Emre and I went to Bodrum for the first week of January and were lucky enough to come across a Deve Gureshe festival. Camel wrestling has been popular for hndreds of years, but it is pretty rare now. (Emre had never seen it before either.) The camels are all tied up near each other and then a female is walked around. The male camels all get aggitated, foamy and ready to fight.

Emre and I with a scarey foaming camel. There were 160 camels there, and all were getting foamy and ready to fight. was scarey to walk around!

Here camel Ozkan has lost. His head is pressed to the ground, but the fight is broken up quickly. The whole fight is only a few minutes and the camels don't get hurt. (Sometimes a camel just runs away before they even start, and they are not forced to fight.)

Emre and I went to Italy for a week in the beginning of November for our "babymoon". (last trip before the baby!) Even though it got pretty cold some days, we still had gelatto at least once a day. a definite highlight. (especially since I had to skip the wine and cheese.)

The Trevi Fountain. Emre really LOVED Rome- his favorite city. We spent 4 days there and saw all the highlights, including St Paul's and the Vatican. Then we rented a car and drove to see Pompeii for a day. (After seeing Ephesus so many times, it was great to see. Less impressive buildings, but extremely well preserved.) That night we slept in Cortona (mentioned in "Under the Tuscan Sun"), a super charming small walled city in Tuscany. We had 2 days in Florence and got to see the highlights in the Uffizi.

Us at the Colliseum.