The Prince's Isles

7/19/2009

During breakfast, Athena, Kara, Amanda and I recruited Jack to be our designated male traveling companion for the day.  Our plan was to make it to the Prince’s Isles, although we didn’t know exactly how to go about this.  While we were looking for information on the ship, we ran into Professor Horn, who was also planning on heading the same direction with his family, and he checked the weather for us and told us where the ferry sight was.  We thanked him, and set out.  Jack new exactly were the ferry sight was, and so we followed him along.  We purchased our tickets, which were actually little metal tokens that you put into a slot in the rotating gate to get through, and as we were waiting for the ferry to arrive, we saw Professor Horn and his family.  He gave us another tip that the view from the top level of the ferry, and so we followed him up the stairs, and sat near him.  He had a map that was very helpful also.  We ended up getting off at the third island, and setting off to explore.
The Prince’s Isles have no motor vehicles other than service vehicles, and it was strange to see roads but no cars.  It almost felt like going back in time, because horse drawn carriages were prevalent.  I found it very funny, because the drivers would yell out “taxi” as we walked by.  After walking up and down the main street, we stopped at a café on the water for lunch.  As we were eating, our table was swarmed by stray cats, all of which were very friendly.  Out waiter did not speak much English, but was able to communicate well enough.  He seemed to find us very entertaining, if nothing else.  After eating, we pulled out the phrase sheet we had been given by SAS to attempt to say “thank you” in Turkish.  When he came back over, he was very fascinated by the sheet, and snatched it away from Amanda, going through all of the phrases and proceeding to tell us that they were all wrong.
After lunch, we went walking around some more, and then decided to rent bikes.  Jack and Athena got a tandem bike, and the other three of us chose single bikes.  They were not in the best condition, but it was only 3 lira for one hour.  We all hopped on and started pedaling. We headed uphill for quite a ways, and found some amazing views of the sea and surrounding islands.  We finally found a road that seemed to head around the island, and continued for a while before stopping at a little park with a picnic table.  We continued on then, going down a large hill.  We rode past a small beach with loud music playing, and up a very large hill.  At the top of the hill, there was what appeared to be the equivalent of a bus farm, but for horsed.  All of the carriage horses that were not currently working were standing inside a large fence, some eating, some resting, and some just wondering around.  We made it back to the part of town we had started in, and by some miracle turned down the exact street our bike vendor was on, showing up with five minutes to spare in our hour.  It was a lot of fun.  After that, we stopped at a fruit stand, and then walked down to a small beach to sit by the water.  I updated my journal, Jack went swimming (none of us girls were comfortable getting into swim suits in a country where women were still wearing head scarves), and the other girls took pictures and sat around.  After a while, we decided to head back on the ferry, as we felt there was not much more of the island to explore.
Once on the ferry, we all fell asleep almost immediately.  Something about the familiar rocking after living on a boat for so long was very comfortable.  None of us were sleeping deeply, but instead we alternating being awake to see when it was our stop, and napping.  We made it back, and decided to try to find a movie theater and go see the new Harry Potter movie.  We new there was one in Taxim square, and we had a map that showed us the right direction.  We made our way up there walking, and found the square very easily, but did not see the theater when we got there, so Jack asked for directions.  We got a general direction, and headed down that street for a while, before we decided it was time to stop again.  I saw a stand selling dondurma, Turkish ice cream that is kind of sticky like taffy, and decided to try some.  Before I even had a chance to order, or even express interest to the guy selling it, he had scooped some up and stuck it in a cone, then went about giving a show as he scooped more up and flipped the cone around and held it out, then pulled it away.  He handed it to Amanda, and then started making a second, holding it out on a long stick toward all of us in turn, but no one would take it because we didn’t want to be charged.  Finally, he told us the second one was free, so I paid for the larger one, since I had planned on getting it any way, and we asked him for directions.
Finally, we saw a sign, and followed it to the left where we found the theater just in time to make the 6pm showing.  We got our tickets, and were escorted into the theater.  Once inside, it did not differ much from a US theater, except for the Turkish subtitles.  The movie itself was in English, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.  About halfway through, the picture disappeared, and the screen turned bright blue and flashed something in Turkish.  We all looked at each other in shock, but no one else in the theater seemed at all phased by the sudden stop in the movie.  Apparently, movies in Turkey come complete with a 15 minute intermission.  After a chance to stretch our legs and talk  for a little bit about the movie so far, the screen flashed again, and some quick music played, then the movie started back up from right where it left off.  We all really enjoyed the movie, as we are all pretty big Harry Potter fans.  After that, it was a relaxing walk back to the ship and time for bed.