On one of our many trips walking around Bodrum, we walked into a car rental place to see if we could rent a car to Istanbul. This ended up being quite an adventure because none of the the guys knew more than 10 words in English and there were 4 guys in the office. We used Google translator to talk to each other and one of the guys had a notebook with all kinds of handwritten English phrases translated into Turkish, which we tried using as well. We eventually communicated what we wanted and unfortunately they couldn't rent a car to Istanbul but they offered us some fish for dinner. We could smell and hear it frying in the back room. They also told us about the upcoming Muslin holiday, Bayram. This was the first time we heard about it but it explained why some people were walking around with sheep in the streets. We have a post coming up with more info on this Muslim holiday. We also stumbled across an old cemetery which was very fun to explore, all the tombstones had Arabic inscriptions. We found out later that some pretty important people are buried here.
While visiting the market we started browsing through a ton of different spices and loose teas that a gentleman was selling. There were piles of everything you can imagine. The owner approached us and asked what our physical ailments/symptoms were so he could recommend something for us. Every single tea was a remedy for something. We asked him for something that was relaxing and he recommended 'Melisa Tea' which we ended up buying (tastes like a mix of chamomile and mint tea). He also made us try some 'Super chicken mix' which is a spice that they use on almost every dish in Turkey, it smelled and tasted great so we ended up buying some of that too (it's come in pretty handy so far with our morning eggs). The last thing we purchased was some eucalyptus oil, which Julia is very fond of. We had a great time bargaining with him and felt like we got a pretty good deal. And as always we picked up some more mandarins.
I celebrated my 25th birthday here in Bodrum and I treated myself to a little souvenir: a sailor hat. Which I wore that whole day. We went out to a little cafe right on the beach and had some coffee and apple tea. The tablecloth on the table had a nautical theme so I fit right in with my hat. We had a great time, with the water just a couple feet away from us, the Bodrum castle in view over the water and I had the best person in the world sitting across from me... a great birthday indeed.
-Yuriy
