A Very Different Christmas
Fez “Festive Turkey” Tour
To be truthful, I had no idea about how we would spend Christmas but I thought we’d have a festive meal somewhere on Christmas Day. Why was it even called the Festive Turkey tour?
I woke early on Christmas Day but only the fact that Amanda, my roommate, has a red reindeer jumper on, you wouldn’t know. We have to wake up early every day on this bus tour of Turkey. We “merry Christmassed” each other and went to breakfast.
It’s Christmas and we are heading to Troy, not Santa’s Grotto. Visiting Troy was pretty amazing though, apart from the fake wooden horse which was fun but not terribly educational. I learned that Troy was rebuilt 9 times — the previous settlement was razed to the ground by earthquake or war — but the one we are familiar with was the 6th Troy. It was only when they lost their harbour because the river had completely silted up that it was never rebuilt. It is now sitting quite a way inland — you can see the sea in the distance. You could see the different levels of Troy because of the way the walls were built and the type of material used. Archaeology is fascinating!
Then on to the ruins of Pergamon which was once a busy port but is now landlocked too. The ruined buildings were amazing and the views spectacular. Pergamon once had the second biggest library in the world after Alexandria and was where parchment was first used for books. In Alexandria, they used papyrus. I love learning stuff like this — one of the reasons I love to travel, I reckon.
If I was expecting a Christmas dinner when we reached out hotel in Capadoccia, I was mistaken. It was a buffet-style meal as usual; fried chicken and rice and calamari. Yes, I know, not very Christmassy at all. I piled my plate high as all I had eaten since breakfast was a hot chocolate at Troy (still the best hot chocolate I’ve had anywhere in the world — it was like drinking melted chocolate — yum — and a freshly squeezed pomegranate juice at Pergamon which was bloody delicious too. The first time I’d ever tasted it fresh. It’s so much tastier than commercially produced juice.
The calamari turned out to be onion rings which I think I might love even more than calamari so I had a second helping. As if that wasn’t enough, I went back for dessert — creamed rice, chocolate mousse, rice pudding and I think some more halva. I had eaten some at breakfast and loved it. I’m not sure what it’s made of. The rice pudding was just like my Grandma used to make — gees, I wish she’d shared her recipe — so I ate far more than I should. What the hell? I justified my gluttony by telling myself it was Christmas Day. It’s traditional in my family in Australia to eat ( and drink) as much as is humanly possible and then pass out by the pool.
I had bought a Christmas dress at one of our rest stops to wear to the planned Christmas party, but after the huge buffet dinner, everyone except Ashika and Vikash (and me) went to bed. What a party! I shouted myself a Christmas present of a glass of Baileys which cost almost as much as my Christmas dress and sat sipping it and chatting with them until late. I really wanted another Baileys but that would be throwing caution (and money) to the wind.
It was the first time on the tour that I had relaxed and chatted with anyone else. There were Australians on the bus but I didn’t click with them — some were even Queenslanders and I felt ashamed I was a Queenslander too — but this lovely couple were of Indian heritage but were South African by birth and loved to travel. I made that Baileys last.
The next morning I woke up in Capadoccia and that was present enough for me. The planned hot air balloon flight didn’t eventuate because of the weather although it was a beautiful clear sunny day and I couldn’t understand why. Not a single balloon went up that day, so they must know more than I do about their local weather. I know nothing about the weather anywhere else other than my hometown and even then I sometimes get it wrong.
So my Festive Turkey Tour turned out to be a Not-So-Festive Tour but you don’t go to a Muslim country expecting Christmas, do you?
I thought I’d leave you with a professional photograph.
If you like what I write, and would like to read to your heart’s content, please consider joining Medium through this link. Thanks. 😆