Travel Journal, Part IX

The three of us woke up sporadically between four and six in the afternoon, and promptly reached the consensus that we were really freaking hungry.

We ordered from a Turkish restaurant that Carl and Dre had been hearing about, called Neli. I ordered Beef Thai Noodles, and then crawled back into bed to await my spicy, beefy goodness.

So I waited. And waited. And then, after about an hour, I got up to see if I'd slept through the delivery. I hadn't, they were apparently just really, really late. About twenty minutes later, the food finally did arrive and we sat down to dine on… well, we're actually still working out what it was we dined on.

My "beef thai noodles" consisted of chicken, a pepper or two, and some noodles that I'm positive were slathered in mayonnaise. Andrea had ordered chicken parmesan,which (while at least containing the meat she ordered) consisted of an very undercooked chicken breast with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on top, and some horribly overcooked rice and vegetables. She also ordered a chocolate brownie for desert, but somehow this restaurant made even chocolate taste bad, and the menu hadn't mentioned that they would stick a few kiwis inside the brownie. Carl's ravioli was at least more or less what ravioli is supposed to be, but the sauce was subpar and his cheesecake suffered from a slight case of nonexistence.

At the insistence of Dre and Carl, I ordered the chicken pudding for my dessert. Eating this was… an experience. It had the texture of paste, but with a slight taste of chicken and a lot of sugar. Andrea's brownie, for some reason, had kiwis hidden inside of it, which completely ruined the already mediocre chocolate flavor. All in all, it was a meal that made me nostalgic for the halcyon days of Robert Childs.

I choked it down anyway, though, because I hadn't eaten for sixteen hours.

The rest of the day was spent on a Dr Who marathon. It was the first season, which I prefer (you never forget your first Doctor) but for some reason the marathon ended after the first episode of the two-part season finale. Dre and I watched The Happy Hooker goes to Washington, and then went to bed.

I had worried that sleeping from nine to four in the afternoon would make it hard to fall asleep, but I dozed straight through until noon, woke up, and went shopping for dinner. While at the mall, we stopped in the pet shop, and found a kitten so cute that Andrea nearly broke down and cried. Unfortunately, we couldn't leave a brand new baby animal home alone all week while we go to Cappadocia.

So the Cappadocia trip was called off on account of kitten. I was looking forward to the cave hotels and a hot air balloon ride, but I have to admit that she is an awfully cute kitten.

There's still another week before my flight home, so I'll definitely squeeze a little more fun out of this trip, but at this point we're winding down. Bodrum wore me out and I have a bit of a head cold besides, so I'm going to spend a day or two resting. I'll probably hit the market one more time, see some museums, and perhaps take another walk out by the castle.

I'm rapidly approaching 100 blog posts, so if I can work this just right, my 100th post will be the conclusion/epilogue to this little sojourn. After I take a little 48 hour nap.