Birthday girl
Kalkan day 5

Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate the heat, so I would never ever come to Türkiye in the height of summer without a very good reason.

Today we had a very long lie in, so long breakfast was over (10:00) before we woke up. This could be down to:

• The drugs I took for insect bites
• Being stung by a sea urchin
• Being very tired after a day swimming in the sea

We decided to go into Old Town to get some brunch. We walked past a few places to look at what food options they had.

Post Office

We also headed back to the Post Office so that I could get some stamps for the postcards.

Before heading in I needed to withdraw some cash to pay for the stamps. When I arrived at the cash machine there was a young man at the machine he seemed to be struggling and the machine was just beeping at him. After a few minutes he left, with no money, and entered the Post Office.

When I used the machine I entered my PIN and just as I was pressing enter I saw there was a language option, this disappeared after I had pressed enter. This meant that I had to guess which options to select, so I chose the option on the right and I was successful in getting my cash.

When we went into the Post Office there was a queue and in front of us was the young man who had been using the cash machine. He asked me if the Post Office would exchange cash, because he could not understand the cash machine because it was in Turkish. I told him that they probably would but that I would help him once I had bought my stamps.

The man at the Post Office recognised me from the other day and got me the 42 Turkish stamps (2 for each postcard), they cost 1890₺ (£30.06). In the UK this would have cost £37.80 for 21 first class stamps.

Once I had completed my transaction we went outside to help the young man with the cash machine. I pointed out to him that there was a language button. He explained that he needed help because he had Dyslexia, I told him I also had Dyslexia and was happy to help. He worked out what the problem was, his card had been declined.

I noticed he had a Revolut card and it could be that there was not enough money or the card could be turned off. He did not have any internet so I let him use my hot spot so that he could check, it turns out that he didn't have enough cash. Once topped up he was able to withdraw the money he needed. His mum then called him, because he had been away a while, he explained that he'd issues but we had helped him. He thanked us and then we were all off on our separate paths.

Brunch

For brunch we went to Samira Hotel restaurant, when we walked in the waitress said "I saw you in the old town yesterday, I love your style". They sat us next to the air con units, the food and service were brilliant.

Once finished we walked back to our hotel to get ready to go join the others for the birthday day.

Birthday Party

The whole day most folk were in and out of the pool and chilling on the terrace, I stayed in the lovely air conditioned living room of the villa. After a while I went for a walk to go get some different non-alcoholic beers that had been spotted in the town, before I left I asked if anyone would like an ice cream, 6 people said yes.

I walked through the market, outside the villa, a man on the perfume stall tried to sell me some I said no and he said he really liked my style. At the bottom of the hill I found the non-alcoholic beers and filled my freezer-bag with beers and ice. On the way back I stopped at a shop closer to the villa to get some ice creams. I got 8 in total just in case someone changed their minds, they all went.

After a while I realised that I had forgotten my medication. So off I went back down the hill to our hotel to get my pills. Back at the hotel I had a cold shower to cool down. On the way back to the villa I decided that I'd go and have a Turkish Wet Shave. It was brilliant, when I can to pay I realised that I'd forgotten my wallet so had no money, so back to the hotel again.

On the way back to pay for the shave I looked up at the hill and there was a cloud at the top of the hill, it made the hill look like an erupting volcano.

Once back at the villa, a few of us went to the hotel restaurant on the top floor to go decorate it for the birthday party. I had brought, 2 sets of, giant number 6 and 0 foil balloons. When I opened them there was no straw to inflate them. At first I made a straw by rolling up a piece of card, this worked but leaked a lot while I was blowing. Then a member of hotel staff came in and I asked "do you have any straws", she had no idea what I was asking for as she did not understand English. I used my phone to translate it, it turns out the Turkish for straw is pipet. She went and brought some straws and this helped no end.

Around 20:00 we all headed from the villa to the hotel, next door, the birthday girl's sister had had masks of her face for us all to wear. We had a group photo with us all surrounding the birthday girl while wearing the masks. We then headed up to the roof top restaurant. The view of the setting sun from up there was amazing.

For dinner we had Turkish BBQ, with salad and dips, the food was great. After dinner the staff put on some Turkish traditional music and started dancing for us, most of us joined in.

After the dancing sparklers were lit and two birthday cakes were brought in. Other than the cakes, one was a red velvet cake, there was milk cake and baklava.

An amazing night and an absolute delight to be party of my friend's 60th birthday celebrations.