Bloody Tourists!!!

Well hello there readers! And welcome to the update you have been waiting for! I have returned from my holiday, and am now ready to blog!

... However, before the fun and games that follow, I suppose I had better recap the week before I went.

Rather than spend ages doing a day-by-day account I will sum the week up like this:

It was spent shopping for Holiday clothes, sorting my money out, and we had a barbeque at Carl/Marcus’ house...

... Right, that sorts out that week now on to Friday 17th...

I spent the day finishing off packing my case, and relaxing. At 6:00pm on the dot, Kate, driven by her mum, turned up at my house ready to go to the airport. I loaded by case, said "ta-ta" to my mum and off we went. The journey was only about 20 minutes, and we discovered upon arrival that we were the first ones there. Carl and Marcus arrived soon after, then Adam, and finally Jenny, who had a bit of a fracas on the Coventry road. So we checked in, and waited for our flight... and waited... and waited... There was a slight delay with the aircraft but when it landed we expected to be on and up in no time at all...

... No such luck... We got on half an hour after we should have taken off and then sat on the ground for another 45 minutes (with no air-con) until the pilot got clearance to take off.

4 annoying hours later (what with the heat on the aircraft, and a cabin crew who couldn't give a shit) we landed at Bodrum airport, got our bags, and got on the coach to the hotel. Although it was 5:00am it was 29 degrees and sweltering hot. We got to our hotel for 5:40am, checked in, and got some shut-eye.

We awoke early on Saturday morning to go to the market in Turgtreis. You could buy anything there… DVD’s, toys, clothes, fruit and veg’… Everything! Afterwards we went for a walk by the seafront… Actually Kate has a rather strange photo of me on that occasion… I will post it when I get a copy of her photos.

We eventually got back to the hotel and relaxed a bit before wandering up the town for our evening meal. We ate in a place called Alin’s. It does good food and it’s quite cheap, so everyone’s a winner! Then it was back to the hotel for a quick beer and bed… but not before I bought the air conditioning for the room (yes, you have to pay for it! And it’s virtually a necessity in that sort of heat)

On the Sunday we got up, went for a swim, and went to Bodrum Castle. We spent a good few hours wandering round, taking photo’s (again, Kate has the majority) and looking at all the different towers and the displays inside them. Now comes the point where we left the castle, and it’s a story in it’s self… Ready?...

… Ok, we were all knackered by the time we reached the dungeons, so we decided it would be the last thing we looked at. The girls made a head start back towards the entrance a good few minutes before me, Ad, Carl, and Marcus and they said (apparently) that they would meet us back at the entrance… No problems there… So after we had finished looking round we set off after them after no more than 5 minutes… When we reached the entrance/exit there was no sign of them so we reckoned that they had gone to look round the shops, so we walked back to the Hotel. After an hour there was still no sign of Kate or Jenny, (and Kate had our room key!) When they did show up they were less than pleased (actually, “livid” is more the word) that we hadn’t waited for them… And that, apparently, they had been waiting by the entrance for us for well over an hour… interesting. So how was it that we hadn’t seen them?

Answer: Because we had beaten them to the entrance! They had stopped somewhere in the castle grounds for a cigarette, and we had taken an alternative route out. So even before we made it to the main gates we were already ahead of them. They then finished their cancer-sticks and then waited by the entrance for us, who had already left….

Talk about getting your wires crossed! Anyway they eventually forgave us (even though it wasn’t necessarily our fault!) and things returned to normal…

Phew!

That evening we ate in a restaurant called Munchies… or rather it was called Munchies when Kate and Jenny were there 3 years ago, it had since had a name change and was now called “Breeze” The guy who owned it, Nihart, was a nice bloke who gave us free drinks! (mainly because he remembered the girls from 3 years a go… which was nice!) Whilst there, Me and Kate posed for a photo...

Ok, on to Monday. We got up and went to the Water park! It was a 10 minute bus journey, and well worth the money. The first ride we went on was a 4 seat dingy that travels down a huge tube slide… We queued up for a good half an hour, though. We then went on some littler slides, one of which was actually quite dangerous! There was this white slide that dropped quite steeply. The thing was though, that you were travelling so fast down it, that when the slide drops away, you are left in mid air for a second or two, in a sort of free-fall! I thought I was going to die, and naturally, started screaming like a girl! Fortunately, however my arse reconnected with the slide, just in time to make one hell of a splash at the bottom! We did this a number of times, trying different slides, and racing each other to the bottom. After all was said and done we met back up with Kate and Jenny, who had decided that they would go for a swim, ready to get changed to go back to the hotel to get re-changed and go and get something to eat… So we did.

We ate at Alin’s again, just because we liked it! We also went to book the Jeep safari and the boat trip, since it was the 2 things people most wanted to do. It was decided that during the jeep safari, everyone would take turns driving since that was how they had done it 3 years ago when Jen and Kate went… But then the guy asked to see driving licences, and only I had mine with me…
… That would be me voted “designated driver” then!

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and had a drink. Me, Kate and Adam sat up in the bar until about 2:00am chatting before turning in for the evening. The air con’ had kept the room nice and cool, and I actually had to turn the temperature UP slightly to keep it from being a bit to parky’!

Ok, Tuesday, and we had to be up early because of the Jeep safari… Now I use the word “Safari” quite loosely… The only animals we saw were chickens, turtles, donkeys, and a camel. But, anyway…

… We were dropped off at a meeting point and told to wait for the others. After a few minutes people started turning up. Some got in to a lead vehicle, and I was shown my jeep (a Suzuki Samurai!) it was the most unresponsive vehicle in existence, but it was good fun to drive. The others got mounted up in the back, with Adam riding Shotgun… We set off along the mountain roads ready to explore all the little places we would otherwise never find. Now after we had made a stop in a tiny village, and looked at the local mosque, we headed off down a particularly nasty gravel track…

… Which is a story in its’ self… Ready?

… Ok, imagine the scene: a fairly steep gravel track, with a rock-face at the end and a sharp right-hand hairpin bend. Now as I came down it, I applied the brakes and…

… Nothing.

… The wheels had stopped turning but they were just sliding over the loose gravel, so I began to turn early, but that just made the back-end slide out slightly… So I was drifting a 2 ton 4x4 with an open top, straight towards a jagged rock-face. My first thought was “I’ve fucked this right up!” luckily, however, I kicked the accelerator, there was a loud scraping noise, and the whole thing managed to whip round the bend with the tyres just gaining enough grip…

… Hairy stuff!

… Anyway, we stopped at Turtle lake, and then a house owned by 2 old people who keep chickens and grow chillies. We then set off for lunch at a forest café that had hammocks! (and a swing!)

… I fell out of mine…

Oh... I mentioned there was a swing...

I got a photo of our Jeep when we stopped...

And was filmed driving it, by Adam, and then Marcus...






After lunch we stopped off at the beach for an hour. Carl and Marcus went for a swim, but I just stood on the seafront skimming stones across the water, trying not to hit any of the swimmers...

Talking of swimmers... carl tried something interesting...



It was then back in the jeep to meet up with a second driver who dropped us off at a Turkish bath…
… I had better explain. When we booked the jeep safari, we got with it a free session at a Turkish bath… We thought “what the hell” and went for it!

So we went in, got changed and were lead in to the sauna… It wasn’t piping hot, but it was humid! It was also lovely and echoey in there… So much so that you couldn’t speak without having your voice distorted. After some bloke had thrown water over us we had to lie down on a big stone slab for about 10 minutes… It was at this point I thought “this room would be brilliant for monk-like chanting… but I don’t know any- wait a minute!!!!” and so it began with me starting to chant:

“Ahh-ah-ahhh. Ah-ahh-ahh-ahhhhh” or, put properly:

So that started a small chuckle from Ad’ and Carl. Anyway, afterwards we were given a scrub down… Marcus was first and as he was lead away, he looked like a lost schoolboy being lead off by an angry parent… it was hilarious. He had a scrub down and was then given a soap bath… All was going well until the guy doing it, rolled him on to his stomach and started slapping his arse! Well we were in absolute hysterics! I was crying with laughter so hard I had trouble breathing! We all had a turn, though the guy didn’t slap the girls as he did with us…

… Actually, thinking about it, he gave me a few extra slaps…

… know what I mean!?

Ahem.. Well we were then taken outside and was told that massages aren’t included in the free sessions. So we paid for a massage each. I went in still laughing at the whole slapping thing, and this was made worse by the fact that the guy started massaging my feet first…

… Now anyone who knows me will tell you that I am quite ticklish so I was fighting the urge to kick out against the poor sod, who, at the end of the day, was just doing his job…

… No matter how gay it is!

Anyway, after our massages, we got changed and were dropped off back at the hotel. We had a drink, got changed and went up town to eat.

Afterwards it was back to the hotel for another quick drink before bed.

We got up Wednesday for a dip in the pool before going to Gumbet. It is just up the road and so we went for a walk around. We ate at a local restaurant and then went to the beach. We all ended up in the sea, since we had the fore-sight to pack swimming attire, and I swam right out with Kate behind me to see some of the corals and the fish that were around. I then decided to swim at full-pelt back in to shore, which I did, claiming that it was my exercise for the day, and that because of it, I could pig-out on pizzas and things without gaining any weight!

In the afternoon we went back to the hotel and in to town for our evening meal and a beer at “Rock City” a rock club that is actually outdoors.. But you wouldn’t know it unless you looked up! Actually, it was very good. When we got there the music was a bit “hey-nonny-nonny” as Adam would put it, but after a while we had everything from Alice Cooper, to Dire Straits. We ended up a bit merry, but had to go back because of being up quite early the next day…


Ok… On to Thursday (I’ve been typing for well over an hour and a half, now…) We went down to the harbour for 11:00am because we were going on our boat trip! We had packed clothes and swimming gear and were all ready. We had a really nice boat, and even better weather… So off we went. We stopped at a couple of coves first…I decided to gracefully dive in to the sea on the second stop…

… But I didn’t... Although I did end up in the water…

… You can see where this is going, can’t you?

… I got my swimming shorts on, climbed on to the side of the boat, said something to Marcus who was already in, and attempted to dive off…

… unfortunately, I snagged a piece of upright pole that runs along the length of the boat and I ended up hopping on one leg, trying to dislodge it from the leg of my shorts… When I got it loose I lost my footing and plunged, upside down and head first in to the water…

… Everyone thought it was extremely funny… Everyone except me who swallowed a couple of pints of seawater in the process!

After a swim we got out and went to another cove, this time with a natural spring. It was 3 lira to swim there, so I gave it a miss, but Carl and Jenny took a dip.

We then stopped a couple more times before heading back to land. We walked back to the hotel (after I went back on board to get my sandals!) to get showered and changed ready for our evening meal up the town.

We came back for our last night in Turkey. The room cleaners had turned our air con’ off so the room was boiling! My bed was under the air con’ unit so I turned it on and got in to bed. Kate, however wasn’t quite as comfortable, so living up to my reputation of being “too nice” I offered to swap beds with her so she could lie under the air conditioning.

… Ain’t I sweet?

Well we got up Friday, packed up, got everything ready and waited for the coach to come and take us to the airport. It arrived on time and in no time at all we were there at the airport, stood in a big long line waiting to go through security…

… That is until Marcus noticed them open another desk, so we rushed round and got in a much, much smaller queue. After checking in we had time, and money to spare. Since I didn’t want to have to change money when I got back I decided to buy something…



… Ok, long story short, I bought a drum.

I had 60 Lira left (about £25.00) and this rather nice looking figure of a cobra, was exactly that, 60 Lira… But its’ fangs were broken and I didn’t want one that looked like it had been in a fight. The only other things of any interest were djembi drums. The problem was that they were marked up at 70 Lira… I didn’t want to borrow money off the rest of the gang because they were trying to spend it as well… But then I thought “Hey! This is Turkey!” so I bartered for it! I got them down to 60Lira and bought the drum! It’s a success story…

… Honest!

My Drum!

Well we boarded the (newer) plane back home and 4 hours later we touched down at Birmingham airport… We were home. Collecting our bags took a little longer than I would have liked, but soon we were waiting in the car park for kate’s mum, the wonderful lady that she is, to pick us up and drop me home.

So that’s about it really, readers… I’m going to have to stop there because I’ve been typing for a couple of hours now and I need a break! I will post some more photo's next week if I have Kate's (hers' are really good!)

TTFN!

One week to go. One week to go....

Hello readers. Welcome once again to my little blog.

As you know (or you will do if you had read my previous post) this will be my last blog before going to Turkey next week. This means that there will be no update until 26th of August…

If, for some daft reason you are addicted to reading my blog, lap it up now to get your fix! (I will make it easier by adding visual media for you to look at, readers)

Ok, on with the show…

Monday was spent phoning round some of the Universities to ask for application forms. It’s the time of year when I apply to get on the GTP course that I want to do, and have been trying to get on for 3 years. I have made myself a promise this time though… If I don’t get a place now, ready to start in September 2008 I won’t apply next year. I will quit the teaching profession and get a job in an office somewhere…

… There, I’ve said it!

Monday evening was spent doing the quiz at the Greville. Me, Adam, Carl, Kate, and Niccola formed a quiz team, the likes of which the world had never seen!!!

i.e. one that ignores half the questions and gets bored by round 4!

We had a good evening, though which was the main thing.

Tuesday was a lazy day. In the evening, due to a breakdown in comms’ we nearly ended up not doing anything until Carl, Adam, and Marcus showed up at my house with an xbox pad and halo 2 in a bag! After a bit, though, we lost interest blowing things up and went for a swift half down at the swan. Afterwards Adam and Carl wanted to go home, but me and Marcus decided, randomly, that we would go for a curry down at Millenium Balti by the Maypole. I’m glad we did because it was a really nice meal, and we had the restaurant to ourselves…

… A bit gay, but hey-ho I got my curry, so I’m not complaining!

Wednesday was spent on the PC uploading photos to Facebook. In fact I would like to announce that I have officially defected from Myspace. I will still check my profile from time-to-time but Facebook is far superior.

In the evening me and Father went to watch a dirtbike rally down near Hopwood (No, not the service station!) There were about 9 races, all over a large man-made dirt track in the middle of a field.

Now at the beginning of this blog I promised some visual eye-candy and this is the bit where that happens… I have photo’s and videos for you readers!







And now for some cool sunset photography I did, just to be a bit arty!

Well after the races had finished we made a sharp dash to the car to beat most of the rush getting out of the one exit gate! After getting back to fathers, and watching a bit of telly, I came home to beddie-byes.

Ah, Thursday. During the day I went in to Kings Heath to get my holiday money. It felt good walking away with 490,000,000 Lira, (although they have got rid of the zero’s so it looks like a mere 490) I had a browse around the shops for a bit (and nearly bought an acoustic guitar in the process!) before coming home. In the evening we went to the packhorse as usual, though there was a distinct lack of people. It turned out to be just, Me, Lank, Niccola, Kate (for 10 minutes before she went home) Benji. Marcus and Carl turned up for about 9:30, and Daniel made an appearance at about 10:00…

… Actually that’s 8 people… That’s quite a lot…

… Ah, well…

We had a good laugh. It was nice sitting outside underneath the heaters.
Lank dropped me home at about 12:30 and I spent a couple of hours browsing the interweb. Mainly funny things on youtube… Like this peculiar video…



Clever! By altering the modulation frequency, and the amplitude of the carrier wave along a series of conductors, we can now make lightning sing... (Not even God thought of doing that!)

Friday was spent doing nothing until late afternoon when I went round to Adams and we then went round to Carls… I think! Anyway whatever I did, I had a great time doing it….

Saturday morning, I woke up and went over to Adams to find him frantically trying to obtain a five star rating on “Can’t you hear me knockin’?” by the Rolling Stones on Guitar hero 2. After watching him for a bit, and whilst waiting for Carl, I assisted. When Mr Notman did turn up we went to Brum’ because Adam and carl needed some holiday clothing… I had got mine the week previous, but I went with them just to get out of the house for a few hours.

We had a good time in town, and even though I already had everything I needed for the holiday, I bought a cap and a T-shirt from Burtons anyway. When we went to goet something to eat, we were approached by a rather attractive young lady who said “Would any of you be interested in free beer?”

… Silly woman…

You can guess what our answer was! We went over to the stand by the art gallery with the wristbands she had provided us with and got a cup of that new Carlsberg Edge stuff. It’s not bad. I couldn’t drink pints of the stuff, though. After out free beer we wandered around HMV before going back to Solihull. We decided, in the evening, to have some grub down at The Boat Inn in Catherine De Barnes. T’was good! I had sausage and mash. After the grub, Adam had to pick his folks up from the airport and so he left. Me, Marcus, and Carl stayed for another drink before I dropped them back home and came home to have a kip on the couch, since the combination of walking round in the sun, and a large meal, had made me rather lethargic! I shot home, and crashed out for a bit before my phone rang. It was Kate wanting to know why I had left, when her and Jenny were on their way to Solihull to meet up with us!

Since I was feeling more awake I shot back over to the Greville, which is where they were. I walked in at about 11:15pm! Fortunately they serve until 12:00 midnight, although that didn’t matter since Marcus had already ordered me a Guinness and Black! It’s nice to walk in to a pub to find a drink waiting for you! We had a good natter and a laugh. Towards the end of the evening we found ourselves playing the quiz machine… Right up until the point where we were being shuffled out the door because the staff wanted to go home! We sat outside for a bit talking about the holiday, before going home to bed. Whilst we were in there, though, I gott his rather nice photo of the two lovebirds...


(Jenny's parents always reminded her, not to go out without her cap!)

This morning, I awoke to blog, before I go out. I’m off to do the Maize Maze in Earlswood in a bit… In fact as I’m sat here typing with my right hand, I’m talking to John with my left….

… I mean I’m holding my phone in my left hand, it’s not like my fingers are mobile communication devices…!

Right… and to top it all off, dinner is ready!

I will leave you there, readers.

TTFN (for 2 weeks!)

You're reading to much in to it! It's poetic!

Hello readers. Yep, it’s that time again…

Lets crack on…

Well, on Monday I spent most of the day being lazy, and didn’t really do much until the evening when the usual crowd went over to carls for a few rounds of Xbox action, finished off with some “retro” gaming… (Super Smash Brothers for the Gamecube, played on the Wii)

We stayed until about 12:00 midnight but went home when the bright colours of the TV made it impossible to keep our eyes open…

Tuesday daytime was spent doing much the same as Monday. In the evening everyone went round to Johns for a change. I took my Xbox and Carl bought his link cable, so we ended up having 4 player link matches on Halo 2… Ah, just like old times!

Ok, and on to Wednesday. I woke up late and decided that I wouldn’t spend the day siting around watching telly… I went to get my haircut and afterwards I dropped my old TV, video player, and hi-fi (which are all very old and no longer work) to Lifford lane tip… Well that’s all I could come up with to get out of the house.

In the evening I went down to fathers as usual.

Thursday was interesting… Sort of. I was browsing the interweb and came across a free online game called Travian. You basically get to build and manage a little village. It isn’t a fast paced game, in fact it takes quite a long time to build and upgrade stuff. It’s free to play, and ideal for taking my mind off the fact that I have nothing to do! (If you’re in to your Sim games, but find them too fiddly, check Travian out.)

Thursday night was spent in the Packhorse as usual. Our usual table was taken, so we were forced in to the corner by the fireplace… But that was Ok. Actually, Thursday marked the arrival of a long-time-no-see honorary member of the group: Lank’s friend, Jo. The last time I saw her was at Jasper Carrots Chrismas Cracker at the NEC last year! I’m glad she came out as she’s a really good laugh, and we often have each other in stitches!

On Friday, again, not much happened during the day. Later though, me, father, my nan, and my aunt went for a meal at the Packhorse. (Voucher… 4 meals for the price of 2… Bargain!) Afterwards we went down to my nans for a bit of cake. I then dropped father home and shot up to the Red Lion in Shirley, as Jo (not Lanks friend, Jo, but my friend, Jo) text me to ask if I’d like to go for a quick drink. I decided that I would go for the last hour, but not stay to long as I was feeling a bit tired…

… At 2:00am after a lock-in I decided it was time to leave! Most of the others went for a curry but I went home to bed.

Ok, and on to Saturday. I got up early (d’oh!) to go with mum and Selena in to Birmingham so that she could decide what we were going to buy her for her birthday. (Her birthday was a few weeks a go but she was on holiday at the time)

After some careful thought she decided that shoes would be the answer! So she picked out a couple of pairs and me and Selena paid for them. I then had a wander round the shops looking for clothes for Turkey (less than 2 weeks, now… Woohoo!) I got a couple of pairs of shorts, a shirt, a pair of combats (which I’m not sure about) and a t-shirt made form very fine material which is quite difficult to get on, because there is no stretch in the fabric (again, I’m not sure about it.)

When we got home, nan and granddad were there as usual with a doughnut for everyone! Later on it was time for the barbecue round at Carl and Marcus’ house. There were quite a few people there, but that was no problem, as there was a ton of food to get through. Kebabs, burgers, chicken breasts, the lot… We devoured a good portion of it, too! When the eating was over, and some people had left, we decided that it would be a good idea to play Guitar Hero 2 on Carls 360. I had brought my guitar controller so we could have multiplayer! It was a good laugh. We then decided to play Donkey Konga! I haven’t played that for a few years so that was fun! And to round off the evening we watched Pan’s Labyrinth. I had never seen it before, but it is quite good… Subtitled from Spanish, it’s about a girl who is the embodiment of a princess from a fantasy land… It sounds corny, but it is done really well. At 3:30am we decided it was time to go home! I dropped John and Amanda off and got home to beddie-byes.

Ah, Sunday… I was browsing the interweb for most of the day whilst looking forward to the evening… Me, Lank, Jason, Donna, Gemma, and Jo were going to the Barfly to watch Adrenaline play. My Ma’ gave me, Lank, and Donna a lift to Brum’ where we met up with Jason and Gem’, and a little later with Jo. Nicola was already at the venue helping to set up. The first 3 bands on were good, although the second one was from the “I know, if we shout as loud as possible, then it will drown out our individually miss-matched playing styles” school of music! Adrenaline were on last because they were headlining the evening. They played a good set, but they deserved more people there… The atmosphere wasn’t quite as grand as I would have liked. Spike said after the show that he was pissed-off all the way through it… I thought it went down OK though. Afterwards Me and Jo got a bite to eat while we waited for the taxi. Jo got in one to go to Yardley, Me, Donna, and Lank got in one to come back to Wythall, and Spike dropped Jason and Gemma off, due to Gem’ not feeling so good. Because our taxi driver had the worst sense of direction ever, I decided to direct him to my house, and I would run Donna and Lank to their respective homes, which I did, before coming home to go to bed!

… And that just about wraps it up, readers. Next week will be my last blog before I go to Turkey! So you will have to wait for a catch-up session on the 26th of August. Although I’m sure it will be a monster-blog since I will have all the holiday photo’s for you!

Right. That’s it for another week… TTFN readers