Day 1, March 10/11

At around 10 o’clock, tensions started to rise. Everyone (and by everyone I mean mom...) was yelling at everyone to clean up and get ready. Some people wanted to relax, some people were bugging others to get packed. At 4 o’clock Mom called an Uber and we got to the airport on time. After going through security/customs, we relaxed in the gate lounge thing from 5:00ish till 7:10, when our flight was called. We got on and found our seats. The trip from Ottawa (or as the airports call it, YOW) to Washington DC took about 1 hour. From there we waited for a while and then got on a 6 and a bit hour flight to London (England, not Ontario). This plane was very Fancy because it had TVs, not 1 but 2 in flight meals, the first being “supper”(around 9/10pm) and the second “breakfast” , at about 5 or 6 am… In the London airport we walked around and looked around at all the expensive stores and finally got some British candy. There wasn’t what we were looking for, stuff from books like Boy Tales of Childhood, by Roald Dahl and old candy like that but we found some decent/interesting candies and scarfed them down. Soon we had to leave to Greece on a small plane. The trip took about an hour. Soon we landed and got a greek sim card for my mom and we went to get a taxi. I fell asleep in the taxi to our airbnb. When we got there I woke up, explored the house and then we went to a close shop and got a quick supper. We explored the square, went on a walk and then fell asleep at our house.

Day 2, March 12, 2019

At about 9:30 everybody but me woke up. I tried to sleep more but eventually I woke up and we went on the Metro to the Agora. We looked around the Agora for a bit and then we went to the Acropolis. We stayed until they kicked us out and then we went to the Areopagus which was pretty much a giant rock. Mom had heard about a fancy restaurant and wanted to go there. After around 1 hour of walking we got there but the place was closed. Hungry and tired we searched for food. After walking past 4 or 5 perfectly normal cafes, we came to a bulgarian restaurant. We ate a feast fit for a king for the low, low price of 50-60 dollars. We walked home, bought popsicles for desert and hung out in the square until bedtime.

Day 3, March 13, 2019

At around 11 everybody woke up and had a quick breakfast. We split up soon after that, with Mom and Hugh going to a folk museum and then to the flea market area. Dad and I went to the museum of archaeology and saw lots of naked statues and cool jewellery/pottery. We then walked to meet Hugh and Mom at the restaurant we visited yesterday. On the way there I saw a cool pocket knife at a camping store and bought it for 14 euro. We ate a large lunch/supper at around 4 and then wandered around the bazaars and stores until we decided to see the Plaka. We stayed there, looking for slippers for Mom. Eventually she found a pair. We visited a cafe and then tested out my new knife on a lemon Dad kindly picked. We then took the metro home and I tested my knife again, this time cutting myself. We hung out and watched Netflix and then went to bed.

Day 4, March 14, 2019

Today was our last full day in Athens. In the morning, Dad, Hugh and I all went to see the Agora for the last time. We got there around 1 and wandered around reading plaques and stuff. From there we walked sort of through/around the acropolis to get to the acropolis museum. We then discovered that we could only go to the top of the hill once before paying again. We decided to keep on walking around the acropolis. We had a bit of time to spare so we took the Metro to find a toy store Dad had heard about. We never found it but we did find a place that sold souvlaki for a good price. We ducked away from the pigeon hordes and made our way to the station. Some protesters walked by us chanting for the bank to allow some form of communism to happen. We took the Metro to the museum where we met Mom who was getting her shoes stretched. The museum ticket only worked the day you bought it (because on day 2 we bought a combo ticket for all of the acropolis related stuff) so we just wandered off to check out Hadrian’s arch, which was closed. Mom went to the Hammam, a kind of steam room, during all this. From Hadrian’s arch we went to the huge park near a government building. We played with the oranges trees and tested my knife again, this time squirting orange juice on all my cuts. Our next destination was the botanical gardens, an even bigger park. We looked around and played in the playground (Hugh’s idea) and then got kicked out by the guards at closing time. We took the Metro home pausing only to look at the parliament buildings and the guards. Mom then dragged us through a 25 minute walk in the rain to a restaurant that didn’t exist. From there we took a cab to a different restaurant. The next restaurant we looked at had had a fire in the kitchen and were open but not making food. They recommended a place across the street that was very nice. They had a large selection of foods and a very friendly waiter who let Hugh help him write down our orders. When we were getting ready to pay he brought out free dessert!!! We enjoyed baklava made with shredded wheat and napkin origami before paying and leaving. We walked the 5 blocks home and went to bed.

Day 5, March 15, 2019

Today was our last day in Athens. We woke up late as usual, we had breakfast and packed up our bags. Dad then went to find our car rental. He couldn’t find the place so he called them and we all walked there. After a long wait, we finally got our small car and packed our stuff into it. We drove to delphi from there stopping for lunch in a small town. We finished the drive and checked into our small airbnb at around 5. Everybody but me went out for supper because I was tired. After everyone came home, we all went to bed.


Days 6, 7 & 8, March 16, 17 & 18, 2019

I haven’t written in 3 days because I was tired and didn't want to… anyway, on the 16th we visited the Oracle and looked at the museum and the nearby town of Arachova. On the 17th we packed up and went to the town of Loutra Edipsou and stayed there 1 night. We visited the hot springs and then got lunch in a nearby cafe. We checked in and got not 1 but 2 rooms in our rental, 1 for the kids and 1 for the adults. From there we went to a spa nearby. We went home and stayed there until supper, I stayed home again because I was tired… again. And then today we took our rental car back and took the subway to the port, got a quick lunch for the ferry and left to Paros. Our ferry was around 4 and a half hours long and the boat was massive. We arrived at around 10 and our kind hosts picked us up. After a brief drive, we got to the Airbnb. We heard some chickens squawking and saw 4 or 5 cats wandering around. After receiving info, and the ominous warning of “there's lots of chickens” we bid our host and her daughter goodbye. As they were leaving the host’s husband brought us around 3 dozen fresh eggs. We bid our hosts farewell, again, watched a bit of soccer and then went to bed.

Day 9, March 19, 2019

Today we woke to the sound of a rooster crowing, like in the movies. We woke, ate around 3 eggs each and then explored the house. We discovered 2 solid marble benches, and that the cats were very friendly. We then discovered that the lots of chickens mentioned by the hosts turned out to be around 20 hens, 10 roosters, 6 or 7 ducks, 4 turkey hens and a huge male, some small caged birds that we don't recognize and 4 bunnies. A lot of animals. We (Dave and Hugh) got into the coop and looked around. Later, we went to a historical site that was pretty much some slabs of marble and granite. We walked home and took a cross-country shortcut. We ended up getting scratched a lot. Mom and Dad went to town to get groceries, lunch and another rental car. We (Dave and Hugh) stayed home and tried to learn Greek on Duolingo. Hugh had the idea of frying half a dozen eggs for the stray cats, and 2 for himself. We hung out until the parents got back. We then went to the coop again. We hung around trying to find eggs until the host’s husband came back and fed the cats, the birds and the guard dog. He gave us 3 more eggs, 15 or so lemons and a huge bucket of oranges. We then quickly squeezed them and got around a liter of juice out of it. We then tried to get into the coop again. After awhile we finally got in. We looked around, planned when we would wake up to collect the eggs. We wanted to wake up early so that the host’s husband didn't get the eggs before us. We then came in for a quick snack of wine, olives and grilled cheese, minus the bread. Hugh started to make supper while Mom FaceTimed grandma Dulmage and everyone else relaxed. We ate a nice supper of meatballs, salad and broccoli. We all hung out a bit and went to bed.

Day 10, March 20, 2019

Today we woke up at around 8:30, as is average now, and all piled into the car to “explore the island”. We drove for a while then reached the small town of Parikia to get gas and pastries. I got a huge croissant, Hugh got a huge chunk of baklava and Mom and Dad got a Bougatsa to split. We drove up to a beach that Mom had looked up. We got there and looked around but decided to get back in the car. We drove to another beach where Hugh skipped rocks and I crammed as many as I could into my pockets. After a bit we drove to the town of Parikia to get lunch, look at historical stuff and look for skordakia, mini firecrackers named after the greek word for a traditional garlic dip. After awhile, we started to get ready to go. Mom went to a mini-market to get water and came out with 2 boxes of skordakia!!! We quickly drove home to test them. We quickly burned through all them and then checked out the chicken coop for eggs, there wasn’t any, and then went back in. We made and ate supper and then hung out for a while. Then we went to bed.

Day 11, March 21, 2019

Today was our last day in Paros. We woke up early in the morning, packed up and then got into our car to go down to the port. Dad dropped of the car while Mom, Hugh and I all looked for a bakery because we came a bit early. We found one near the port, met Dad and got some pastries. Hugh and I both got sausage rolls, a hotdog inside a pastry, Mom and Dad split a cheese pie and a coffee and we all split a huge piece of cake soaked in sugar syrup. We waited for a while until the ferry got there. During the quick ferry, Hugh read and I did homework. We got to Naxos in around an hour and then walked to our Airbnb. We received a nice toast from the host and she explained a few things before leaving. We hung out for a bit, Mom and Dad left to explore the town while Hugh and I took a nap. When they got back, we got dressed and then left to find supper. We were going to look at an unfinished temple during sunset but it was so windy that we couldn’t get there so we watched the sunset and then looked for a restaurant that Mom had heard about. We looked at some store and got some souvenirs before finding that Mom’s restaurant was closed. We backtracked a bit and found a cute restaurant. After a long supper with free desert we walked home and went to bed.

Day 12, March 22, 2019

Today was supposed to be our last day in Naxos. We got dressed, had breakfast and then walked around the main road. We got pastries and looked in a bookstore for books and watched a practice parade for the Greek equivalent of Canada day. Dad went to get ferry tickets from the office and we waited on a bench next to the ocean. Apparently the ferry was cancelled because of the huge waves and the wind. We decided we were going to stay in another airbnb for 2 more nights so we could take a ferry to Athens and then Hios. We waited for the others guests to leave and walked around. I read in a square while everyone else went grocery shopping. When the guests left we went back and stayed there for the rest of the day, watching Netflix and reading. Dad made supper and we ate it on the balcony before going to bed

Day 13, March 23, 2019

After a brief breakfast and some more watching Netflix, we all walked down to a rental car place and rented a car. We drove around some small towns and villages and visited a historical site with 2 unfinished statues in the rock. After exploring the site for awhile, we said goodbye to the cats and then drove to a small town whose name we all forgot to have lunch. After a long and delicious lunch, we drove to a temple of Demeter and checked out a monastery on the way. Dad went the wrong way and so after an adventure to go to the bathroom and turn the car around, we finally found the right road and drove to the temple. It was like most temples and we checked it out briefly before “borrowing” some rosemary from the higher bushes there. We then drove to the town we were staying in and checked out the unfinished temple at sunset. While Mom and Dad checked out the temple, Hugh and I stood on the breakwater and got soaked. After sunset we walked home and bought donuts for dessert. We had leftovers when we got home and Hugh and I had donuts for dessert before trying some homemade rosemary and going to bed.

Day 14, March 24, 2019

Today was the day we took 2 really long ferries. In the morning we packed up and got ready for our first ferry. We dropped off the car and then waited at the port till 9:00, when the boat came. The ferry was 7 and a half hours long and we got off at Piraeus, dropped off our bags in some lockers and then walked to a restaurant in the old port area. After a 30 minute walk, we got there and Hugh and I discovered it was a seafood restaurant, which we don’t really like. After supper we looked for a cafe because we were bored but couldn’t find one we liked so we taxied back to the port and spent a fair amount of time finding the right dock. We found our ferry and checked into our cabin, 2 bunk beds and a small table, and were soon off to Chios. Everyone but Mom explored a bit before going to bed.


Day 15, March 25, 2019
Halfway point =\

We woke up at 3:20 am and got off the boat. I was expecting to land in the town of Chios but we ended up landing in the middle of nowhere. I suggested we call a taxi but Mom said it was too expensive so we got on the tour bus to Chios town, where we went to a 24 hour cafe, where I quickly fell asleep. When I woke up, we searched for a car rental to get to our house, which was in a faraway village, but Dad needed an international driving license so the place that was open wouldn’t let us have a car. We waited on the dock for the other places to open but they all denied our request because the police apparently were doing lots of checks because of the Greece day parades. We then went to the bus station to see when the next bus to our town or near it was. The buses were apparently closed for the national holiday so we waited for one last rental place to give us an answer. Dad and Hugh disappeared and came back with a car. We got in the car and drove to the village for our Airbnb and checked into a small, completely stone, cottage! Hugh and I looked for a bakery to get snacks but only found a cafe. We came back home and all went to the cafe and got coffee and some small deep fried pancakes and then got into the car once more. We drove to a completely stone ghost town, and looked around. After we drove to a nearby town to get a late lunch, with a small bay across the road, a pebbly beach and lots of friendly animals (2 dogs and around a dozen stray cats). After we visited the town’s volcanic beach for a bit and then drove home. We made a fire and hung out until bedtime, where Hugh and I shared a twin bed.

Day 16, March 26

Today was our last day in Greece and we spent most of it in a car. We woke up and left home quickly and visited an old monastery called Nea Moni. From there we went looked for a place to have an early lunch, and spent around 40 more minutes driving and some tight turns when we parked and walked up a steep hill to get to a restaurant mom had heard about. When we got there it was closed, as per usual when mom looks for a restaurant. Dad went and got the car while we waited and pet a fluffy dog that wandered up to us. We drove for a while longer and came to Xioy, pronounced (as you probably know) Hugh. We split up, dad looking for parking and us looking for lunch and souvenirs. We found a cute place and ate well before looking through some souvenir shops for mastic, an evil eye charm for mom’s charm bracelet and worry beads, the Greek equivalent of a fidget spinner. ?After finding 2 out of those things ( beads and mastic) we went to the square and hung out till dad was going to pick us up. We discovered an extremely fat dog and named him Chad and a pen full of peacocks and pigeons. When dad came, we quickly drove to our town and saw if a restaurant mom saw was open, as usual, it was closed. We went to a small restaurant and ate well before going back home and packing up. We hung out a bit and then went to bed.

Day 17, March 27, 2019

Today was the day we left Greece and went to Turkey. We woke up fairly early and drove down to the port. Dad dropped of the car while we waited in line to go through customs. We met dad on the other side and checked onto the boat. There was a short ride in the tiny boat and I did homework most of the time. When we landed in Cezme, we set off to find the bus station, which we eventually found. We bought tickets for the bus and hung out at the cafe and drank Turkish tea until the bus came. Hugh and I updated our trip diaries and eventually played catan on mom’s phone until we got to the bus station in Izmir. We all went to the bathroom, for which we payed 1.50 lira a person, and got into a minibus destined to celçuk. When we got there, we looked for our airbnb and enlisted the help of a few local teenagers to find our hotel. We checked in and got 2 rooms, 1 for the kids and 1 for the adults. We had a good supper at a local restaurant and then went to look for souvenirs and got some Turkish Delight in some nearby stores. We checked out a nice antique store where the owner showed us a lot of expensive stuff and offered us tea, said it was a custom Turkish thing. Hugh and I went home and went to bed while mom and dad looked at the stuff a bit longer and finished their tea. Later the owner showed them some more stuff including some antique daggers before they came home. We then hung out in our rooms til bedtime.

Day 18, March 28, 2019

Today we visited the second biggest archeological site in the world. In the morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. We ate a huge breakfast and then walked to the bus station to get a taxi (confusing, I know) to Ephesus. When we got there, we looked at the market stalls and bought Turkish museum passes for a few hundred lira each. We checked out the site for a long time including some cool houses and even a huge amphitheater where some people sang songs in the center. There were lots of tour buses with people. Some had audio tours, some had tour guides and some just wandered around. We looked at all the stuff til we got to the bottom of the hill, where we met at least a dozen cats and a huge stray dog, which I pet a lot and who tried to follow me through the gates. We got on a quick tour bus to town, where mom and I slept while Hugh and dad went out to look at a museum about Ephesus. They came back, hung out a bit and then looked in a huge mosque and looked at a castle. After a while mom and I met them and we ate at cute restaurant near our house, where there was only half of the roof up so, because it rained, we got a bit wet. We ate a great supper and walked home for bed soon after. We started packing up and then we went to bed.

Day 19, March 29, 2019

Today we went to Hugh and I’s first goodish spa. In the morning we packed up and went down to the train station with our tickets. The train came quickly and we got good seats for the trip. We played cards and read until we landed, or I guess stopped, in Denizli for lunch. We went to a nearby buffet and ate a quick lunch before going down to the bus station to get a minibus to Pamukkale where we were conveniently dropped of next to a free-shuttle-bus-if-you-look-at-our-tours business, run by the same people who ran our bus company and seemed crestfallen when we told him we had already planned our trip completely. We walked to our small hotel and got our quad room. Hugh and I went swimming in the innocent-looking-but-actually-like-a-bajilion-degrees-below-freezing water and, hence the title, froze. We got out and pet the dog walking around the hotel’s courtyard/pool deck. We got dressed again and got a shuttle to the spa, a natural hot pool that looked like it was were you would expect mud and leaf pies to be be made it was so dirty and the other normal Turkish bath stuff, hammam, sauna, steam room massage tables and a huge raised chunk of marble with huge amounts of mysteriously made foam in it. Mom and dad enjoyed their “relaxation” or whatever while the kind driver who brought us there drove us home, as we were getting tired of “relaxing” aka boiling in the mud and chlorophyll soup. Mom and dad got home soon and we ate out at the hotel’s restaurant and then went back to our room to relax and, as I’m currently doing, updating our diaries. Then we’re going to bed in a bit.

Day 20, March 30, 2019

Today in the morning, we got up, got dressed and went to the huge breakfast buffet where I tried unsuccessfully to cram a bunch of wafers and crackers on my plate. We ate a huge breakfast and discovered that the peanut butter and jam were both weird and too sweet for our tastes as well as Hugh should never be left alone in a room with a huge jug of tea, as he drank at least 4 cups of tea, with 2 sugar cubes in each cup. We packed up and went down to the lobby to get a shuttle to the top entrance for the Pamukkale hot springs and, much to dad’s delight, a lot of ruins on top of huge hills which we climbed up to see. We looked at all the ruins, and then got changed into our swimsuits and swam around in the small but warm pool for about 2 and a half hours before getting out and checking out the chalk cliffs. We walked down the huge hill, feeling the pools and playing with the chalk mud. When we got down to the bottom we walked around looking for a restaurant to eat lupper at. We found a small restaurant online and walked there, being offered food at other restaurants, and got a good meal of turkish pizzas and kebab. We got ice cream and then walked home. On the way home, a van shoved a loaf of bread and a desert in our arms and drove off. We got home, I did some homework and we all went to bed.

Day 21, March 31, 2019

In the morning today we woke up, ate breakfast in the buffet, once again and then packed up, said goodbye to the dogs and got a minibus to Denizli where we shopped for a while. Hugh and I bought pillows for the overnight bus trip, Hugh getting the boring Turkish flag pillow and me getting an emoji pillow that definitely represented Turkey better. We looked around some more getting snacks and meeting mom to try and find turkish towels. After trying unsuccessfully to find some, we left and found a restaurant. When we got there, there was only 2 things available, lamb and salad. We decided to eat there, and were surprised at how good it was. We ate quickly and then split up, mom looking for towels and we, everyone else, went to a candy store. I got some chocolate rocks, and dad got a jumbo pack of "delicious" pistachio turkish delight, that ended up tasting like a weird marshmallow. We all walked down to the train station and met in a lounge thing near our bus. We got on the bus a bit later and found really bad quality and off-brand iPads were strapped to the seats in front of us. Hugh and I played Angry Birds, the only game we really knew, and played until the bus stopped in Antalya. We dropped off our bags at the airport and got on the tram to go downtown. We got some corn cooked in a load of butter with chili powder on mine from a small food stand. We walked around some more looking at a "gambling" racket where if you could knock over 2 water bottles in one shot with a soccer ball, you would win 40 lira or about 10$ canadian. We wandered away when the police came to lecture them about how gambling is bad. After a bit we found a fancy fast food restaurant (the exact opposite of what mom said 3 or 4 minutes earlier) and got a pretty standard supper. After supper we got ice cream at a store that only charged about 1$ a scoop with about a dozen different flavours. We made our way back to the station on the tram, and exchanged a wink with one of the guys running the "gambling" thing. We got our bags back at the station and then, with much confusion, we found the right place to wait for the bus. When the bus came we dropped off our bags in the bottom and found more iPads, in Turkish again. Hugh and I played games for a bit before trying to go to bed. Eventually I fell into a light sleep.

Day 22, April 1st, 2019
April fool’s (=

Today we woke up early on the bus in Goreme, and got a ride from our host’s son to our airbnb in the town of Ortahisar. We have 2 bedrooms, Hugh, mom and dad sleeping in one and me in the other (because Hugh always ends up sleeping in the parents room), a living room with a couch made from 2 double beds, put together, a porch on the roof with a huge picnic table and a kitchen with huge windows, a couch wrapping around about half of the wall and a big table, with the couch providing enough seating for around 6 people alone. The only inconvinience was that each room was in a separate building, only being accessable from either the small courtyard underneath the kitchen or the small staircase going up to the top deck. We explored the area and found a tiny vacant lot with some dogs in it. We met the neighbours and discovered that the dogs were theirs. We were still tired from not getting enough sleep on the bus so we stayed at home until around 2 o’clock. We drove in our rental car, so graciously delivered to our doorstep, to an underground city. It was, hence the name, a huge city carved underground. With only a few ventilation shafts and an average ceiling height of around a meter, it was hard to believe people lived there. There were rooms left, right up, down, front, back and center. There were secret passages, stairways to dark rooms full of huge food storage holes, long tunnels that made you walk like a hunch back and a load of holes in the wall you could crawl through to get to more rooms. Eventually we found our way out and got a freshly squeezed cup of pomegranate juice, full of the bitter white parts floating around… we drank it quickly, and then were quickly ushered into a carpet store where the owner showed us at least 4 dozen carpets. We bought 1 brand new one, he gave Hugh and I a free, cheap, polyester and machine made carpet each and accepted around 160 lira for an old, dusty rag of a caret with holes in it, as dad claimed it was “beautiful”... dad might be going just a tiny bit senile. Mom decided she wanted to spend even more money and considered buying a huge, turkish bean bag chair but decided to buy one later, because she was getting “tired of shopping”, whatever that means. We drove to a small town and ate supper in a small but fancy and apparently the “best restaurant in Cappadocia for 3 years”. We ate a huge supper and delicious supper before we all drove home. When we got home we hung out and then went to bed after doing some homework

Day 23, April 2, 2019

Today was a day like any other. We woke up, had breakfast and drove out to an archeological site that consisted of a bunch of churches with tombs (or as Hugh called them, dead person holes) carved into the floor. We got an audio tour and tried unsuccessfully to share it. We saw a nunnery, a monastery and about a half dozen churches before walking down to the parking lot where people were charging money to ride and take pictures on a camel in the middle of Turkey… seems like a good idea to me! We checked out the little bazaar in the parking lot, that included a spot to take a green screen video of you flying a magic carpet through a huge canyon and then drove into the town of goreme to get a lunch of chinese noodles in a place recommended by our neighbours. We then drove to a small viewing platform where we took pictures, looked at another bazaar with a camel station, again, before getting a snack of a spinach (ew) gozleme (a huge and thin pancake with filling) and chai tea. We drove to Avanos from there and looked at some pottery shops and a crazy hair museum where you can donate some of your hair and look at hair clippings glued to the wall. Mom got some tiles and we got some groceries and ice cream. From there we drove home, stopping at a small tourist shop to get me a pencil for homework and a souvenir mug. When we got home, dad made spaghetti and we ate it and went to bed.

Day 24, April 3, 2019

Today was our last day in Cappadocia. Mom and I stayed at home while Hugh and dad went on a walk with the neighbours until about 12:30. When they got back, we had a lunch of leftover noodles and eggs. We ate lunch and then mom and dad argued about where to go for the day. Dad, Hugh and I all wanted to go on a hike through a place near where they walked and mom said she didn’t care and then started to say she wanted to see fairy chimneys and drive in our car because “it was a shame not to use it” eventually mom’s nonchalant desire to go somewhere as long as we had to drive there and had fairy chimneys at the same time won against our arguments and persuasions. We drove out to see some old town with (surprise!) more cave houses and then drove out to a valley with (surprise again!) fairy chimneys and cave houses. We hiked around and then got some freshly squeezed pomegranate juice and got in the car to see some more fairy chimneys and then drove to a small town to see if we could find some supper. We looked around for a place to eat but every place was either closed or was a cafe. We used our handy, dandy, portable computers (phones) and found a place near us that was called “The House of Memories”. We walked in and found that it was a place where you took off your shoes and sat on cushions directly on the ground. We ordered pottery kebab, a pot full of slow cooked beef, as the chef had pre made them for some reason. We also got some salad and a gozleme. We ate for a while and then drove to our friend the carpet salesman’s second store in goreme before driving to his other shop to look at some more carpets. We bought 2 small pillow cases made from carpets (small meaning the size of a normal pillow), a huge pillow case, also made from carpet and almost the size of a beanbag chair, as well as getting 2 free poufes and being offered a free pomegranate pot when we got back to goreme to have tea, but we declined (for some reason I don’t know). We drove home and shot up the little fairy light things, losing them both in the neighbours (the ones with the crazy guard dogs and chickens) yard but getting them back by climbing down the steep hill and getting them. We played with them for a bit before going to bed.


Day 25, April 4, 2019

In the morning today, we all woke and packed up before having breakfast and going on a hike through the valley that dad and Hugh had gone through yesterday. We walked for a while and pet the donkey and 2 horses tethered in the valley and then turned back around and walked home. We finished packing up and Hugh wrote a thank you letter to the neighbours when the taxi came. We got to the bus station 15 minutes or so before the bus left so we got a quick lunch and then got on the bus. We drove all the way to Ankara, entertained by turkish dubbings of the Smurfs and my phone. We got to Ankara and were quickly ushered into a taxi to our hotel. We got there at around supper time and went out to a small chain restaurant that was really good. They brought us a huge amount of appetisers free of charge (included in the meal) and we each got a plate of kebab, except for dad who got a beef cutlet. After supper we looked for ice cream on the way home, stopping only to let Hugh try out a weird arcade boxing machine. We got home and ate some of the complementary deserts before going down to the swimming pool. We swam in the pool, gave each other bubble baths in the hammam and hung out in the steam room. After we got back and changed, we went to bed.

Day 26, April 5, 2019

In the morning today we woke up, got dressed and then walked to a breakfast restaurant that had been recommended to us by the place we got supper at yesterday. We got there and had a breakfast of gozlemes and omelette-and-tomato-soup, an omelette soaked in tomato sauce, and a boraki, a cheese and pastry cigar. We ate our food and then split up, dad seeing the ataturk museum and everyone else going to the spa/pool again. We swam, gave each other bubble baths and dived for loose tiles in the pool until around 11:30, when we went up to our room changed and got packed up. We dumped a few extra clothes at the reception and then took the metro to the bus station. We went to get our tickets to istanbul but they were sold out until around 3 o’clock departure time. We got tickets with a different company that left at around 2:45. We got lunch in a small cafe/restaurant and then got ready to board. We got to the right terminal and waited for a bit before it got there and we got on. We spent 6 hours or so on the bus before arriving in istanbul at around 9:30. We got an extremely healthy supper of a bag of chips each and the last hotdog for Hugh, as he ordered first and there was nothing else. We got an uber in a mini limousine to our airbnb, checked in and went to bed.

Day 27, April 6, 2019

In the morning today, we woke up fairly early, had breakfast and hung out and then walked over to the tram station, buying candy at a small store along the way. We looked at a few stores on the main street in our neighbourhood and then got a card for the train and went to the blue mosque. We looked around at the previously royal mosque and then looked through the bazaar next door to it. We ate in a small restaurant/cafe and then bought a few things such as towels and evil eyes. Then we found the entrance to a small mosaic museum and looked around. The exit put us back in the bazaar and we walked from there to the hagia sophia, a huge old church turned into the first mosque of that design by muslims. We decided not go there though because of the huge line. We took the tram to the Grand Bazaar and looked around for about an hour and a half before we took the tram again and went to a hammam that mom had heard of and was extremely old. We hung out in the hammam room while mom got a massage. After mom’s vigorous massage and our bath, we got changed and looked for a restaurant to eat supper at. We settled for a place in the same little shopping area where we got the candy. We ate supper and talked about istanbul until fairly late. Then we walked home and watched some Netflix before falling asleep.

Day 28. April 7, 2019

In the morning today, we hung out and ate breakfast for a bit and then walked over to the main street to find our way to the hagia sophia. We got on the tram to the site and learnt that you could skip the line if you had a museum pass, which we did, and then looked around for a while, stopping every 10 meters to listen to the audio guide mom had bought. We made our way around, Hugh and I interested in the stray cat hanging out there and mom and dad dragging us around to look at the stuff. We let dad look around for a bit longer while we went to a small cafe and got some almond cookies, tea and sherbet, a kind of mulled tea. We met dad in the bazaar from yesterday and looked around, got some more stuff, looked at the 3 columns from the center of the old hippodrome and finally took the tram over to another column. We looked at prices for a nearby hammam and then figured out where to go, got pomegranate juice and pet the weird dog with 2 different colours of eyes. We decided to go home, get a whole roasted chicken and some bread to go for supper and made some salad and vegetables. We ate supper and Facetimed Adrian and Mason and then went to bed.

Day 29, April 8, 2019

Today we woke up and ate before petting the newborn kittens that live outside of our apartment. We walked from our house to the tram station and took a tram down to the port. We walked to the port from there and after a bit of confusion, we got on a small ferry heading towards the Prince’s islands, and looked for dolphins on the way. We got there and ate lunch in a small restaurant and ate a lunch of mostly fish. We walked around for a bit and then found a bike rental place, rented bikes and then biked around the island, pulling aside for horse carriages and the very few cars. We made our way all the way around, waiting for mom and dad to catch their breath and take pictures often. We came back to the rental shop after about an hour and then found a cafe to have a very fancy ice cream and a dessert platter for mom and dad to share. We got on the fairy toward home and then when we got there we found our way home and had supper, mom going to a hammam as planned. Dad went out for drinks with mom and we fell asleep at home.

Day 30, April 9,
Last day

Today was, to my relief, our last day of traveling. We did our normal morning ritual - get up then dressed then eat food and then pet kittens - before setting out to find some antique stores. We found a street full of them and saw some cool things like huge, decorated swords and 1980’s tech like the PS1 and a video recorder the size and weight of about 2 bricks. We finally found a store with a door knocker for dad and then walked through a maze of streets to a restaurant called Patatos that served, you guessed it, potatoes. Hugh and I had a snack of a baked potato stuffed with hotdog pieces, cheese and butter plus a few different things each. Then we met mom and took a very crowded and deep underground metro to near the Grand Bazaar and an old church. Mom, Hugh and I all went to the Grand Bazaar briefly and then went scarf shopping. We bought a few scarfs and then I got a suspiciously cheap watch because it was fancy and I wanted to. We had a quick snack in a small cafe and then met dad, looked for a better Ataturk t-shirt for him and then went to a nearby hammam. I hung outside because I didn’t want to do the hammam and looked at memes on dad’s phone. From there I heard how it was a bad hammam because they didn’t let mom sit in the steam room part for long enough before her massage. Apparently dad also gave 40 lira (10 cad) as a tip, as persuaded by the manager, and then we took the tram toward a restaurant. In a small underground market thing between the tram stop and the tunnel (an underground train going up the hill) mom got the cheapest phone case in existence because it looked like good quality from a distance. From there we walked to a desert store that looked like a restaurant and then its clone, which was a real restaurant, and had supper. We ate quickly and then walked home. On the way we looked for toothpicks with evil eyes on them for mom and a place for Hugh to “relieve his bowels”, and then got home, finding neither but getting a few breakfast items. We packed up and made a plan which brings us to now, where I am writing my diary and not knowing what the future holds.
Update: I wrote my diary, said goodbye to the cats and then went to bed.

Day 31, April 10, 2019

Today we woke up at around 3:30 am and went to the airport by uber. Their will be more information about the planes and stuff on mom’s diary but basically, through a lot of confusion, we got through security and customs and etc. before getting on the plane. We all slept for most of the flight, and then landed in Frankfurt, Germany, where frankfurters come from and got to our connecting flight after security and stuff. We landed in the London Heathrow airport and did security again and them waited for a bit. We got to our plane after a lot of confusion and then got on the 6 and a bit hours flight. I watched 3 movies on the tvs, Hotel Transylvania 3, Spiderman into the Spiderverse and Deadpool 2. We landed in ottawa at around 3:30 and even got to sit in the cockpit for a bit at the end! We got our bags, went through security for the fiftieth time and then got an Uber home. Sarah met us as well as Grandma and Grandpa Dulmage. We talked and gave out some of our gifts and then went to Mason’s house and then supper at a Phuket Royale, a thai place near us. We ate food and then got home and went to bed. I stayed up until 8:30 so I could say I stayed up 24 hours, because it was around 3:30 in Istanbul.