10/16/13-10/23/13
It is nice to travel the entire country and visit multiple beautiful places, but it is also lovely to station yourself in one city. After traveling 5 hours in a bus to the next city, we finally made it to Antalya where we will be for the next week. Driving along the coast of Turkey was amazing. There were large pirate ships drifting in the sea and people parasailing along the beach. This place reminds me of home, but the beaches and sea water are different. The mountains give the tropical city a different feeling as well. Margate feels like a long tropical place too but there are giant, rundown casinos at the end. Here in Antalya are palm trees, motorbikes, bright sun, clear water, beach clubs, and many water sports. This feels like a vacation city more than the Jersey shore.
Throughout the week I relaxed on the beach, soaked up the sun, and bought many gifts for my family. The hotel offered a beach club that was rundown but still accessible. I laid on the lounge chair for hours and read a book. I brought a book called The Sky is Everywhere from USA and I finished reading it on the beach. I’ve learned to love reading while I am on exchange. There are so many books to read and such little time in life to finish them all. This exchange year is a perfect time to sit down with a few hundred books and read.
At the Bizarre, the men would taunt Sunny and I until we went into their shops. I should better describe them as rats hunting for their next meal. The men would coax us inside and surround us until we made an offer on their items. Sometimes we had a hard time walking out of the shops, but we were not willing to buy things at high prices. It was a “cat and rat” game for us. We would haggle back and forth until we agreed on low prices. Sometimes we couldn’t agree on a price; like for my 360 degree, hardcover suitcase which led me to walking out of one store and finding another store that was willing to dwindle the price down to nothing. I ended up buying a $150 suitcase for $30. If the hagglers were tough like Sunny, Andzrej, or Ania then items came to be dirt cheap. But if you were weak and sensitive like me, well then you needed to stick with one of the big dogs.
Instead of perusing the Bizarre all seven days, we walked to the local mall that was about ten blocks from our hotel. We perused the stores and kept track of all the upcoming sales. Turkey, around the time, is the last week of tourism. We went to the stores on a certain day because all the prices are dirt cheap and the sales people want to sell all their merchandise. The only prices that didn’t drop from tourism was the cost for Milka chocolate bars. Milka is a Swiss brand of chocolate that is sold throughout Europe. Everyone in Poland, on exchange or not, loves Milka. There are other brands in other countries like E. Wedel, the Polish brand, but everyone prefers the Swiss chocolate. In Poland it is cheaper for one Milka chocolate bar then it is in Turkey. Sunny and I found the new Milka flavor which is a layer of white chocolate and Oreos in between the milk chocolate. Everyone is dying to find the new flavor in Poland, but they haven’t released it in all the stores. In Turkey though, we found it right away except too bad the price is much higher. When it comes to shopping I learned, “you buy some things, and you walk away from some things.”
When I walked down the street during the week, in my American Flag shorts, men would stare and whistle at me. They loved that I was American because not many Americans visit Turkey. The tourists are mainly Russian, Polish, Arabic, and English. Men would honk on their scooters and boys would whistle from patio decks. When I was walking through one shop looking at scarves with Sunny, a young guy about my age grabbed my chin and blew a kiss in the air. When I was walking down the street later with Sunny, a boy sitting outside a restaurant winked at me then said hello. When I said hello back he sat up straight and asked me where I was from. I told him America and then he started singing “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus to me. It made me feel really good about myself. Even though I am gaining major weight from exchange by eating Milka chocolate bars and no guys flirt with me in Poland, the guys in Turkey are showing me major attention. Maybe Turkey is the country I should have gone on exchange to because I would have had a much sexier time. But I know Poland is where I am meant to be this year.
The city is great, the men are hot, and the weather is wonderful…the only thing that ruined my stay in Antalya was the hotel. The rating for the Millennium Hotel was three stars but it should honestly be one star. First, the food is gross. I ate rubber meat and stale bread for one week. Second, the restaurant is infested. There were cats entering the hotel and sitting under the tables just waiting to be fed. When the waiters were chasing one cat around our table in order to get it out of the hotel, they scared the cat into clawing at Andzrej’s upper thigh. Andzrej screamed with pain and told the waiters that this is a restaurant for people, not cats. Third, the hotel rooms are dirty. Our floor in our room was so dirty that when I walked across the floor after a shower, my feet turned black. In the showers, the drain was clogged with hair from the previous person. The water did not drain because all the hair and dirt was blocking the way. The spout only shot water from certain holes because the rest had mildew blocking them. I felt even dirtier once I stepped out of the shower. From now on, I will only stay at four or five star hotels because three stars obviously mean they are gross.
After all this shopping and relaxing I couldn’t wait to go back to Poland. I can’t wait to get back to my normal routine of going to school, learning Polish, eating sandwiches, and showering in a clean bathroom. It is sweet to have vacationed for two weeks in a great county but Poland is waiting for me. But going to Turkey has been an amazing opportunity. I have never dreamed of going to Turkey in my entire life, but Sunny’s host parents made it happen for me. I have seen another beautiful country in this big world. Another thing to mark off my exchange student Things-To-Do List.
Stephanie Raquel
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