Turkey, 2013

I'm back off my holiday's, yay!

Early hours of this morning at 4:35am, I arrived back home after spending 2 long weeks in the sun!

On Friday 2nd August, we arrived in Antalya at about 11:00pm after a long 4 hour flight, and then we had a 2 hour transfer to Alanya to our hotel. The transfer was awful and the 'half a coach' was dreadful, but we eventually made it there for around 3:00am on the Saturday morning. 

The view from our balcony in the hotel during sunset

Me in a cute beer garden near the hotel

The hotel was absolutely massive and very pretty. For the first couple of days we stayed around the pool, but even with factor 50 suncream on, I managed to burn and blister in the 54 degree heat. Silly me! After burning and blistering I had to be extra careful as the heat ranged around 50 degrees everyday, so I ended up staying under the parasol most days so that I didn't burn any further. 

Me and my mum in the hotel lobby

On one of the days, the whole family went to 'Aquapark' which was full of water slides and pools which was really good for my brother and sister. On one of the rides, me and my mum ended up flipping off the rubber dinghy and face planting the slide which was really

humiliating, but hilarious at the same time hahaha. The park also threw a Foam Party, so me and my mum attended that whilst my brother, sister and mum's boyfriend went on the slides.

Travelling down a road on the jeep safari

We also went on a 'Jeep Safari' on the second week of our stay. The jeep was open top and came to pick you up from your hotel with some other people from other hotels. There was around 8 full jeeps in total. In the back of the jeep, there were lots of litre bottles of water, which we used for water fights between all of the jeeps. In the end we were absolutely soaked! We were taken to different view points which we had photos taken, and then we went to a small run down village where we stopped at a little shack that a poor family owned, and we ate chocolate filled pancakes and visited their local market. Whilst we were there, we also visited the Mosque, and because me and my mum are grown women, we had to cover up from head-to-toe with literally only our face showing! The men were okay though, but because of the heat it got really hot in the Mosque and in all of the clothing. We then went to this water park for food, and the children went on the slides and stuff and then the jeeps took us back to the hotel. During the safari, there was a photographer that we all called 'Mr. Paparazzi', and he took photos and a video of our trip that we later on bought to take home. 

As there was a spa in the hotel, me and my mum decided that we would have some 'mother and daughter time' and treat ourselves. We got the full package which included a Turkish Bath and Body Peel, Face Peel, Face Massage, Face Mask, Sauna and a Full Body Massage. The spa was lovely and peaceful, and the treatments were so nice. They left our skin feeling really soft and properly cleansed for days!

Within the hotel, there was entertainment at night times and during the day around the pool. Our family became particularly close to one worker of the entertainment team called 'Frodo'. As he was so small, I thought people called him Frodo for a nickname, but when I looked on the entertainment team board, I found his name was actually Frodo hahahaha. Frodo was absolutely hilarious and sat with us every night. 

Me and Frodo
'We love you Frodo, we do!'

We also made friends with quite a few families whilst we were out there also. There was one particular family from Wales. Rachel, Jamie, Mollie and Caitlyn and Rachel's mum- Linda, were such a nice bunch of people and when they went home on the Tuesday of our second week, we were lost. However, a couple more families found us as there wasn't a lot of English people there at all so we all made friends. 

On the way home, we got picked up from our hotel at 6:15pm on Friday 16th August, and we arrived in Antalya for about 8:30pm. After we got through customs and passport control we then went for a Burger King as we were all starving. Whilst we were checking in however, I spotted a friend of mine called Hannah Wilkin who was checking in to board the same plane as I was back to Manchester- small world! It felt so surreal that I had seen her there. Our flight was delayed from 11:10pm to 11:28pm, however we didn't set off until 12:15am. The flight was long and hot and very uncomfortable but we managed to get to Manchester safely :).

Coming back to the rain in the Lake District really well and truly gives me the holiday blues! 

I wish I was back in Turkey again in the sun. 

Ciao for now!