Merhaba,

One of the main reasons we came to Marmaris is because of Gwen on KW. Read about her at http://www.followtheboat.com/2008/04/04/gwen-of-kw/ She has lived In Turkey for umpteen years and around the Middle East even longer working here and there for the U.S. State Department. Gwen organizes stuff; week-long trips to far off places, shorter trips closer to Marmaris and fun afternoon trips off for lunch someplace not Marmaris. Today’s lunch trip was to Orhaniye, a fairly short mini-bus ride over the mountains and along the coast eastward. Randal and I had passed Orhaniye several times last year traveling on our motorbike but had never stopped for lunch. We did stop for a flea market and that was fun.

There were about a dozen of us on the minibus, but our lunch group was larger as we met up with Bill and Judy on BeBe and Brian, Jackie from Songster, artist Christina Kirk (now Christina O’Keeffe) and her husband Terry. http://symidream.com/wp/services/gallery/christina-kirk-marca/ is a bit about her artwork. She and her husband run sailing charters in the Mediterranean. www.msykontiki.com is their site. All were docked on the short pier provided by the restaurant. Many restaurants offer that type of service, you park there and then eat there and the parking is free. (At least at some restaurants. I didn’t ask if that was true of this one so don’t quote me if you go there and want free boat parking.)

My camera’s light meter is now refusing to take any kind of decent photo if there is a big difference between light and shadow. So some of these photos were pretty poor and doctoring them up with Microsoft Photo Manager didn’t help all that much. Definitely a new camera this trip home.

Lovely setting.

Off the boat, walk the dock, and into the small restaurant.

http://www.orhaniye.net/accommodation/pansiyons/ersoy-pansiyon/

Getting settled in.

Gwen, Judy and Bill…this was one of the light meter issue photos.

Mary and Rick, our hiking buddies…more light meter issues. (Couldn’t possibly be the photographer!)

Brian, Jackie, Trish, David, Randal, (me) Mary, Rick, Gwen, Judy and Bill who you can just see a bit of next to Judy.

Settling up the bill.

Happy Anniversary Judy and Bill

Bill and Judy were celebrating anniversary number 43.

As for the food, we had salad and French fries while we waited for our orders. (More of us were Americans so I can call them fries rather than chips as the Brits do.) And dessert was halva, grapes from their vines, fresh figs from their trees, and watermelon. For his meal Randal had grilled sea bass, but sometimes I’m too lazy to deal with all the bones. So I ordered the grilled calamari trying to be healthy instead of having it fried.

So how many of you have had grilled calamari that actually looks like what it was when it was out swimming around in the Med?

I’ve eaten calamari before and had great fried “small cut up pieces” in Israel and at DEKS in Cyprus. Calamari tentacles small and fried seem less tentacle-like. When I ordered it today, Gwen asked if I knew what I was doing…guess not! It tasted good. But I was expecting calamari for wimps, cut into small unidentifiable pieces. I guess I should have ordered the fried calamari. Actually I think my days of eating non-kosher fish may be coming to an end.

Ru