Work hard, Play hard (Part 2)

And now for the play...

I’ll admit it … I haven't posted anything about our weekend adventures because I was waiting for everyone else to post something that I could plagiarize! ;-)

My patience has paid off so I will now offer you a summary of what everyone else wrote!

On Saturday we hired a mini-bus and driver and headed south to the resort town of Çeşme. Çağrı (we call him Charlie) is the translator for Teams 3 & 4 and doubled as our tour guide for the day.

First stop was Alaçatı which is known world wide for it's wind surfing although on this particular day there wasn't even enough wind to blow a paper bag, let alone a surfboard! Then on to the local market selling everything from clothes to household goods to spices to ... well everything. I found a pair of Lacoste tennis shoes for 20TL when they normally cost 200TL. OK, sure, I know they're knock offs but they're cute and cheap and who cares if they fall apart before the end of the trip! I also found some really nice glass handicrafts for only 10 TL to take home.

Next we drove through Çeşme and up the hills to overlook the Agean Sea and the Greek Island of Chios. There is a regular ferry to Chios which I'd love to take but some teammates have more restrictive visas than those of us from the U.S. so it wasn't a good group activity. Maybe I'll get back there the final weekend that we are here. Anyway, the island is only 2 miles off shore and there are coast guard boats regularly patrolling the border. We took a bunch of pictures from the hilltop, including some of the nearby mansion with an aquarium as a fence.

Viv took great pictures of everyone and put them together in this collage:

Next stop was the marina. Lots of yachts surrounded by picturesque boutique shops and restaurants. You can see a bit of the Greek influence in all the white buildings and blue decor.