Mike: Down on the Farm

The skies weren’t making up their mind about what they wanted to do, and Hanna wasn’t really in the mood to wander. While she napped and watched some TV on our computer, I headed to East London to Mudchute Farm.

After exiting the Docklands Light Railway (think Disney monorail), I wandered through the parking lot of Asda (Walmart’s British subsidiary) trying to find the entrance to the farm. The small gap in the fence made me think that I was going to discover another world. I kinda did. With the office buildings of Canary Wharf in the background, Mudchute Farm is a bizarre sight to see:

City/Country Dichotomy.

Sad but Humorous.

The farm is my favorite price: free. It only took about twenty minutes to walk through, but turkeys, geese, goats, donkeys, horses, pigs, cows, and sheep all made an appearance:

Felt Like New Zealand Again.

Absolutely Terrifying. Notice the Broken-Off Horn.

Ron Weasley's Favorite--White Magic.

Every day at 4pm, they let kids walk all the animals to their pens to wish them goodnight. It was like 2:30pm, and I didn’t want to be that creepy old guy who waited around to watch the parade. I left.

By that point I had only been gone for about forty minutes, and I wasn’t ready to head back home quite yet. I decided to wander down to the Thames since Greenwich was right across the river:

Naval College and Queen's House. The Top of That Hill Is Where the Astronomy Museum and Prime Meridian Are.

The sun shone, so I read for a bit until it inevitably started raining. Ducking into the foot tunnel, I made my way under the Thames:

Waiting to See the Ninja Turtles.

The rest of my day is not interesting. I went into a grocery store and a bookstore. (Have we mentioned that our new favorite pastime is reading books in bookstores while it’s raining? Not just perusing a book…grabbing a novel, plopping down, and full-out reading. I’ve read two books this way.)

This post has gone on long enough, especially because I really don’t have anything to say. Done.

Just Like Home

We woke up around 9:30am yesterday (notice a trend?) and ventured out to the lobby for free breakfast. Sadly no rooftop terrace this time around, so we menacingly threatened to leave the empty hotel. In the end, however, we were won over by eggs, bread, olives, cheese, and coffee.

Feeling a bit lazy, we bummed around the hotel lobby for a while. Mike went to take a shower, and the womenfolk said they would be back to the room in a few minutes…which turned into an hour as they watched yet another episode of Real Housewives of Orange County. Mike was devastated that they watched an episode without him and did not speak to them for the rest of the day. At least he had these guys for company:

The Backyard of Our Hotel. Yes, Lambs.

Hanna cut Mike’s hair while we were visiting some friendly old bums on the Sunshine Coast a few weeks ago. We have scissors which we will lose when we don’t check our bags from Greece to Italy in a few weeks, so she wanted to give a little follow-up cut before his hair awkwardly starts growing in more:

The Hippest Salon in Pamukkale: Our Hotel Balcony.

Mike really doesn’t care what his hair looks like, but Hanna obviously is a total snob who refuses to be seen with a husband who doesn’t have perfect hair. Unfortunately for the both of us, Hanna‘s, uh, skills aren’t the greatest, so there are definitely some awkward snips in there.

We figured we couldn’t laze about the hotel all day long, so we headed out to explore the small town. The hot springs of Pamukkale are ensconced in travertine-laden hills (simple speak: a big, chalky-looking hillside with small thermal pools), and we were looking forward to taking a dip in the pools as all the tourist posters showed. Turkey tourism has led us on because you cannot swim in the natural pools overlooking the town; you can only swim in one bathhouse on top of the cliff. We decided not to spend US $30 each for this not-as-exciting experience and instead watched an amorous mallard have his way with a young, good-lucking duck in the lake at the bottom of the hillside.

The Calcium Carbonate-Covered Hillside Looks Like a Ski Slope.

Bonnie Tells Us That We Basically Have the Same Picture in Each Place. We Actually Aren’t Traveling the World; We’re Just in Front of a Green Screen.

Being out for a few hours was waaaaaaaaay too much for our lazy bums, so we headed back to the hotel when thunder crashed. It rained for a bit, but then the sun came out as it continued to thunder. Bizarre.

Yes, we’re in Turkey and should be out and about exploring, but sometimes it’s nice just to have a lazy day, especially when a friend visits. Back in New York, Bonnie comes over to our apartment to watch trashy reality TV all the time, so today was a good reminder of what we’re missing.

Not Suitable for Work or Children

Whoa.

Baa

Hey, guess what? They have sheep in New Zealand. We were absolutely shocked to discover this. Completely shocked. We had no idea!

We have seen many of these guys during our drives:

Uno.

Want more?

More.

No, we will not write a post every time we see sheep. We’ve also seen plenty of horses, cows, and deer in pastures.