Troy, Kusadasi, and one HUGE watermelon

We had a free tour of Troy, which was included with the Fez bus pass. The site is essentially the ruins of several cities stacked on top of each other. Currently, only about 10% of the site is excavated. The excavation was handled by a dodo named Heinrich Schliemann, who decided to dig huge trenches to look for treasure. Our guide was very passionate about site preservation, and would get really upset every time he had to say Schliemann's name.

I really enjoyed our trip to the site, and found it incredibly interesting, mostly because our tour guide was quite fantastic. He had a tendency to spout off random information about procreation in the middle of describing Greek fortification systems. Of course we all listened intently for his words of wisdom.

That evening I went to Kusadasi, which is an extraordinarily lovely port town. For a tourist town, it was relatively quiet, probably due to the July bombing of a minivan. (It is really quite sad that the event was able to negatively affect the city's livelihood to such an extent.) The town itself was lovely. Very scenic (right off the coast) with a fascinating bazaar and a very fairly active nightlife.

To be honest, I haven't been drinking a whole lot on this trip. The few times I did drink weren't particularly pleasant experiences. (Once I went with some boys who commandeered the last remaining cab to go to this dodgy bar/strip club, leaving me to walk the mile back home. By myself. At one in the morning. The second time I was accused of being intellectual elitist scum. Sooo, the combination of those two experiences have kind of put me off the drink.)

Anyhow, I bucked up and went out with some Australians from the Fez bus--all very interesting and extremely fun people. After chilling down at a few bars, we headed out on the main strip. One of the girls wanted to drink out of a watermelon. Very badly. So badly a bartender went out to purchase a watermelon in which to make a drink. (How's that for service?) The Aussie girls actually mixed the drink themselves. And after that...let's just say the night got a little more interesting.

Eventally we wandered back to our hostel. We loitered around the pool for a bit until somebody made the decision to throw me in, whilst I was fully clothed. (Okay, in all fairness to the people there, I might have made the brilliantly inadvisable decision to jump in. However, claiming I was pushed makes me sound like less of an imbecile.) We all went for a swim (some voluntarily and some under duress) before heading off to bed.

My dorm room in Kusadasi was totally empty, and I had my pick of twenty beds. Therefore, I made the completely logical decision to crash on the floor in my sleeping bag. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about how much I loved Kusadasi and dreamed of watermelons.