV cameramen, spare bikes. Sheesh, the entourage these guys have.

We waited around for a few minutes as it looked like the race was going to start but despite the man holding the flag up, the photographers were still there snapping away. Goodness knows if those guys ever got to start that race. It was soooo hot as well. It wouldn't have been me!

Eyjafjallajokull speweth still....

So we were supposed to be flying out tonight and we have been told that we are not leaving until at least Thursday. Which is super, I can think of worse places to be stuck. However, because we are "parents" now, it's not that easy. Not only do I miss my wee critters so much, I also know that our catsitter thought she was looking after them for a week, not indefinitely! It wouldn't bother me, I love watching cats, but it's not fair to expect someone to just keep your cats, is it?

However, the sun is shining and we're getting put up for free so it's not all bad. We're going into Antalya tomorrow to buy some knock-off bags (I have my eye on a nice Prada) and Jason wants a T-shirt.

Weather, glorious

You can probably tell from our photographs but our weather has been superb. We have had the very odd hour of cloud and we were told that it rained for about 10 minutes this morning but we missed it. Other than that, it's been easily mid 20s every day. I've worn SPF 30 to start with and have moved down to 25. It's just a perfect temperature.

Jason doing stuff

Jason just can't sit still by the pool. Well he can for an hour or so, but then he gets antsy. Here he is playing bsketball with himself (one of the entertainment team joined him and played shortly after) and playing five-a-sides. There was also a really good gym which we both took advantage of and an indoor swimming pool where I did my lengths every other day.

I've just realised that these totally look like stalking shots. I did have to use the zoom from the balcony.

Being stung, ouch!

On our first trip into Antalya last week, we wandered down a wee cobbled street and saw a Turkish man sitting outside his shop carving some stone with a scalpel, making wee statues of animals and such. Jason's eye was drawn to these wee cats which look like our wee Miho & Benki. Right, our first shot at bartering. We asked him the price and he wanted 10 euro for one. Oh no, no, no, my friend, too much, too much, 2 euro. At which point he scoffed. Several minutes of banter then happen between us. He tells us that he imports the stone from the Anatolian mountains and he carves the animals at his workshop himself. We haggle back and forth and we eventually get him to accept 10 euros for two slightly larger style cats. We think we've done not bad. We walk away glad at our first positive exchange with a Turkish shop owner.

Then we went to Perge the next day and outside Perge, in the car park, lots of traders had their wares on their blankets and what did we see......a veritable ocean of carved stone cats!!!

A bare-face liar! He must have been sitting outside his shop with a fake scalpel and fake stone carving. Ouch, we got stung!

(P.S. They were selling them there 2 for 6 euros so we only lost a couple of quid, but still, our pride was severely dented.)