Rounding off greece starting turkey and some pictures

The Greek islands were nice. I will just give you a brief update because I am way behind in my blog. Naxos was cold and rainy but had a good vibe and our pension was good and cheap. Santorini was well Santorini and the weather warmed up a bit. Rhodes had a nice old town and we met up with my aunt and uncle for a day which was fun. Rhodes also had more cats than the rest of Greece which was very much to my fancy.

Turkey

We arrived in Marmaris, found a hotel and left the next morning for Selçuk (in Turkish ç is pronounced ch; s with the same accent under it, is pronounced sh). Selçuk is the town beside Ephesus, an ancient Roman city. I think by the time we leave Turkey I will be tired of ancient Roman cities, if I am not already now. Ephesus was nice and had a field of pretty wild flowers. It had two roman theatres . Along the highway to Ephesus there is a running path with play ground style exercise machines (like the ones they have in Kiderminster, England, only older). The path was lined with trees so it was always shady. There were two paths actually: one was a path of lose stones and the other of pavement. There was also a sidewalk on either side where the exercise machines were. I found it very considerate to have put this running path on the way to Ephesus (the locals spell it Efes “like the Turkish beer” they also spell it Efeses when trying to spell it for foreigners). The path didn't go all the way to Ephesus but it stopped just short of the turnoff, and it wasn't far from there. 

Pretty poppy in Rhodes

Silly cat at our pension in Marmaris

The gate of our Pension in Selcuk

Kitty at Ephesus

Me at Heiropolis

Still playing

This is a cat in Istanbul. Biggest Turkish cat yet.

Comments don't hurt you know? It would be kinda nice to know if people actually bother to read my blog.

Pic of me

My new bag.  Hee hee.

(It is my mom's)

Cairo and Athens

We went to Cairo on the night train from Aswan. Cairo was a nice break from Luxor, Dahab and Aswan because the citizens didn't all make their money off tourists in Cairo. The hostel we stayed at had lots of cats (see the pictures on my last blog). The guy at the desk said that there were 20 cats . The cats kind of lived throughout the big 6 story building the hostel was on. The cats left the building to scavenge for food in down town Cairo. When I said on the building, I mean it. The hostel was on the 7^th story -the roof-.

The guy at the desk said that there were six kittens but since the rain a few days before they could only find 3. The three kittens were soo cute and really fun to play with. The male kitten was a little rascal, he meowed a lot and was the braver of the three. He liked tugging at my scarf and at times would start biting my feet. The little brown coloured female was not as brave, but was more outgoing than the other female most of the time. She was the smallest or lest fluffy anyways. The other girl wasn't bothered by us and mostly just did her own thing. She was really cute when you held her cupped in your hands up side down and she would just lie there for a few second looking at you and then she would start to squirm. It was really fun watching the kitties and even in just three days I saw changes in their behaviour.

1. the fluffy girl had trouble getting on to her feet from her back the first day, later that day she could do it.
2. all three kitties were licking themselves a lot more the last day compared to the first.
3. they were more sure of their footing and were a bit more rowdy.

Bye bye kitties, hello dogs... Athens!

Athens was a huge culture shock! It took me two days to get used to it. It was so modern compared to Egypt and even more so compared to India.

There was hardly any place in down town Athens where you could not see 5 or more dogs. It was funny because every other tourist was so amazed and kept pointing and saying to there friends “look at all the dogs!” and “ oh look there's another one!” Us, after being in India where there are stray dogs everywhere and Egypt had a few too, were almost unfazed

Till next time Mhari