Friday April 25th

The day ended with a 'small world' experience. We went to a carevanserai (a place for caravans on the Silk Road) this evening to see the Whirling Dervishes Ceremony. Beforehand I was waiting for Cecily outside the lady's room and taking a picture of the unusual tile placed on the door to signify it is for women. I heard someone chuckle at the sign and then my name. It was Jan Cohen!  She and Rick are in Turkey prior to going to Israel for a performance of  "Kaddish".

It was a good day. We started out rested and there was enough cloud cover to keep it from getting too hot. We spent much of the day hiking among different areas of "fairy chimneys"--pillars of rock that have been eroded away from a hillside. We also toured a Turkish pottery museum that is about to open and then a workshop with stages of their process. We had a demonstration of how a particularly difficult wine jug is thrown and them Cecily got to try her hand at throwing a pot. This was, of course, followed by a chance to go to their show room and purchase pottery at a "special price". Actually it was a fairly low pressure pitch and the pottery was beautiful. We managed to move on, however, with our purse intact.