Troy...or maybe Selcuk?

We left Istanbul via bus and headed towards a small town called Canukkale where we were planning on visiting Troy, yes, THE Troy. However, one bus and ferry ride later we arrived and found that all of the hostels were shut down since it's low season. We ended up taking off and two buses later we ended up late at night in Selcuk. It was an interesting whirlwind of a day. As soon as Louise and I got off the bus, tons of men around starting talking to us. Thinking they would be like Moroccans and try to get money off of us by taking us to a hotel, we avoided them but shortly realized that they were trying to help us. That's pretty much been the same experience everywhere we've been. We must look like two helpless little girls, as most think we are about 18 and they all come up to us genuinely trying to help. It's kinda fun, like we are their daughters or something;) The buses are hilarious. On one, there were four workers, one driving, one doing the bags and two serving tea and pastries. Yes, they serve tea/coffee/pop on the buses for free. And they have movies showing and even individual tvs for everyone. crazy eh? We watched part of one Turkish movie where they depicted Americans in a hilarious albeit embarassing way. The American army guys in charge of a missile launched it towards Iran by accident as they were making bets on a football game. To avoid catastrophe, they redirected the missile towards Turkey and then sent a group out to find it. The group consisted of two very sleazy girls wearing practically no clothes and very skinny with blonde hair, and some jock guys, along with a nerdy guy that spoke horrible Turish. They also swore constantly and goofed off a lot. Another interesting tidbit about the buses is they just seem to stop in the middle of nowhere and let people on. We can't tell if they are designated stops or not, but they'll just pull over on the highway and people get on.

Raki is a common favorite drink among the Turks and it's pretty hard liquor made out of anis seed and tastes like liquorice. Another interesting fact I've learned is that the term kangaroo comes from the aboriginals in Australia. When James Cook landed he asked them what it was and they replied "kangaroo" which in their language means "I don't understand" but apparently he took it as the name of the animal. That's about all for now, not too much to report yet.