Mar 08: Bob and I drove down to Yumurtalik. I wanted to get some sun while looking for sea glass. We went a very indirect route through some hills and looked for the area I went bike riding in last year. I wanted to find a large field of mustard flowers I saw before. We finally found the field, but now it was planged with winter wheat. The scenery was still beautiful and we enjoyed the hunt. We also enjoyed seeing a large flock of crested cranes that must have migrated north from Africa. And, we found lots of sea glass on the beach in Turkey. More than most people would find in a lifetime on the beaches back in Florida. The trash we see in many parts of Turkey actually becomes something beautiful in this case. I plan to post some video on YouTube of a male turkey calling to his mates (yes I mean 'turkey' and not 'Turk' in this case). I would have done it sooner but Turkey blocked YouTube for a while become some Greek used YouTube to insult Ataturk and that's against the law here. But I recently checked and can access YouTube again!

Apr 08: Bob and I made another trip to Yumurtalik and took along our friend Bart. We decided to go through the hills again to let Bart check out the scenery. Remember that mustard field I was looking for--well it moved and we found it. The flowers were beautiful everywhere we went. We saw lots of yellow flowers sprinkled with red poppies along the roadsides. Everytime we passed a citrus orchard, the sweet aroma of the blossoms was in the air. We made our way to the beach and had fun collecting sea glass again. This time, there was a group of young men camping on the beach that insisted on helping us--they couldn't speak any English and probably thought we were crazy but they understood we were looking for 'eski bardak' or 'old glass'. On our return home, we passed a field of artichokes. Living in Florida, and now Turkey, it's been years since we have had good artichokes like the ones in California. There was a watering truck nearby with a couple of men, so I asked Bob to turn back to see if we could buy some artichokes. He said it didn't look like they were there to sell the artichokes, but I reminded him that we were in Turkey. I said "Just pull up and I'll take some photos, they'll come and talk to us and then we can work things out". Sure enough, one of the men took the bait. He came up and insisted on talking to us in rapid-fire Turkish, like we were going to understand. At first, he seemed to think we were just there to admire his beautiful crop. But his face really lit up when he finally understood I was asking him 'how much lyra'? The artichokes weren't cheap at 2 YTL each, but we'd pay more than that in the US. Not only that, but he insisted on selling us no less than 20 YTL worth. We came to agreement and followed him out in the field where he wanted us to take a photo every time he cut an artichoke bud off the plant. When we finally broke away to our car, he brought us a 'gift' of a few more artichokes that would be over-ripe soon. Then he used sign language to ask us for American cigarettes, which we didn't have. Next he pointed at our empty soda cans in the cup holder of our car, so Bob hopped back out and got him our last soda out of the ice chest, and the artichoke man seemed happy. Another day, another adventure!