Another full day!

Had a very long day today.  Dorion, Mary-Ellen (another artist here at the residency), and I rented a car and we went on a little road trip to the Ihlara Valley.  We started just before 8:30 am and pulled into the village square here at  9:00 pm-ish.  On the way over we passed a Turkish prison and a lot of farm land.  Stunning drive.  In the valley it was very hot, and we did a lot of hiking.  Ihlara Valley is a valley full of cave churches.  Some of the church paintings are really well preserved and some you can't tell what the heck they are because they've been destroyed.  When we got back to our cave I ate a third of a watermelon.  I don't know if that is healthy, but I don't care.  V tired.
Great things about today:
Beautiful valley
Amazing frescoes
Learned to drive a stick shift (sort of)

Dorion is no longer sick! I didn't want to mention this earlier but for the past three days Dorion has had some sort of Montezuma's Revenge but Turkish Style, and been unable to do very much.  Happily, he is all better now. 

Here's just a few of the three hundred pictures I took on our adventure.

This is Ihlara Valley and Dorion

One of the destroyed churches that we climbed around...

 I am very tired from so much hiking.

 I got a Turkish popsicle to cool off and it was sooo good!  It looks ridiculous but it was delicious, strawberry and melon outside and orange inside.

 After the valley we stopped at a mosque that had once been a church but been converted, and a more recent greek church ruin both in a town called Güzelyurt.  They were ok.  What I liked a lot more was where we stopped last.  We went to the Red Church (Kızıl Kilise in Turksih), which is a very famous ruin, you can see it in in all the guide books.  It is really beautiful, totally open, surrounded on all sides by farm fields and wild flowers.

Eeesh...here's two of the scary Turkish prison.